NO CLEAN SINGING

PANZERFAUST – THE SUNS OF PERDITION, CHAPTER III: THE ASTRAL DRAIN

Jul 192022

(Andy Synn presents some thoughts on the new album from Canada’s Panzerfaust, which premiered in full here today.)

There comes a time, in every band’s career (ok, not every band’s career) where they produce an album which seems purposefully designed to piss off large sections of their fanbase.

Sometimes it’s because that album is a ridiculous misfire that would have been better off released under a different name entirely (or, even better, not at all).

Other times it’s a misunderstood masterpiece whose true value will only be appreciated in the years to come.

The Astral Drain is destined to become one of these albums.

But which will it be?

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THRASHERA — “BASTARDOS DA NOITE”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Jul 192022

Much has been written about the history of thrash metal, and in those annals you’ll discover how it evolved from both the stripped-down rebelliousness of punk and the influences of earlier “classic” heavy metal, adding more speed, more aggression, and an even more defiantly confrontational attitude to the music. One thing that sometimes gets lost, especially in how the genre has evolved, is that some of the earlier practitioners made the music also sound downright evil.

The Brazilian band Thrashera haven’t forgotten that. It may have something to do with the fact that their own homeland spawned such bands as Sepultura, Dorsal, Atlântica, Chakal, and Vulcano, not to mention Sarcófago. But whatever the reason, these dudes revel in the “golden age” of thrash, when it was taking shape as a world-eating but still deeply underground and confrontational force.

Their roots are plain for all to hear, but they’re so damned good at what they do that the music sounds explosively alive — and yes indeed, downright evil — rather than generic and worn out. You’ll believe this for yourselves when you hear their new album Bastardos da Noite, which we’re streaming in full today in advance of the record’s imminent July 20 release by Helldprod Records. Continue reading »

ANTIGAMA: “WHITEOUT”

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Jul 192022

(Here’s DGR‘s review of a new album by the Polish band Antigama. It was released a few days ago by Selfmadegod Records.)

When discussing Poland’s Antigama one of the chief genre-descriptors applied to the band is grindcore. Antigama‘s songwriting style, ethos, and general blast-fueled approach are fully within that world, but beyond that people get more abstract because the term grind doesn’t fully fit them as well as it should.

There’s more to Antigama than that, and it’s where you’ll often see ideas like “futuristic” and “cybergrind” thrown around, due in large part to Antigama‘s chaotic musical nature. At first pass through any Antigama release it does sound like the group are caught in the midst of an instrumental hurricane, and it’s only afterward when you realize that much of what the band are doing is calculated and controlled.

Not only that, but it also sounds much clearer than most other bands in their genre-sphere. There’s a sharp and angular technicality to Antigama‘s style that is hard to replicate with a production style so clear that it’s scientifically sterile. Whereas many bands bury themselves in reverb, distortion and general noise, everything Antigama have done has been to justify all of that being there – not just something to add to the general atmosphere. Which is why the group’s newest release Whiteout – abstracted artwork and all – is exciting, because even though it’s been five years since the group’s last EP and seven since the last full-length, it is made very clear early on that the group still have complete control of the chaotic maelstrom of sound within. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BATTLEGRAVE — “CAVERNOUS DEPTHS”

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Jul 182022

The Australian duo Battlegrave chose a suggestive name for themselves, one that evokes both warlike savagery and visions of death and all its horrors. Further clues to their music (or at least some aspects of it) are evident in the remarkable hand-painted cover art by Shaun Farrugia for their sophomore album Cavernous Depths. It’s subterranean and supernatural, and has the hallmarks of an instant classic.

But of course these are all merely hints. Of course, other hints are to be found in the band’s previous releases, the 2017 EP To Hell With War and their first album, 2018’s Relics of a Dead Earth, but don’t put too much stock in those hints, because Battlegrave‘s music has evolved from then until now, morphing (as the band themselves have observed) “from more of a Crossover Thrash project to a Thrash/Death project, and now closer to straight-up modern Death Metal”.

One thing hasn’t changed, and you’ll figure it out damned fast when you listen to the new album today in advance of its July 22 release by Bitter Loss Records, and that’s the speed and ferocity of Battlegrave‘s attack. Continue reading »

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT – SPIRIT OF ECSTASY

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jul 182022

(Andy Synn says… grab your laudanum and snuff, it’s time for some glorious musical depravity)

All that glitters is not golden… or so they say. And Imperial Triumphant have spent the last several years peeling back the gilded veneer of New York city to reveal the rotten apple beneath.

Along the way they’ve continued to push the boundaries of Black Metal – both sonically and structurally – to the point where it’s debatable if the term even applies to their music any more.

Of course, the issue with constantly pushing boundaries like this is that you rarely have time to stop and take stock of who and where you are, with the result being that the idea of external progress often trumps the possibility of internal growth.

Which brings us to Spirit of Ecstasy, an album which – unexpectedly – finds Imperial Triumphant looking more inwards than forwards, seemingly more at home, more at ease, more comfortable, in their own shining skin then ever before.

But “comfortable” doesn’t mean “complacent” by any means. Because a band with nothing left to prove is also a band with nothing left to lose…

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SAW — “NOTHING BUT DARKNESS”

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Jul 182022

You have to admit (I insist!) that The Saw is a great name for a death metal band. In the lore of horror and the reveling in destruction that inspires so much of the genre, it’s not a tool of carpentry but a weapon of ruination. The teeth don’t cut wood and scatter sawdust but bite through flesh and bone. It’s a wonder that Metal-Archives shows the name as unclaimed… until now.

Who has now claimed it? The answer is a quintet of talented Russians, who first began gathering as a side project of vocalist and lyricist Evgeny Pchelyakov (from the band Анклав Снов) and guitarist and composer Roman Derevyanko (Стальные Нервы) and then expanded through the addition of guitarist Max Nikolaevsky, bassist Dmitry Bichenkov and drummer Yuri Puzanov.

What they’ve achieved together is captured in a debut album named Nothing But Darkness that’s set for release on July 30th by the Ukraine-based label GrimmDistribution, and to help pave the way we’ve got the premiere of the album’s title track today. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SCARCITY, RAAT, STEINGRAB, LYCOPOLIS, NOCTU, MANTAR

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Jul 172022

As you could already deduce from the previous two posts at this site, in recent days I found more than the usual amount of time I could devote to new music. My day job left me alone, or I ignored it, and I shrugged off household chores too. Baseball presented the only serious competition, because a certain team in the Pacific Northwest is on a historic winning streak (and I hope I didn’t just jinx them by mentioning that).

Focusing on black metal for purposes of this column, I settled on one dazzling album, a collection of quite varied “singles” from forthcoming records, and a new video. You’ll also find poetry.

SCARCITY (U.S.)

Scarcity‘s new album Aveilut (a Hebrew word for mourning) is difficult to describe. In part because it’s a single 45-minute composition, and in part because the trip maneuvers and whipsaws us through a spectacular labyrinth, it defies efforts to explain that “this happens, and then that happens, and then this other thing happens”. How tedious that would be, despite the hope that mapping the album would make it easier to comprehend.

Trying to pick out signal moments as illustrations of the music wouldn’t work very well either, because there are so many, and because they dramatically diverge from each other. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BLOODBATH, MORBUS GRAVE, HERIDA PROFUNDA, GRANDIOSA MUERTE, IRON DEATH, MONOVOTH

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Jul 162022

“Pocket” is a Mozilla app that you can easily install in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. When you do that, a small Pocket icon shows up in the toolbar of Firefox. Wherever you happen to be on the web, if you click that icon it saves the page to your Pocket list. When you then navigate to your Pocket list, you see all the links you’ve saved, along with thumbnail images of the linked pages. Even better, you can access that list from any device that includes the Firefox browser.

This is not an ad for Firefox or Pocket. I mention it because it has made my work for NCS on these Seen and Heard roundups much, much easier.

I used to make endless lists of band names with links to their new songs and videos that I was interested in checking out. Even just typing band names into an online document and copy/pasting the links was time-consuming, since I was usually adding more than a dozen per day, or much more if I fell behind. Not to mention that I kept dozens of tabs open in my browser until I had time to write those lists. Now I use Pocket, and don’t have to type a word or copy any links or keep any tabs open. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CONAN, EGO DEPTHS, CLOUD RAT, ESCUELA GRIND, NECRODEITY, BRAHMASTRIKA, ATMAHATYA, BLACK KNIFE, GRAVERIPPER

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Jul 152022

Today’s compilation presents a deluge of new songs and videos, so grab a life-preserver while there’s still time. You should probably continue wearing it, because I have plans for channeling another deluge tomorrow.

To get this done in the time available to me this morning, I’ve again dispensed with most of the cover art and have tried to be brief in my intros. But I did try to organize what’s coming in blocks of sound that companionably fit together, even though the blocks themselves collide with each other.

CONAN (U.K.)

I must begin with the new song and video from Conan (really, as an addict of this band I had no choice). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABYSSLOOKER — “CHALICE OF GRIEF”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres No Responses »

Jul 152022

Last year the Russian band Abysslooker put out a single called “Maneater“, and it sounded like one. Hell, it was so heavy and hammering it felt like a mountain-eater.

The band combined that titanic pounding with riffing that relentlessly built feelings of tension and misery, plus an amalgam of spine-tingling vocals, which ranged from scraped-raw screams to ghostly crooning, abyssal growls, and maniacal laughter. Unexpectedly, the song also included an interlude of dancing acoustic guitar, mammoth bass grumbling, and gothic singing. A gripping guitar solo led the transition from there back into punishing heaviness.

Turns out that thoroughly riveting song was a prelude to Abysslooker‘s second album Dramaturgy, which is now set for release on July 31st by Symbol Of Domination. Turns out that “Maneater” isn’t the only heavier-than-hell track on that album, but the heaviness comes in different guises, as you’ll learn for yourselves through our premiere today of another one. Continue reading »

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