AN NCS PREMIERE: LEPER COLONY — “THE SURGICAL UNDEADVORS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 172022
 

Although a new band, Leper Colony predictably will get a lot of attention, and not just because of the macabre cover art that Alex Tartsus rendered for their self-titled debut album in such hellish tones, or the top-shelf logo that Dipayan Das made for them.

There’s also the fact that the band’s lineup consists of some exalted names in the annals of death metal — vocalist Marc Grewe (Morgoth) and guitarist/bassist Rogga Johansson (Paganizer). And although those two names may get the most attention, drummer Jon Skäre is a formidable presence as well, as one look at his M-A resume demonstrates.

They’ve also got a clever way with words — witness the name of the song we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s release by Transcending Obscurity Records: “The Surgical Undeadvors“. Continue reading »

PATINA OF TIME: AN INTERVIEW WITH CARA NEIR

 Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 172022
 

(Today we present an extensive article by Rob Tamplin that’s part interview with Garry Brents of Cara Neir and Gonemage, and part essay on the fantasy worlds that have taken shape through those projects and the techniques used to bring them to life, along with some meditations on the pluses and minuses of nostalgia.)

If I was reluctant to say Cara Neir is the most exciting band in the US metal underground, it’s only because that would mean putting them in a box. Hell, even the word “band” seems like a loose fit, as there is a communal element to the Texas duo absent from most acts.

On Phantasmal, Garry Brents and Chris Francis’s eighth album together, Cara Neir debut five characters submitted by fans via their Bandcamp page. Over the course of the album, the duo encounters these characters on their quest through a horrifying alternate dimension.

See, Phantasmal is a concept album – just like Tommy or Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. Although it’s about as far from a pompous rock opera as it’s possible to get. The music, which broadly ranges from noise-rock to electronic powerviolence, is glazed with a frosting of rudimentary 8-bit synths, the kind you last heard when you were playing Castlevania at the arcade in your matching acid-wash denim two-piece, cramming the Dungeon Master’s Guide while blasting Master of Puppets on your Walkman. Which could have been today. It’s 2022, you could be doing some, or all, of those things while reading this. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KANONENFIEBER, SKÁLA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Oct 162022
 

Have you had your daily dose of whining and excuse-making? If not, I can remedy that, free of charge.

I went to a baseball playoff game in Seattle last night, except it unexpectedly turned into two games in one, lasting 18 innings. Arriving at the ballpark at 11:30 a.m., my spouse and I left at 7:30 p.m., hungry and tired and not feeling great about the 1-0 loss our team ultimately suffered. So we stayed in Seattle to eat and drink, and after a dreary ferry trip we didn’t make it back to the NCS island HQ until late.

This morning, which started late, I spent a lot more time going through about 400 previously un-read e-mails lodged in the NCS in-box than I did listening to anything. But although the day is now rapidly getting away from me, and my day job is now intruding, I wanted to do something so I wouldn’t pass through yet another Sunday with no Shades of Black. It’s not a lot, obviously, and I made the choices hurriedly (before getting immersed in historical research), but I think you’ll still be well-pleased, even if not thoroughly sated. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FELL RUIN, VÆGTLØS, UDÅNDE, VUARA, WYRMWOODS, BURLA22

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 152022
 


“Metatron’s Cube” by Talon Abraxas

It’s been another very busy week for the release of new songs and videos, and leaves me with a typically daunting task of trying to pick some to recommend, made even more daunting by the fact that the old fucking day job didn’t allow me to compile a round-up earlier this week. To make the task a bit easier, I decided not to write about new songs and videos from the following bands, because they’re all fairly well-known, but I do really like all of what you’ll find via the links below.

DEFLESHED (Sweden)

DJEVEL (Norway)

EXHUMED (U.S.)

GOATWHORE (U.S.)

WOODS OF DESOLATION (Australia)

As for what I did choose to write about today… Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASHEN HORDE — “THE PHYSICIAN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 142022
 

For those who might be encountering Ashen Horde for the first time or just need a reminder, it began as the solo project of Los Angeles-based musician Trevor Portz. Working alone, he released a handful of EPs and two albums starting in 2013. Beginning with The Alchemist, a 2017 EP, he joined forces with vocalist Stevie Boiser, known for his work with such tech-death heavyweights as Vale of Pnath, Inferi, and Equipoise, and both were in harness again for their third album, 2019’s Fallen Cathedrals.

There is now a fourth album headed our way via Transcending Obscurity Records. Entitled Antimony, it features an expanded Ashen Horde line-up that now includes drummer extraordinaire Robin Stone (Norse) and fleet-fingered bassist Igor (from Abhoria and NightWraith).

Over the course of all the releases mentioned above, Ashen Horde have demonstrated an adventurous spirit, with an ever-evolving amalgam of genre influences and no real interest in boxing themselves in. Take, for example, the absolutely exhilarating (and riotously deranged) song from Antimony that we’re premiering today along with a nightmarish video. Moving at a near-relentless pace, “The Physician” blends together (at puree speeds) technical death metal, black metal, and flares of prog, with breathtaking results. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PRÉSAGES – “HIÉROPHANIE / PLEURE – LIVE IN THE STUDIO”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 142022
 

(With an introduction by Andy Synn, today we premiere a video of the Montreal band Présages performing the final two tracks on their 2021 debut album Pleurs.)

The debut album from Présages was one of last year’s hidden gems (and you can read more about it here).

By amalgamating elements of Death, Doom, and Post-Metal — aided and abetted by an almost Meshuggah-sized guitar tone — the eight tracks which made up Pleurs left a serious (and seriously heavy) impression on yours truly, and I’m pretty sure at least some of our readers had the same reaction.

It wasn’t just that the Canadian quartet were capable of conjuring such a stunningly dense, almost physically palpable, sense of sheer sonic mass with their music though, it was their ability to pair this level of riff-focussed (and, at key moments, blast-driven) intensity with an equally massive and weighty sense of atmosphere, as well as some subtle, mood-enhancing electronic elements, which helped them stand out from the crowd.

But you don’t have to take my word for it, as the band have asked us to host a “live in the studio” performance of the album’s climactic double-act – “Hiérophanie” and “Pleure” – which together represent the very best that Présages have to offer, and positions them as potential future leaders of the burgeoning “Atmospheric Death Metal” movement, alongside similarly awesome artists like Barús, Nightmarer, and Nero Di Marte. Continue reading »

SKY PIG – IT THRIVES IN DARKNESS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 132022
 

(Andy Synn embraces the darkness with the new album from Sacramento’s Sky Pig)

It wasn’t meant to be like this…

No, really, it wasn’t. It was DGR who originally put out the call for the promo for this album but, due to a series of increasingly embarrassing blunders and comedic mix-ups behind the scenes it’s me who’s ended up writing about it.

But I’m glad it did, because otherwise I might not have taken the time to properly appreciate just how good this album is.

Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): S.I.D. — “CITY OF CHEMISTRY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 132022
 

With their new EP City of Chemistry, the Italian death-doom-sludge band S.I.D. have created a devastating experience, the musical equivalent of crusher, crematorium, and crypt, designed to channel the suffocation of hope and the domination of agony.

The music is a match for the concept of the EP. It was principally inspired by the book Veleni di Stato by the Italian author and journalist Gianluca Di Feo, which condemned the production and use of chemical weapons during the second World War. The music makes a harrowing journey through the horrors of war, with a focus on the places where chemical instruments of death were developed and produced, concealed by warmongering powers.

At a time when war is again ravaging souls in many places, the EP stands as both a reminder and a denunciation, and it serves as a second chapter by the band, following their 2019 debut album Architects of Armageddon. Elaborating on these themes, the band explain: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRITICAL EXTRAVASATION — “WALTZ OF HYPOCRISY”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 122022
 

 

Almost eight months after it began, the war in Ukraine drags on. Spawned by Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked aggression and delusional dreams of imperialist grandeur, and prosecuted in part through a litany of apparent war crimes, it has caused agony and death on a large scale. Worse still, it appears to be entering a particularly vicious new phase, where even Putin seems to realize that victory is impossible and that rather than attempt to occupy a country he feels has no right to exist, the mission will now be to terrorize and destroy it.

These events have put many Russians in a difficult position, and a dangerous position for those who not only disagree with what Putin has done but speak out about it. Sure, from afar it seems like most Russians have been kept in the dark or brainwashed by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, but there have been growing cracks in that wall of misinformation and suppression of dissent. For some people, those cracks began long ago.

Critical Extravasation, the band whose music we’re premiering here, are Russian. Three days after Putin’s invasion, they made this post on their Facebook page: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARCHE — “IN A SOLACE LIGHT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 122022
 

 

Of course record labels always heap praise on their own releases, and only the naive would take that without a heaping dose of salt. We use lots of salt. As consumers of endless press releases, we often roll our eyes at the hyperbole after listening to what they gush about, and too often find that instead of groundbreaking AOTY material the music turns out to be generic and dull.

The track record of some labels is solid enough, and their good taste dependable enough, that we give more weight to their promotional verbiage. Transcending Obscurity Records is one of those labels. But we still confess to being a bit skeptical when reading their claim that the Finnish band Arche had succeeded in adding “masterful touches” to the sounds developed by such groups as Thergothon, Skepticism, and Shape of Despair, and their proud proclamation that Arche‘s new album Transitions is “an immaculate expression of ethereal, moving, atmospheric doom metal that has everything in the right proportions”.

Would it really be so? Continue reading »

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