SADIST: “FIRESCORCHED”

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May 232022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the latest album by the long-running progressive death metal band Sadist, just released last Friday by Agonia Records.)

If nothing else over the course of Sadist‘s career, you could say that every one of their album releases have always been interesting events. What other groups out there have not only been through multiple waves of the tech-death craze but also themselves have jumped genres so many times that even to this day they’re a difficult group to pin down?

Exceedingly proud of their jazz influences and keyboard usage over the years, Sadist have always been more than a pack of incredibly talented musicians, and who else can say that their previous four releases have dealt in realms of spirituality, African mythology, horror movie soundtracks, and as close to a haunted Christmas album as you’re going to get until Make Them Die Slowly expand upon their Silent Night, Murder Night influences?

Firescorched is the newest release from the Italian prog-death crew and one that is also interesting for the massive lineup shift that took place between this album and 2018’s Spellbound, wherein the entire rhythm section wound up bowing out of the spotlight. Longtime drummer Alessio Spallarossa stepped down and prolific drummer Romain Goulon took over, but even more interesting was who the band would grab on bass — Jeroen Paul Thesseling, whom many will recognize from his time in Obscura. Continue reading »

LAMENT CITYSCAPE: “A DARKER DISCHARGE”

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May 232022
 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by Lament Cityscape, which was released in late April by Lifeforce Records.)

Sometimes you lack the words to truly describe what is happening within an album and sometimes the stars even align enough that it seems the band themselves have a hard time pinning down what they’re doing. It’s the genre-nerd’s true nightmare, but on top of that the issue also leads to difficulties describing why something fascinates you so much as a listener, because the usual book of terms has long since been torched.

Wyoming’s Lament Cityscape is one such group. While we’ve written about advance songs from their most recent release A Darker Discharge a handful of times, we’ve never fully delved into it. There’s reason to suspect that part of the reason is that the vocabulary may be lacking, and we might wind up just issuing forth four paragraphs of word salad.

That doesn’t mean we won’t try, but when the band themselves have seven or eight hybrid labels attached to their heavily industrial-imbued avante-garde form, you can understand that when it comes to A Darker Discharge, it may just be easier to say that this is the sort of album that is best listened to in one go – because no amount of description is going to provide a full picture of what takes place in the half-hour or so of music here. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AERIAL RUIN, SKOGNATT, WEHMUT

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
May 222022
 

Among the many little tortures that afflict those of us who write for NCS (and no doubt other metal writers, or at least those who don’t work by assignment) is the failure to cover all the releases we really enjoy. Despite our most ardent intentions, we just don’t always follow through. Time is scarce and time is fleeting, and sometimes the impulse to keep moving forward to the next new thing means that we leave something else behind.

You’ll notice that some of us find ways to play catch-up, at least briefly turning our gaze away from the future horizons to recommend records that have been out in the world for a while. Sometimes those are records we overlooked, but sometimes they’re records we meant to write about and for whatever reason failed to do so.

And so I decided to play a bit of catch-up today, focusing on two DIY records released in March (one an album and the other a split) that I meant to write about much earlier. At least in the case of the first record, I took some significant liberties with the usual focus of this Shades of Black column, though I think our usual Sunday visitors will still leave feeling satisfied.

AERIAL RUIN: “LOSS SEEKING FLAME”

The name of Aerial Ruin‘s latest album forecasts the moods of the music. It moves in the shadows of sorrow, in search of fires or rays of sun that will light the way. It seems to provide encouragement in that quest, but also seems to acknowledge that desire is fragile and that fires will burn as well as provide illumination. Arrows and wings may arc upward, but their arc inevitably will descend. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AZTLAN, CELTEFOG, TRUNK, NON SERVIAM, EXTERMINAS, NIGHT ATTACK, SWAMPWORM, ASHENSPIRE, DIOPTASE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 212022
 

 

In yesterday’s roundup of new music and videos I explained that I had pushed forward by one day a lot of choices I originally intended to spread around yesterday. I did that to make room for some even more-late-breaking stuff, But now, as promised, I’m circling back to those original picks — and of course I added a couple.

What lies ahead of you is in some instances off the usual beaten paths, especially in the first two tracks and the last two. The very last track represents the biggest divergence of them all, but might just be the most brilliant offering of everything here. And now that I’ve (hopefully) teased you into staying with me to the end, let’s begin….

AZTLAN (Mexico)

I begin with two songs that I suppose could crudely be summed up as “folk metal”, but I don’t mean folk metal in the vein of this new song by Schandmaul. Both are much more interesting (though that Schandmaul song definitely is a toe-tapper). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, WITCHERY, LUNA’S CALL, AWAKENING SUN, REEKING AURA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 202022
 

When I woke up this morning I had planned to do a big round-up of 8 new songs and videos that I’d picked during a listening/viewing session yesterday afternoon. Bleary-eyed, I found messages from Mr. Synn telling me about four other new songs and videos that had popped up overnight from bands we all favor. What to do?

What I decided to do was go with those four newer ones today, plus one of the 8 I picked yesterday, and push the others I found yesterday into another round-up tomorrow. Trust me, even with the slight delay those others will be well worth your time on Saturday.

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT (U.S.)

“Atmospheres awash with mysterious origins. Sacred rites of passage and formidable knowledge lead to marvels of engineering. Funnelling the mass into a finite horizon all roads travel in duality. Blurred is the line between real and illusion as the last scream of truth is destroyed by evil so grotesque. It transforms into a lone rider traveling into the forbidden darkness…”

Those are the words proffered by Imperial Triumphant for “Maximalist Scream“, the first advance track from their new album Spirit of Ecstasy, which comes with this intriguing cover art: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INNER DECAY — “INCUBI ET SUCCUBI”

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May 202022
 

In the lore of demonology incubi are male demons believed to engage in sexual intercourse with sleeping women, and succubi are female demons believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men. In both cases, these nightmare couplings rarely have a good end. And thus the song that the Chicago-based death metal band Inner Decay have named for these demon spirits is itself a seductive horror.

“Incubi et Succubi” is the second track to be revealed so far from Enter the Void, Inner Decay‘s forthcoming second album, which will be released by the Romanian label Pest Records. It’s the exhilarating follow-up to the band’s 2018 full-length debut, Souls of War, and finds founding guitarist Tomasz Bielski and vocalist Silvestre Flores in harness with a slightly revised but still formidable line-up around them. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: V.E.G.A.S. — “RESOLVE”

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May 192022
 

 

Somewhere among the philosophies of the band V.E.G.A.S., if they were ever to set them out in a complete manifesto, would likely be the maxim “familiarity breeds contempt”. That may explain why the membership and location of the band’s members (or perhaps just one member) are so obscure. I would like to think they really are based in Belize, as their Bandcamp page states, but that’s probably just a way of saying “where we are doesn’t matter in the slightest”.

The conviction that “familiarity breeds contempt” would also provide a partial explanation for the band’s morphing music. It resists mundane classification, and it changes enough that the chance to get thrown off-balance is one reason why some of us leap at their new releases. I don’t mean to suggest that they sound like a different band from release to release — there are definite through-lines to be sure (the words “rage” and “riot” come to mind) — but you still get the impression of a band who have no static “blueprint” and willfully refuse to be pinned down. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GUINEAPIG — “CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD”

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May 192022
 

Most ardent fans of extreme metal have at least a passing impression of the sub-genre known as “goregrind”, and others have been eating it up ever since Carcass released Reek of Putrefaction, reveling in the disgustingly distorted gutturals, the frenzied tempos and thuggish breakdowns, the down-tuned riffage, the blasting percussion, and the lyrical devotion to splattered viscera and forensic pathology. But however much you think you know about goregrind, the Roman trio Guineapig are about to open your eyes wide all over again.

They made their first mark with the 2014 debut album Bacteria, and yes, it displayed a fascination with splatter movies, medical experiments, and rare diseases, while inflicting traumatic levels of musical punishment. But that was 8 years ago, and the band’s new album Parasite, which will be released next month by Spikerot Records, is definitely a step up. Continue reading »

COME TO GRIEF – WHEN THE WORLD DIES

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 192022
 

(Andy Synn is stricken by the new album from New Hampshire nihilists Come to Grief)

Do you know Grief?

I don’t mean that in the metaphorical, metaphysical sense of “have you experienced great sorrow and loss”, I’m talking about the band, whose four albums played a pivotal role in defining the unforgivingly brutal Sludge/Doom sound of the late 90s.

If you’re not familiar with their work, well, that’s partially our fault, as we haven’t really written about them very much (the fact that they formed, broke up, re-formed, and re-broke up all before this site even existed certainly doesn’t help) though we’ve certainly recognised and remarked upon the heavy (and I mean that in all senses of the word) influence they’ve had on many, many other bands we’ve written about over the years, including Hvrt, Mastiff, Body Void, and more.

I ask this because, as some of you might have guessed, Come to Grief is the new (well, not that new, they’ve been going since 2017) project by former Grief members Chuck Conlon (drums) and Tony Savastano (guitars), and while familiarity with their former band isn’t a pre-requisite to enjoying When the World Dies, it might help prepare you for the brutal barrage of bitterness and spite which you’re about to experience.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THIRTEEN GOATS — “RETURN TO RUIN”

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May 182022
 

The words and animated visuals in the lyric video you’re about to see reflect utter disgust with the vile and lying regimes that have dominated many nations in recent years, and proclaim only one answer: Bring it all to ruin, and start again. And in the electrifying song you’re about to hear, Vancouver-based Thirteen Goats begin the process themselves, by doing their furious best to pulverize everything around them and burn it to the ground.

This new song, “Return To Ruin“, is the first single from Thirteen Goats‘ forthcoming debut album Servants of the Outer Dark, a gut-punching and head-hooking offering of death metal that borrows liberally from many of the genre’s subsets, as well as bringing in elements of thrash, black metal, and grindcore. The band introduce the album in these words: Continue reading »

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