AN NCS PREMIERE: PLOUGHSHARE — “A HORRIBLE AND TERRIFYING IMPRESSION”

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Nov 032022
 

We’ve written something about every release so far by the Australian band Ploughshare, whose record titles seem evocative of their world view: the 2017 EP Literature of Piss; the 2018 debut album In Offal, Salvation; and the 2019 EP Tellurian Insurgency. We keep that streak going today with our premiere of “A Horrible and Terrifying Impression” from Ploughshare‘s forthcoming second album, Ingested Burial Ground.

In our previous writings we’ve piled up adjectives in an effort to capture just how viscerally terrorizing Ploughshare‘s genre-splicing music is — “violent, oppressive, and mind-bending” was one such string of words.

And, well, we will try again now, because the new album and the song you’re about to hear are also frightening, but they’re also not mere repetitions of what the band have done before. New weapons have been added to the arsenal of nightmares. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEAD VOID

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Nov 032022
 

(In mid-September Me Saco Un Ojo and Dark Descent jointly released Volatile Forms, the stunning debut album by the Danish Dead Void. We shared our thoughts about it here, and spurred on by that album, Comrade Aleks participated in the following interview of the band.)

This time I had a kind of technical problem, so to say, and this interview with Copenhagen-based trio Dead Void was complete somewhere in September, around the official release date of their debut album Volatile Forms.

This trio preaches hostile, quite torturous, and nihilistic death-doom metal with an uncompromising approach and a brutal delivery. Cianide, a bit of Asphyx, and so on, you know? Dead Void is a cold and monstrous entity, so I wonder if we need to waste our time trying to add a few more empty words, as you can read this short but good interview and listen to Volatile Forms by the way. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VISCERAL — “TOXIN”

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Nov 022022
 

When a solo creator enlists a stellar group of other performers to help realize his vision, there’s a risk that the creator will be overshadowed. In the case of the death metal project Visceral, the centerpiece is Portuguese musician and vocalist Bruno K. He’s no newcomer, as a glance at Metal-Archives proves, having been a member of the death/grind band Bowelrot, who released four demos and a split in the early ’90s, as well as other projects from that era and more recently the black/death bands Enlighten and In Tha Umbra.

So, he has some history, and no doubt it is his musical conception and songcraft that gives Visceral its true lifeforce. But as mentioned, he also recruited some very talented allies for the recording of Visceral‘s forthcoming debut album The Tree of Venomous Fruit, including drummer Menthor Serpens from Enthroned, Lucifyre, and Nightbringer (among others), bassist Alexandre Ribeiro from Grog and Earth Electric, and vocalist Guilherme Henriques from Gaerea and Oak.

What they have all accomplished together is a very impressive 11-song record that draws from old school death metal traditions but goes beyond those, and we have a prime example of that in the album track we’re premiering today through a guitar-playthrough video, one that’s aptly named “Toxin“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: LICHT DES URTEILS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Nov 022022
 

(The debut album from Finland’s Licht des Urteils is set for imminent release by Purity Through Fire on November 4th, and to help herald its arrival Comrade Aleks conducted the following interview.)

Licht des Urteils are based in Tampere, Finland. This blasphemous sect has been active since 2019, and for three years they accumulated dark energies from their environment in order to put it all in their first full-length, Uhraamo. They sound evil and dangerous, just as real black metal should be. Licht des Urteils do their dirty job without compromises or doubts, as Flames shouldn’t cease and the Cult shouldn’t die.

But well, enough of empty words, as at the end of the day it’s all about Death and Satan. Continue reading »

DISILLUSION – AYAM

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Nov 012022
 

(Andy Synn basks in the splendour of the new Disillusion album, out Friday on Prophecy Productions)

How exactly does one follow up an album which not only catapulted you back into the public eye after years of absence, but which was also – according to some people – on a par with the best thing you’ve ever done?

Well, the best course of action – if the upcoming new record from resurgent Prog-Metal powerhouse Disillusion is anything to go by – is that you don’t… or, more specifically, you don’t try to compete with yourselves.

Instead you take your time, follow your creative muse, and calmly (and confidently) continue to produce some of the very best work of your career.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APPALLING — “PAVILION”

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Nov 012022
 

Let me put my cards on the table: I fucking loved Appalling‘s first two albums, 2017’s Secrets of the Adept and 2019’s Inverted Realm. Both of them were powerfully rendered amalgams of chaos and catastrophe, and well-calculated to infect the mind with memorable hooks in the midst of sensations that were both exhilarating and unnerving. Progress was also evident in moving from the first to the second, creating a conviction that these Virginians would continue striving to improve on a very solid foundation.

I make this confession because it means I was already prone to favor the band’s forthcoming third album Sacrilege, especially because it’s being released by a label that’s quickly proved to have dependably good taste (Personal Records) but also because it means expectations on this side were high. Was I disappointed?

Well, you can guess the answer to that question, given today’s premiere of a song named “Pavilion“, but I’ll eliminate the guesswork. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LETHAL OUTCOME — “SUICIDAL SACRIFICE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 012022
 

Because most visitors to our site are English speakers (to one degree or another), we’ve used English translations for the name of the band whose song we’re premiering today, and the song name as well. But the band themselves are steadfast in their use of the Russian language, both in displaying their name and in the rendering of the title of their debut album and all the song names.

And so we present the song “Суицидальное жертвоприношение” (“Suicidal Sacrifice”) from the album Избыточная Смертность (“Excessive Mortality”) by the band Летальный Исход (Lethal Outcome).

In their music, this group from the Urals have devoted their talents to old-school death-thrash, but with other ingredients in the mix, drawing their inspirations from the early works of Protector, Sepultura, Sodom, Obituary, Deicide, Mayhem, and Asphyx. The song we’re presenting today also proves the dynamism of the band’s songcraft. Continue reading »

GOATWHORE: “ANGELS HUNG FROM THE ARCHES OF HEAVEN”

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Nov 012022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s extensive review of the new album by Goatwhore, out now on Metal Blade Records.)

There was a block of time during the decade that was the 2010s when it seemed like Goatwhore were unstoppable and ever-present. They released consistently good-to-great albums like clockwork and few bands out there embodied the concept of “professional homeless person” quite like this hard-touring group. It seemed like they were always on the road and ready to answer the call if there was a show that needed its ass saved from a last-minute cancellation. Hell, there were times when the band wouldn’t even be part of an event yet would somehow pop up within the area because what the hell else were Goatwhore going to do with their free time? Not play live?

That’s why sitting down and gazing over the numbers gap between the group’s 2017 Vengeful Ascension and their latest salvo in early October, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, and seeing the five-year mark just looks wild, especially for a band whose previous longest gap between releases was at best on the long side of three. One could only expect that we’d see a release from Goatwhore a whole hell of a lot sooner had we not had to effectively put the world on pause due to a worldwide plague, because otherwise the Goatwhore camp probably would have been out on the road and writing just as hard as they normally do. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 151): ABDUCTION

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Oct 312022
 

Recommended for fans of: Leviathan, Behexen, Blaze of Perdition

Who knows what day it is today?

That’s right, it’s Synn Report day, and this month I’m turning my attention to all four full-lengths (including their recently-released new album, Black Blood) by the Black Metal sorcerer who goes by the name Abduction.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STILLEKLANG — “FESTEN SCHRITTES”

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Oct 312022
 

Today we present the first formidable steps of a captivating German band named Stilleklang. What we have for you is a song named “Festen Schrittes” from Stilleklang‘s debut album TrÄnen der Vergangenheit Part 1, which will be jointly released by the Crawling Chaos and Schattenpfade labels on November 29th. It is a multi-faceted fashioning of black metal that’s elegant and poignant as well as harsh and livid.

As for those many facets, Stilleklang is the solo work of one Fabian, but he is accompanied on the album by drummer Marcus Röll (who is also responsible for the album’s wonderful artwork, which beautifully suits the mood of today’s song), known for his work in Herbstlethargie, Gernotshagen, BlutEck, and Eïs, as well as live performances with Firtan, and the wonderfully talented violinist M. Continue reading »

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