AN NCS PREMIERE: IFFERNET — “EMPTY TOMB”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 312022
 

It’s probably a mistake to try to sum up the early defining characteristics of second-wave black metal in broad strokes, because even then there was more diversity in the music than many people usually credit. But certainly one of those defining characteristics was a feeling of rebellion and rejection expressed in strikingly aggressive, and even hostile terms, drawing in part on the spirit of punk but making that spirit feel a hell of a lot more raw and dangerous.

But soon enough other moods began to be detected. It didn’t take long for adjectives like “grim” and “frostbitten” to surface and become staples, and not just because the breeding ground for the music tended geographically to be in cold northern climes. Looking back, it seems almost counter-intuitive for such scalding firebrand music to be characterized that way.

In part it was because haunting and harrowing elements of the supernatural were surfacing in both the themes and the atmosphere of the music, but that’s not the only explanation. It seems at least equally true that, along with rage and ferocity, some strains of the music also manifested an emotional spectrum that reached from melancholy to hopelessness and agony.

Which brings us, many decades later, to the French band Iffernet. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ARKÆON, HARVEST GULGATHA, INCANTVM, ÚZKOST, DØDSENGEL, WOLOK, DEVISER, ENDLESS LOSS

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Oct 302022
 

I was able to devote a lot of time to listening to new music this weekend, despite feeling borderline-miserable. One result was a big round-up of new music yesterday. Another result is this over-stuffed column of blackened sounds – advance songs from seven forthcoming albums, some with videos, and one very recent EP.

ARKÆON (Denmark)

Over the last six months or so, I, Voidhanger Records has been announcing new releases in batches. I’ve done my best to call attention to most of them as time has allowed, because (as usual for this label) they are so unconventional and interesting. From the latest batch I’ve picked music from two albums for this column, and the first of those is Parasit, the debut full-length from a veteran Danish trio who call themselves Arkæon. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: …AND OCEANS, STRYCHNOS, IN THE WOODS…, AYYUR, FREEDOM OF FEAR, PARASITARIO, PEGZILLA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 292022
 


…And Oceans

I mentioned last Sunday (and again on Monday) that I wasn’t feeling well, as an explanation for why I didn’t get very much done for NCS last weekend. I also mentioned that I spent that weekend in southern California at a gathering of co-workers from different cities. Within days of everyone getting back home, a half-dozen people reported testing positive for covid, all of whom were fully vaccinated.

I had tested before going on that trip, took another test while I was there, and tested again five days after my last close contact with those people — all the tests were negative. But I’m still feeling sub-par, still congested, sniffling, and lethargic, for the second week in a row.

I don’t know what the hell I have, but there’s obviously a lot of respiratory virus blooming in the country besides covid, with different strains of cold and flu making a triumphant comeback after a couple of years of masking and quarantine restrictions left them lonely. You can take your own lessons from this, but I’d advise you to be careful.

It might be my hopeful imagination, but I think I’m marginally better today than before, or at least feeling well enough to go exploring new music and videos again. Here’s some of what I found (I ticked off a lot of genre boxes with this compilation, plus a couple of elliptical band names): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LIGHTLORN, HELIANTHUS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 282022
 

Because it’s getting late in the day I’ll spare you the usual intro comments. Because it’s late in the day, I’ve also made fewer musical selections than usual. Tomorrow I’ll do better.

LIGHTLORN (Sweden)

Today this Swedish duo have released their debut EP These Nameless Worlds. I’ve already raved about the EP’s first two songs when they were released, “Unmapped Constellations” (here) and “Through the Cold Black Yonder“ (here). Now we have the other two. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HIGH FELLS — “WHERE THEY CALL MY NAME”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 282022
 

It wouldn’t be a big surprise if you found yourself a little perplexed by the High Fells video we’re about to present for a song called “Where They Call My Name“, which is off the band’s forthcoming debut album Catharsis.

On the one hand, the song itself is intense and powerful in many ways, serious music with visceral appeal, and in keeping with the album’s daunting but fascinating cover art created by Dawid Figiliek. On the other hand, the video takes some unexpected turns that radically diverge from the moods of the music… but we’ll come back to that in due course.

First, by way of background, High Fells are a relatively new blackened death metal unit from Denton, Texas. They starting getting things together during the first year of covid and then spent early 2021 writing the rest of that debut album, and they played their first show just a little under a year ago.

As they tell us, a lot of the lyrical concepts within Catharsis “focus around issues with mental illness, whether it be anxiety, depression, or past encounters in life that served as character building”. “Using this outlet,” they explain, “we’ve been able to express and cope with a lot of those lame feelings and avoid messing things up even more”. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABIGORUM, LACHRIMA CORPHUS DISSOLVENS, UNTIL MY FUNERALS BEGAN — “THE CALL TO SILENCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 282022
 

Seasons are a state of mind. Here in the U.S. Pacific Northwest where I live the rains have finally come, along with a chill in the air. After an unusually warm and dry early fall, normalcy has arrived, and The Big Dark is under way. Two days ago the sun set at 6:00 p.m., and that will not happen again until March of next year. From now on, for that many months, people will be waking up in the dark, going home in the dark, and sodden clouds will obscure the sun during many days even when it is above the horizon.

Throughout the Northern Hemisphere winter is approaching, or has already arrived, even if it will only bring a reprieve from heat in some places rather than the true feeling of nature dying or hibernating that pervades in the far north. But regardless of the locale, and even in the other half of the world where summer is approaching, we can send our minds into dark and daunting days through music such as you’re about to hear.

What we have for you is the full streaming premiere of an hour-long three-way split called The Call To Silence, and as its title suggests, “The release calls on humanity to return to silence, that harmony of the soundless cosmic vacuum that almost our entire Universe consists of”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BONES — “VOMIT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 272022
 

Chicago’s Bones possess a number of endearing qualities: They are not pretentious, but instead feral. Their music sounds like it hasn’t bathed in weeks, just like us. They’ve got obviously impressive technical chops but manage to sound loose and sometimes even out-of-control. They know how to groove (man, do they know how to groove!), but they’re hellraisers at heart who revel in mauling and massacre.

And as important as all that, although Bones don’t take themselves too seriously they know how to write dynamic and fiendishly infectious songs that harness together a riotous cornucopia of genre ingredients, finding the natural connection points among all of them.

Okay, well “endearing” may not be the best term we could have picked, even though it is linguistically correct — because Bones do inspire genuine affection among fans of gnarly, in-your-face metallic extremity that revels in its carnal wildness.

We could probably stop right there and just leave you to the main object of this feature, which is a premiere stream of Bones‘ new album Vomit, which will be out on October 28th via disorder-recordings. But of course we won’t shut up right away — the album’s too much fucking fun for us to clam up about it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BOOK OF SAND — “KYRIE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 272022
 

If you search for information about the Minnesota-based project Book of Sand you’ll likely encounter genre references to “experimental black metal”,  as well as lyrical themes that have rooted the band in the so-called “Red and Anarchist Black Metal” (RABM) scene. But the label “experimental black metal” is a vague one. It”s intended to represent a deviation from black metal orthodoxy, but beyond that it may encompass a host of variations that you can’t guess at from the label alone.

In the case of Book of Sand, those variations have included an unusual approach to songwriting and an unusual amalgam of sounds and sensations, weaving ingredients like Javanese gamelan, microtonalities, and 20th-century classical compositional techniques into a framework of raw black metal. And the project’s experimental approach has revealed changes from album to album.

Book of Sand‘s newest album (the first one in five years and the ninth once since 2010) is named Seven Candles For An Empty Altar, and it’s yet another adventure, a stunning one. It will be released on November 1st by Fiadh Productions and Vita Detestabilis Records. They tell us this about the album’s inspiration: Continue reading »

NOSTROMO – BUCEPHALE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 272022
 

(Andy Synn saddles up with Bucephale, the first full-length album in 20 years from Nostromo)

Better late than never, that’s what they say, right? Although, come to think of it, it’s mostly people who are chronically late who say that, so maybe they’re just trying to cover for themselves…

Still, in this case it rings true, as while I’m ashamed to admit I totally missed the boat on the first phase of Nostromo‘s career (during which time they produced three impressively intense albums), I’ve been hooked on them ever since I stumbled across their 2019 EP, Narrenschiff, and so felt that the impending release of their new record was the perfect time to make amends for overlooking them for so long.

If, like I used to be, you’re not familiar with the group, then l what you should expect from this album is a truly vicious, visceral assault on your senses (and your sensibilities) that sits somewhere between the more extreme proponents of “Metallic Hardcore” (aka the original “Metalcore”) like Integrity and Vision of Disorder, and the most furiously focussed form(s) of Grind a la Nasum, Napalm Death, etc.

But that’s not all, as – ever since their rebirth a few years back – the group have been exploring ever darker and more “blackened” sounds, with Bucephale being their darkest, harshest, and heaviest album yet.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BARABBAS

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 272022
 


photo by Claire Dao

(In this extensive new interview Comrade Aleks connected with guitarist Saint Stéphane from the French doom cult Barabbas, who have a new album headed our way in December.)

I joined the pious congregation of the French band Barabbas after I heard them for the first time on the Doom Metal Front compilation. Their self-titled track from the EP Libérez Barabbas! (2011) was catchy, heavy, and loud. Powerful riffs and expressive vocals by Saint Rodolphe (who sang in French) made me wait for more, and the full-length Messe pour un chien (2014) didn’t disappoint the doom fanatic in me.

But then… eight years with no news from a studio! Et mince! Barabbas took part in both big festivals and smaller shows but, damn, there was nothing new besides one track recorded for a Cathedral tribute! But we, people of strong faith, shouldn’t lose it in any situation! Our patience is to be rewarded with the band’s second full-length La mort appelle tous les vivants which will see the light of day on December 9th through Sleeping Church Records.

I’ve heard a few things from this album and it kills! Join our messe and learn more from this interview with Barabbas’ guitar master Saint Stéphane. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries