A WRETCHED PAUSE

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Jun 252022
 

 

Off and on all day, every day, I read the news of the world. Every day I come across reports that make me feel varying mixtures of sorrow, disgust, anger, and frustration (because there’s not a damned thing I can do about any of it). A person concerned for their mental health would get a clue and stop doing this. Why I continue, I don’t know.

Most days I still forge ahead with what I do for NCS without uttering a syllable about the news that happens to be upsetting me; I know that no one comes here to see me whine. But sometimes what happens in the outer world is so bad that it becomes very difficult for me to concentrate on music, so bad that music barely seems relevant, or no longer functions very well as an escape, much less a treatment for my mental turmoil. This is one of those days. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUFFOCATER — “EMPTY STREETS”

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Jun 242022
 

 

We’re bringing you a helluva good song in this feature, one that helps herald the forthcoming arrival of Rotting Existence, a new record from Salt Lake City’s Suffocater. This is a group that only formed last summer, but they’ve wasted no time, releasing a self-titled debut EP last November and now following it with this album.

The band’s three members all played in punk and folk projects in the past, but they united within Suffocater as a way of channeling their passion for heavier music. They describe their style as “straightforward hardcore with brutal metal vocals,” taking influences from bands like Portrayal of Guilt, Eyehategod, and Genocide Pact.

But like most shorthand descriptions, that one doesn’t fully incorporate what you’ll hear in their music. You’ll get a better idea by checking out the song from the new release that we’re premiering today — “Empty Streets“ Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SVART VINTER — “GALE”

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Jun 242022
 

On September 15th of this year the Italian label Black Mass Prayers will release the striking debut album of Svart Vinter, an extreme metal band that combines the songwriting and instrumental talents of Luca Gagnoni and Emanuela Marino from Rome, and the terrifying vocals of Argentinian performer Noctem Aeternus.

Here at NCS we know of Gagnoni and Marino from their work in Veil of Conspiracy, whose latest album we premiered and praised here last year. There were “blackened” ingredients in that music, along with elements of doom and death metal, but in Svart Vinter‘s first full-length, Mist, they’ve indulged their black metal influences to a much greater degree.

Yet in Svart Vinter they continue to demonstrate, as they did through Veil of Conspiracy, the capacity to wholly immerse listeners in spellbinding (and shattering) music of great emotional power. That will become evident when you hear the song we’re premiering today, whose name is “Gale“. Continue reading »

DARKANE: “INHUMAN SPIRITS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 242022
 

 

(Today is the day when Massacre Records releases a new album by the Swedish band Darkane, and to celebrate the occasion long-time NCS writer TheMadIsraeli has returned from a long hiatus with the following review.)

Metal, in its current form, from where I observe it, is dealing with an arms-race problem.  Specifically, a technicality problem.  Obviously, I’m not saying that technicality is bad, or compromises the music, or is indecipherable, but THERE IS a trend with modern bands toward what is straight-up a lack of capacity to write an actual song with twists, turns, peaks, valleys, crescendo and climax.

I find myself being kind of stuck between what feel like two extremes.  We’re dealing with the excessively technical to the detriment of everything else, while on the opposite end exists boring commercially line-straddling pseudo prog that barely qualifies under any semblance of the term or the philosophy of progressive style composition.

I had my phase of liking djent, and I certainly have my moments where I like Beneath The Massacre or Braindrill as much as anybody else, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realized the extreme metal that sits with me the best is a sort that has achieved this lunatic fringe, arguably near impossible, perfect symmetry of element and frame.  If you asked me to name my top ten bands of all time up to the point of writing this, without any form of hierarchy intended here, it’d be Byzantine, Meshuggah, Textures, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Vader, Kreator, Sepultura, Dark Fortress, and last and most relevant, Darkane. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: CONJURER / GOZER / HUNDRED YEAR OLD MAN

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Jun 232022
 

(Andy Synn presents three more succulent slabs of metallic vim ‘n’ vigour from his home country)

Really good Sludge/Post-Metal albums from the UK are a bit like buses… you wait patiently for ages and then three come along at once!

Thankfully all three of these bands, each of whom are at a different stage in their career – Conjurer aiming to prove that all the hype around them is firmly, and fervently, justified with their major-label debut, Gozer establishing themselves as “ones to watch” with their highly-anticipated first album, and Hundred Year Old Man reaffirming their status, in the wake of tragedy, as one of the best bands in the British underground – together represent some of the very best Sludge/Post-Metal that you’re likely to hear this year.

Don’t believe me? Well, allow me a chance to convince you.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: REMAINS — “LORDS OF GRIND”

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Jun 232022
 

You are about to experience the third and final video for the third and final single off Grind ‘Til Death, the debut album by the Melbourne-based death/grind powerhouse Remains, which will be released worldwide via Spikerot Records and in Australia via Disdain Records on July 15th.

This one is named “Lords of Grind“, and as you’ll see in the lyric video, the song is about Remains themselves and the punishment their music inflicts on listeners and club-goers. Now if you’re going to brazenly anoint yourselves “Lords of Grind“, you’d better be able to back it up — and man, do Remains back it up! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ROTHEADS

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Jun 232022
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us another informative and entertaining interview, this time with guitarist/vocalist Bogdan from the Romanian death metal band Rotheads, who have a new album headed our way next month via the Memento Mori label.)

Not long ago Memento Mori premiered the first track from Rotheads’ second album Slither in Slime, which is set for release on July 25th, but we already have this interview with one of the band’s founders, Bogdan “Spurcăciune”.

This band from Bucharest, Romania shaped its old school and dirty death metal sound through the EP Unfazed by Death (2016) and the full-length Sewer Friends (2018), so naturally Slither in Slime is a more mature and professional work.

Bogdan performs guitars and vocals in Rotheads, and it seems that he’s the one who’s responsible for the band’s aesthetic and concept, so we got in touch with him in order to learn more about the way Rotheads grow and bloom. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ENDONOMOS — “ATROPOS”

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Jun 222022
 

 

Welcome friends to the haunted halls of doom, where heavy ancient vaults loom high above, candles flicker, and skeletal spectres seductively beckon — with teeth bared within their vapors. Our guides through these chilling domains will be the Austrian band Endonomos.

Endonomos is a new name, but one that’s likely to spread quickly because of the power of their self-titled debut album, which will be released by Argonauta Records on August 26th. It’s the brainchild of Austrian multi-instrumentalist, producer, and session musician Lukas Haidinger, who is mostly known for playing extreme Metal for bands like Profanity, Nervecell, Distaste (and many more).

Through Endonomos, he has indulged his long-held affection for Doom, joined by his friends Armin Schweiger (drums), Philipp Forster (guitars), and Christoph Steinlechner (guitars) — who are obviously off on a tangent from their main musical pursuits too.

Well, but Doom is a varied domain. Where within it have Endonomos gone? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALTARS — “LUMINOUS JAR”

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Jun 222022
 

 

As the years plodded along after the release of Altars‘ impressive 2013 debut album Paramnesia, it began to seem that the band were dead and buried. Its members occasionally surfaced in other groups and projects, but Altars itself remained silent for what turned into more than eight long years. In part this was due to a debilitating illness affecting co-founding member Cale Schmidt (vocals and bass). Yet finally Altars have emerged again, renewed and even more formidable than before.

How this finally happened is a tale we at NCS don’t yet know, but we do know that it included the involvement of Convulsing‘s Brendan Sloan as the band’s new bassist and vocalist, joining founding guitarist Lewis Fischer and founding drummer Alan Cadman. Together, this formidable trio have recorded a new album named Ascetic Reflection that’s now set for release on July 8th by Everlasting Spew Records.

Paramnesia revealed an adventurous songwriting spirit, and that hasn’t changed on the new record, but if you know the first album, you’ll also easily discern changes in the new one, and the song we’re premiering today is a vivid example of Altars‘ evolution. Continue reading »

KRALLICE – PSYCHAGOGUE

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Jun 212022
 

(Andy Synn continues his on again, off again, love affair with Krallice with their new album, Psychagogue)

I like Krallice, I really do.

But that doesn’t mean I like every single thing they put out… or, at least, it doesn’t mean I like everything they put out to the same level.

And that’s ok. Because being a fan of a band doesn’t mean you have to like absolutely everything they do, especially when the band in question are so disgustingly prolific, and cover so much musical ground, that simply trying to keep up with them is enough of a task in itself.

So when I say that I like the band’s new album, Psychagogue, you should know that I really like it… in fact, it may just be my favourite thing they’ve released since 2016’s Prelapsarian.

Continue reading »

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