AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHFUCKINGCUNT — “DEVOURED BY EUNUCHS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 082022
 

Let’s not spend any time debating this Australian band’s choice of name — they obviously don’t care what you think about it, and besides, their music’s not going to get played where anyone would be squeamish about uttering the name in public. Except in certain quadrants of extreme metal, the name’s outrageous — but so is the music. So let’s talk about the music.

Specifically, let’s talk about “Devoured By Eunuchs“, the song we’re premiering today from DFC‘s debut album Decadent Perversity, which is pegged for release on June 10th by Transcending Obscurity Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WARDENCLYFFE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 082022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks participated in an exchange with Jacob Nordangård, the principal creative force behind the Swedish doom band Wardenclyffe, whose new album Temple of Solomon was released this past February.)

As you may remember, Wardenclyffe Tower was an early experimental wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla on Long Island in 1901–1902.  Such a bold endeavour! And yet it was too bold for its age.

The Swedish doom metal band Wardenclyffe doesn’t offer you something as innovative or technological as you might imagine from their name. Their doom(-death) is appealing yet absolutely traditional in some way. Though I can’t say the same about lyrics written by the band’s spiritual leader Jacob Nordangård. That’s hard to explain, and anyway we did this interview with him due the release of the band’s second album Temple of Solomon one month ago. We touched on a few contradictory themes here, and I believe everyone should do that from time to time… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INANNA — “FAR AWAY IN OTHER SPHERES”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 072022
 

Almost four years ago I finally came across the Chilean band Inanna. At that time the band’s latest release was their second album, 2012’s Transfigured in a Thousand Delusions, and it absolutely blew me away (as I wrote in one of our now-moribund Miscellany columns).

I lost track of the band after that, and I suppose for good reason because the only release that followed my discovery of Inanna was a 2020 live album. But now, a decade following Transfigured…, they have completed a third full-length named Void of Unending Depths that’s set for release on April 25th by Memento Mori. It’s an album you definitely will not want to miss, because it’s one of the best that death metal has offered in the year so far — and should rank highly at year-end too. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORFER — “DARK WISDOM”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 072022
 

 

In the 12 1/2 years this site has been active we have written about a grand total of one metal band (Kashgar) from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Today we double that total.

Obviously, it’s still a rarity, and sent us off to get better educated, especially because the promotional material for Morfer, the band that’s the subject of today’s premiere, makes reference to their origins “among the rocky and snowy ridges, mountainous and hopeless forests of the Scandinavian Tien Shan”. What does that mean?!? Let’s learn together.

For those of us in the ignorant West, Kyrgyzstan is bounded by Kazakhstan on the northwest and north, by China on the east and south, and by Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the south and west. It was conquered by tsarist Russian forces in the 19th century, later became a republic of the U.S.S.R., and declared its independence from the former Soviet Union on August 31, 1991.

Most of Kyrgyzstan’s borders run along mountain crests, including the Tien Shan, which is one of the great mountain systems of Central Asia (its name is Chinese for “Celestial Mountains”). That range stretches for 1,500 miles (2,500 km) and mainly straddles the border between China and Kyrgyzstan.

There is much more to be learned about the history, cultures, and fascinating geography of Kyrgyzstan, but let’s stop there and now ask again what could have been meant by that reference to “the Scandinavian Tien Shan“? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MOANHAND – BLEEDING BIRD

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 072022
 

(Andy Synn presents a brand new single from Moanhand – whose debut album, Present Serpent, was one of his top releases of 2021)

It’s impossible to begin writing today’s article without acknowledging the terrible elephant in the room.

It was just last year that I found my listening time dominated by numerous bands and albums from Russia, but now, in light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the seemingly daily reports of new and fresh atrocities being committed there, that seems like a lifetime ago.

Some of you, I’m sure, will be very much against the idea of us covering any Russian bands right now, but one thing that has become clear to me – after seeing all the protests, hearing all the bands, artists, and organisations speaking out against the invasion – is that the Russian government is not the Russian people, and the voices inside Russia decrying this war deserve to be heard.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERMÖRD — “NOSTALGIC PREDICTIONS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 062022
 

 

Ghoulish faces with hollow eyes gaze through marble portals, mouths agape at a hooded wizard drawing lightning from a swirling pool of infinity. It’s an eye-catching scene that Matt Lawrence has created for the debut album by Baltimore-based Vermord, one that creates an amalgam of sensations — of unearthly ghastliness, mind-bending magic, and fathomless mystery.

The visual certainly spawns a feeling of excited intrigue about the music that Vermord have created within the realm of Nostalgic Predictions, but for those who heard the band’s first EP, 2015’s Dawn Of The Black Harvest (which we premiered here) or the Dissimulation demo that followed it in 2016, the seeds of intrigue about what might come next were already planted.

Many years have passed by since then, but now the band are ready to show us what they accomplished during a period of hiatus — and they have a lot to show, through 13 tracks and an hour’s worth of music, all of which we’re presenting today in advance of the April 8 release. Continue reading »

BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK: TERZIJ DE HORDE / ULTHA / VANHÄVD / VIMUR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 062022
 

(Andy Synn gazes into the abyss once more and finds four excellent albums gazing back!)

The debate about what is or isn’t “Black Metal” is probably one that’s never going to end.

And, honestly? That’s ok. Because as long as the debate is still going on it means that no-one has successfully codified and constrained the genre, leaving it free to continue to explore and expand its artistic boundaries.

Truth be told, I have less of an issue with bands being called “Black Metal” when they aren’t than I do with this weird idea some people (and bands) seem to have that slapping the label “Black Metal” on something somehow makes it good, or gives it some sort of veneer of credibility.

Let’s be honest, there are quite a few groups out there – some of them quite well-known – whose music would be just as good with or without the tenuous “Black Metal” tag which has been applied to them, but whose fans would riot and protest (online, anyway) if you tried to take it away from them, because they feel like they’d be losing something in the process.

Thankfully we don’t have to play any such semantic games with the four artists/albums I’ve selected for today’s article, as they are all clearly Black Metal, while also showcasing the vivid variety of both voice and vision which the genre embraces.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THOS ÆLLA — “BACKWARDS AFTERBIRTH FLOWS UNTO DREAMING TEMPLES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 062022
 

 

I, Voidhanger Records continues to prove that its owner’s musical interests are wide-ranging but persistently idiosyncratic. The releases usually don’t sound quite like anything else, because the artists almost always march to the beat of their own unusual drummers. And thus the label has become a home for adventurers, both those who make the music and those who listen.

The latest proof of this is Sempiternal Mobocracies, the forthcoming second album by Thos Ælla, which is the solo project of guitarist Derrik “Ghoul” Goulding from Father Befouled (who released a new album of their own just a couple weeks ago). And it truly is a head-spinning adventure, as you’ll discover for yourselves through the two songs we’re streaming for you today — one of them the first advance track from the album and the other a song we’re now premiering. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARDINALS FOLLY

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 062022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks re-connected with Count Karnstein, frontman of the Finnish doom metal band Cardinals Folly, whose latest release is a split album that came out last month.)

I was sure that we did an interview with Cardinals Folly not that long ago, but I’ve checked and found – it was in 2015! So, in case you forgot, let me introduce them.

These blasphemous fidgets of doom from Helsinki have done their dirty black magic since 2007 (or 2004 if we take into account The Coven period) and truly succeed! Their first album Such Power Is Dangerous! (2011) and the following Our Cult Continues! (2014) were good examples of honest and traditional doom metal. There were a few hooks and a bunch of nice songs but I think that Cardinals Folly finally reached their own identity with Holocaust of Ecstasy & Freedom (2016).

The hard and boiling stuff of Deranged Pagan Sons (2017) was a natural development towards more savage and faster music, and Defying the Righteous Way (2020) was my album of the year if you prefer such categories. The band keep to their mark as an active and battleworthy outfit, and this time they’ve returnedd with a split-album with the American band Purification.

Count Karnstein (also known as Mikko Kääriäinen) found some time to tell us a few past and future secrets of Cardinals Folly! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INTOLERANCE — “DEATH BEFORE SLAVERY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 052022
 

Although we have no special insight into why this Spanish death metal band chose Intolerance for their name, we might guess from the music that they have no tolerance for weakness or mercy, nor for the manifold failures of humanity. Instead, their rank and rabid revels seem fueled by revulsion and rage. They see with clear eyes the Dark Paths of Humanity, and have so named their forthcoming debut album.

To be fair, the past for them is not a total graveyard of degradation and disappointment. They follow an inspirational beacon lit in the late ’80s and early ’90s by such bands as Bolt Thrower, Grave, Asphyx, Morgoth, Entombed, Convulse, Obituary, and Unleashed. That’s a broad swath of music from a now-hallowed age, and somehow Intolerance pay homage to all of it in crafting music that’s grimy and gritty, morbid and malicious, creeping and crazed.

In other words, they damned well know what they’re doing, and they do it damned well — as you’ll discover through the song we’re premiering today, which proclaims “Death Before Slavery“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries