AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORGUE SUPPLIER — “MY PATH TO HELL”

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Apr 152022
 

Chicago-based Morgue Supplier don’t rush things. The band’s roots go back to a group named Jugular Appetizer with one 1999 demo to its name, but after changing that name to the current one Morgue Supplier have put out only two albums and a pair of EPs over the last 20 years, with significant amounts of time in between them. Now they’ve got a third full-length on the way, six years after the last one. Its name is Inevitability.

Respect should be owed to a band whose music over the course of two decades has remained as vicious, as hate-fueled, and as abrasive as Morgue Suppier‘s — if anything, it’s grown even more unabashedly confrontational, even more unreservedly hostile, even more mentally discombobulating, like an increasingly difficult test of their listeners’ fortitude in body and mind.

On the other hand, as you’ll discover from the song we’re premiering today — the aptly named “My Path To Hell” — the band’s music also presents numerous unsettling fascinations, like drugs you know are potentially ruinous to your health but are still powerfully addictive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTHEMS OF ISOLATION — “AS PAZUZU RISES”

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Apr 152022
 

On their forthcoming debut album Apocalyptic Portrayals, the Iraqi duo Anthems of Isolation demonstrate a formidable power to create music that’s simultaneously spellbinding and unnerving. It’s steeped in moods of despair and downfall, and harrows at any sense of well-being like the swing of a scythe against fragile shoots of wheat, but its measured beats and celestial melodies are also undeniably hypnotic.

The music is sinister and perilous, tension-filled and tormented, and yet it’s easy to fall into the cold and shining void-space of these sounds and then find it difficult to escape. You’ll discover this for yourselves by listening to the three tracks we’re streaming below, one of which we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s co-release by Satanath Records and More Hate Productions on April 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CLEARxCUT – SONGS OF DESIRE ARMED

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 152022
 

(Andy Synn presents Songs of Desire Armed, the upcoming second album by CLEARxCUT)

While my love of Hardcore has been well-documented by now, there are still certain things about it which don’t always sit right with me (and I don’t just mean karate-dancing in the pit, whose ignorant, “look at me”, attitude has always seemed antithetical to the communal mindset of the genre).

In particular, despite supposedly being founded on principles of brotherhood and community, a lot of Hardcore bands/fans can be rather elitist and exclusionary – especially when it comes to emphasising the “brother” part – and while there have been a lot of moves towards changing this in the years since I first got into the genre, there’s still a fair way to go until Hardcore as a whole will be able to truly say that it practices what it preaches.

There are, however, still a lot of bands who both talk the talk and walk the walk, and CLEARxCUT – a vegan, anarchist, anti-fascist and straight-edge Metallic Hardcore collective made up of, among others, both current and ex-members of Implore, King Apathy, and Heaven Shall Burn – are unequivocally one of those bands, expressing their beliefs and ideals not to exclude or impugn others but to engage and inspire by example.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE HALO EFFECT, GRAND CADAVER, ARTIFICIAL BRAIN, PATRISTIC, HELLSHOCK, PREDATORY LIGHT, LAMENT CITYSCAPE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 142022
 

 

I intended to complete and post this round-up yesterday, but my fucking day job rudely interfered. In the meantime I’ve been alerted to a bunch of other new songs and videos that surfaced yesterday. Trying to include them now would result in further delay, so I’ll just have to save them for later. Almost half of what you’ll find below came my way via DGR, and one more from a friend and former NCS writer, and the rest I somehow found on my own.

THE HALO EFFECT (Sweden)

“IT’S GLORIOUS. I mean this is like it fell right out of a time machine from the Colony sessions.” That’s what DGR wrote when he alerted some of his fellow NCS slaves to the existence of this first song, which is the title track to The Halo Effect‘s new album, Days of the Lost. And if you don’t know, one reason for the Colony reference is that this band includes a bunch of former In Flames members (Jesper Strömblad, Niclas Engelin, Peter Iwers, and Daniel Svensson) plus Dark Tranquillity‘s Mikael Stanne behind the mic. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE TROOPS OF DOOM — “ANTICHRIST REBORN”

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Apr 142022
 

 

The stars have aligned on Antichrist Reborn, the debut album by The Troops of Doom from Brazil. There are many stars within the underground firmament who have joined forces to create the album, and the music itself reaches us like lights across a void from a distant time, gleaming like brilliant obsidian arrays lit by hellish flames.

Among the human stars are the troops of doom themselves — former Sepultura guitarist Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz, bassist/vocalist Alex Kafer (Enterro, Explicit Hate, ex-Necromancer), drummer Alexandre Oliveira (Southern Blacklist, Raising Conviction), and guitarist Marcelo Vasco (Patria, Mysteriis, and acclaimed graphic artist for the likes of Slayer, Kreator, Machine Head, Soulfly, and Hatebreed).

In addition to them, the album includes guest performances by João Gordo (Ratos de Porão) and Alex Camargo and Moyses Kolesne from Krisiun.

And that still doesn’t touch every point in the constellation. The album was mixed by Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy, Pain) at the The Abyss Studio and it was mastered by Jonas Kjellgren at Blacklounge. Moreover, the cover art was painted by Sergio “AlJarrinha” Oliveira, the artist behind the original artwork for Sepultura‘s Bestial Devastation. And physical editions of the album will be released by Alma Mater Records, the label owned by Moonspell frontman Fernando Ribeiro.

All those stellar names seize attention, but for serious metal listeners only the music will count — as is only right. The names build expectations, but those hopes must be fulfilled in the sounds or the album will soon be forgotten.  We’ve already hinted at our own opinion — that Antichrist Reborn won’t soon be forgotten — but you can decide for yourselves today because we’re presenting a full stream of the record on the eve of its April 15th release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLASPHEMATORY — “FLOODED GRAVES”

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Apr 142022
 

The New Jersey death metal band Blasphematory boasts a line-up that includes members of Abazagorath, Death Fortress, and Altar of Gore, and for anyone who knows the music of those bands there should be no further encouragement needed to check out Blasphematory‘s forthcoming second album, aptly titled The Lower Catacombs, even if you missed their first full-length (2019’s Depths of the Obscurity).

But perhaps all those names may have eluded some wanderers among the tombstones and sepulchral crypts of dank and devastating death metal or the freezing moons of black metal. Or maybe the music of Blasphematory alone has escaped the attention it deserves. Certainly, The Lower Catacombs deserves a lot of attention. It’s as macabre as the cover art, and turns out to be as addictive as it is filthy and ferocious.

The song we’re presenting today, “Flooded Graves“, is unmistakably soiled in its sound, and it’s also preternaturally maniacal, a ghastly, hard-charging barrage that’s a huge thrill to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ET MORIEMUR

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Apr 142022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks re-connected with Zdeněk Nevělík from the unpredictable Czech metal band Et Moriemur, whose compelling new album was just released a few days ago by Transcending Obscurity Records.)

Seven years ago or so we sat with Et Moriemur’s frontman Zdeněk Nevělík in a pub somewhere in Prague and talked about doom and other stuff, knowing nothing about how the world would change in the next few years. I wonder if there’ll be a chance to do it again…

However, music helps to keep the connection as I found the promo pack from Transcending Obscurity with Et Moriemur’s fourth album Tamashii no Yama in my mail box about two months ago, but it took time to clear my mind and find the energy to absorb these grim and exciting vibes. The band went aside from the death-doom path to a more experimental blackened sound and – as the album’s concept demands – even further.

This material is full of nontraditional and quite fresh ideas; it looks like the band revealed a new source of creativity inside their own inner resources. So I made my best effort to find out how it happened. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FADEAD — “TERRA FERITA”

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

 

Later this month Lethal Scissor Records will release the raging debut EP of an Italian grindcore band who call themselves Fadead and whose experienced line-up includes Y. (Vomit the Soul, ex-Precognitive Holocaust Annotations), V. (Spells of Misery, Bolvangar, Vertebra Atlantis), and R.

The name of the EP is Terra Ferita, and it comes recommended for fans of Nasum, Cripple Bastards, and Napalm Death. To help spread the word about it, last month we premiered a lyric video for a brutal two-minute assault named “L’estremità del mondo“. Today we prolong the assault by un-caging the entire EP so it can run rampant through your skull for… a whole nine minutes. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELIOSS — “L’INSONDABLE CRÉPUSCULE DES MORTS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 132022
 

 

Today marks the third opportunity we have seized upon since 2017 to help spread the word about the music of Helioss through a music premiere. Today the subject of the premiere is a song called “L’insondable crépuscule des morts” from this French band’s forthcoming fifth album Contre ma lumière, which is set for release by Satanath Records on April 21st.

Once again, Helioss mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Muller directed the enterprise, again joined by vocalist D.M. (Celestial Swarm, Gravefields, etc.) and guest drummer Mikko Koskinen (The Lifted Veil, Proscription). And once again Helioss has pushed its expanding musical boundaries of progressive black/death metal outward into even more inventive and genre-bending territory. This newest song premiere from the album, which comes with a lyric video, provides an extravagant demonstration of that. Continue reading »

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