AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEVERED HEADSHOP — “ETERNAL SOUL PENETRATION”

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Jun 212022
 

Take an array of bullet-spitting and neck-breaking percussive assaults, heaping helpings of fretwork mania, doses of brazen and grim melody, a slaughtering spectrum of vocal belligerence, and some bridge-collapsing breakdowns, then put all that into the blender of your mind and press “Puree” in rapid pulses.

That thought might help you imagine what the Indiana band Severed Headshop pull off in the barbaric and bamboozling track we’re premiering today, along with a video of the performance.

The song in question, “Eternal Soul Penetration“, is one of five that appear on their hilariously named debut EP The Fuckening, which is now set for an August 5th release by Everlasting Spew Records. It’s quite a head-scrambling stylistic amalgam, which the label has attempted to sum up this way: “Blending early 2000s brutal death with blackened sorceries and modern Death Metal approaches and playing it all with a grindcore sneer….” Continue reading »

ZOUS: “NO GROUND TO GIVE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 212022
 

 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the Los Angeles death metal band Zous, which was released at the end of May by Closed Casket Activities.)

This might seem weird since I am normally the guy who covers the darker more post-punk leaning bands or classic traditional metal. I do like more overtly heavy stuff as well, since during most of my teens I was into hardcore. By hardcore, I mean I saw the Cro-Mags on the “Age of Quarrel” tour while wearing my first pair of combat boots.

This solo project Zous from Nails drummer Taylor Young celebrates various shades of heavy that I love, as they are all nihilistic and dark in their wrathful pummeling. Young wrote, performed, produced, and engineered this entire album. He did enlist his buddies to come in and help out when it is time for the obligatory guitar solo.

This project was intended as old school death metal. It might never chug in the direction of the many Meshuggah worshippers or employ In Flames-inspired guitar harmonies; it does grind and crunch with more of a modern hardcore feel than anything in the zip code of Morbid Angel. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ASSUMPTION

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Jun 212022
 

 

(If you haven’t yet heard the new Assumption album Hadean Tides, you’re missing a remarkable experience. Maybe this excellent interview by Comrade Aleks of Giorgio Trombino will give you the push you need.)

Giorgio Trombino (guitars, bass, vocals, synths) and David Lucido (drums) formed the death-doom unit Assumption in 2011, but these guys from Sicily had a rich background already, and I wouldn’t like to waste your time mentioning all of their other bands. I’m just going to tell you – it’s more than ten, you see.

Despite all the genres they explored with other bands Assumption gives them a firm ground for psychedelic experiments on the fields of death-doom in its most twisted, and sometimes extreme, forms. And this is a great opportunity to taste some really sophisticated doom, as Everlasting Spew Records and Sentient Ruin released Assumption’s new album Hadean Tides a month ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: GRAVE GNOSIS AND HVILE I KAOS — “TOWARDS THE NAMELESS DARKNESS”

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Jun 202022
 

 

Way down at the bottom of this extensive feature you’ll find the premiere stream of Towards the Nameless Darkness, a remarkable split by Grave Gnosis and Hvile I Kaos that’s set for a June 21 release by the Red Nebula label. We’d never blame anyone for just going there right now and beginning to listen, but either before or after indulging yourselves with the music you might appreciate the insights and additional information we’ve assembled.

Both of these bands have already made names for themselves among discriminating and demanding listeners, and for those devoted fans anything new from them will be welcome. But we hope the split will also bring new fans into the fold, especially because this split release functions as a teaser for new albums that are in progress from each band — Pestilence Crowned by Grave Gnosis, and Lower Order Manifestations by Hvile I Kaos. Continue reading »

LIGHT DWELLER – LUCID OFFERING

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 202022
 

(Andy Synn kicks off a new week with the nasty new album from Light Dweller)

Over the years I have developed a bit of healthy scepticism when it comes to solo artists or “one man bands”.

That’s not to say I actively dislike them, by any means, it’s just that – generally speaking – I find that the collaborative process between band members tends to be more fruitful and fulfilling than simply having a single individual do all the work (often without anyone around them to curb their worst excesses).

There are, of course, many examples of where relying on an individual auteur actually produces amazing results – whether that person is working totally on their own or simply serving as the chief/main songwriter for a band – but it really comes down to a question of whether they have not just the creative vision but also the drive and talent to bring it to fruition.

And, make no mistake about it, Cameron Boesch (aka Light Dweller) has all of these things in abundance, as his latest – and greatest – album demonstrates.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: HIEROPHANT, LIMINAL SHROUD, ARALLU, VERBERIS, WRANG, HADIQAT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jun 192022
 

 

After a lapse last week this column re-takes its usual place on the weekly calendar to blacken the sabbath. I’ll quickly confess that I bit off more than I can chew in the writing, and more than most of you will have time to hear in the listening: I’ve picked two complete albums and mixed them together with four new singles. Despite the challenges to myself and to you, I felt so strongly about all these choices that I couldn’t resist.

As is often the case, I haven’t lived with either of the albums long enough to do more than provide scattered notes about them. That’s the consequence of needing to write about something new every day. Settling in gives way to scurrying. But you’ll have a better chance to settle in with these releases, and I hope you will. All the singles sound fantastic too.

HIEROPHANT (Italy)

Death Siege is the fifth full-length from this talented band, who are charging toward us after a six-year interval following the last album. The new one is 40 minutes long, and the cover art by Abomination Hammer alone would make most people want to find out what’s going on in the music. My friend Andy‘s Synn Report about the band’s discography back in 2016 would provide more reasons.

What Hierophant say about the music is this: “”With Death Siege, we crossed the gateway to the abyss. Nihilism will overcome, when the sky will burn in fire. Death, Chaos, Annihilation.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANTAR, WAKE, MERGER REMNANT, ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE, HOURS OF WORSHIP, TOADEATER, NON SERVIAM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 182022
 

 

A Friday night spent carousing followed by a lazy Saturday morning doesn’t make a good predicate for a Saturday music roundup. And yes, I was languid this morning, rather than hungover, after exercising rare restraint on the alcohol last night. But though functional today, I wasn’t feeling motivated. The cool, gray, damp weather outside may have had something to do with that. While the rest of the country seems to be an oven, I was luxuriating in a Pacific Northwest gift.

And then, and then, I still spent an hour and a half flitting through a list of new songs and videos I’d made in as the week went by. Finally, I made these picks.

MANTAR (U.S./Germany)

Mantar have a new look, at least for the video you’re about to see, and new stylistic ingredients in the music too, but they haven’t forsaken their visceral intensity. It pours out through the vocals, which reach shattering zeniths (and also bring Kurt Cobain to mind at times), and through the angst-ridden but soaring riffs and keys, and the booming and battering drums. It’s also damned difficult to get out of the head once you’ve heard it. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIGHTWRAITH — “BEGUILER”

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Jun 172022
 

 

Almost three months ago Reaping Scythe Records released a new album by the Denver-based metal collective NightWraith. Entitled Offering, it was one of those albums that threw down the gauntlet to people interested in simple genre descriptors. With changes reflected not only from song to song but within each song, the band made use of ingredients from melodic death metal, black metal, and doom, but pulled from an even more eclectic array of time-traveling influences than even those.

As the band’s extravagantly bearded founder Benjamin Pitts put it: “It’s like we took all the heavy parts from bands like Carcass and Enslaved and combined it with the warmth of classic bands like Thin Lizzy and Blue Oyster Cult. It has been really fun inserting rock guitar and organ tones into a genre that typically avoids these types of sounds.”

And really, even those contrasting references just hint at how many facets Offering displays as it turns. As a reminder of that, today we’re bringing you the premiere of a live video of the band performing one of the thoroughly captivating tracks from Offering, a song appropriately named “Beguiler“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOID WITCH — “BOUDOIR BLOODFEAST”

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Jun 172022
 

Last October the Central Texas band Void Witch released their first demo, a two-track offering at the altar of death and doom. For 13 minutes and change they led listeners through dank crypts and ghastly mansions, lurching and rumbling, dragging like a wounded beast and convulsing in electrifying fevers, and lacing their strikingly dynamic maneuvers with a rich tapestry of captivating guitar melodies and wide-ranging, spine-shivering vocals.

That demo, especially as a debut recording only two tracks long, really is tremendously multi-faceted and extremely impressive in both its songwriting and its execution. Even without a lot of fanfare it attracted a devoted following, but no doubt still flew under many people’s radars. However, the people at Everlasting Spew Records didn’t miss it. They’ve signed on to give the demo a physical and a new digital release, both of which include a third track exclusively recorded by Void Witch for the occasion.

This new third track is what we’re delighted to bring you today, to coincide with Everlasting Spew‘s street date for the self-titled Void Witch EP. The song’s gruesome name is “Boudoir Bloodfeast“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORBID EVILS — “FEARLESS”

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Jun 162022
 

 

Having previously become preoccupied by Morbid Evils‘ apocalyptically heavy and thoroughly unnerving last album Deceases in 2017, we confess to shuddering at the news that these Finns were coming back with another one. The prospect was even more frightening, given that they had so many years to use, calculating how they might spread ruin in even more obliterating and frightening ways.

Of course, fear can be addictive, especially when it’s delivered through the crushing and mind-warping combination of sludge, doom, and death metal that Morbid Evils so formidably bring to the table. And so it really wasn’t likely we’d actually stay away from their new album Supernaturals. Yes it’s morbid, and yes it’s evil, and it delivers both earthquaking punishment and psychotic mayhem, but for all those same reasons (and more) its twisted twists and turns are thoroughly riveting.

The album consists of four monolithic tracks, and we have one of those for you today that proves the points we’ve stammered above. Its name is “Fearless“, which might be what you need to be to go into it. Continue reading »

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