AN NCS PREMIERE: VIOGRESSION — “CIPHER”

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Mar 162022
 

 

Until recently I had never heard Viogression‘s 1991 debut album Expound and Exhort, which led to this Wisconsin band mounting a world tour with Death and Pestilence. Even today that album has a cult following who recognize it as a criminally underrated gem of the early death metal scene, one that draws comparisons to the likes of Death and Obituary, to Morbid Angel and Morbid Saint. And I’ll say now, based on personal experience, that it holds up very well 30 years later.

From all accounts, even that first album didn’t get the attention it deserved when it came out, largely due to negligent label backing. But what happened afterward was like a second hammer blow to the band’s legacy — including the premature release of an unfinished second album (Passage) the year after Expound and Exhort, and then a 9-year hiatus, finally broken by a 2014 EP.

The band continued to perform live, but only now, 30 years after their debut full-length, are Viogression releasing a third album. Its name is 3rd Stage Of Decay. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SÖNMA

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Mar 162022
 

(These days when most of us think of Russia we have negative thoughts (to put it mildly) based on the vicious invasion of Ukraine. But the participants in this interview — our friend Comrade Aleks and Vlad Tatarsky from the Russian bands Sönma and Crust — have no love for what is being done by a dictator in the name of the Russian people. Their words and the music are still worth our time.)

Sönma is the drone/doom project of Roman Romanov (drums, vocals, effects) and Vlad Tatarsky (guitars, effects). You know them better as members of the death-doom/sludge band Crust, also from Veliky Novgorod.

We started this interview with Vlad in late January and things went slow, but everything changed after the 24th of February and we were in shock knowing nothing about what to do with this interview. Vlad asked me to find some right words for this forword, but I don’t have any right words now, just a feeling that Sönma’s albums Terra and Ether channel this sense of catastrophe precisely. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MISERY INDEX, CLEARXCUT, AWAKENING SUN, NEMA, AKLASH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 152022
 

 

Drowning in new music and regrettably short on time to listen and write about it, I’ve decided to just grab five of the new things I’ve recently seen and heard to share with you today.

MISERY INDEX (U.S.)

I don’t know what came first in the creation of this new Misery Index song, the words or the music, or whether they were conceived together, but both are enraged. The politically charged lyrics begin this way:

Ancient ways ensnared in the monetary grip
Sons and daughters slaved by the wage and the whip
Our way of life crushed, as our lives drown in work
Is this what we’re to think, that a human life is worth? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNBENIGN — “THE UNTENANTED EPOCH”

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Mar 152022
 

 

The Dutch black metal band Unbenign is a relatively new formation but it includes seasoned musicians who have performed with such bands as Prostitute Disfigurement, Centurian, and Nox, and their line-up was rounded out by Michiel van der Plicht (Carach Angren, Pestilence, ex-God Dethroned), who played session drums on their debut album and also handled the recording, mixing, and mastering. That album is self-titled and is now set for co-release by Satanath Records and Asgard Hass Productions on April 16th.

Unbenign have proclaimed that both lyrically and musically they drew their inspiration from second-wave black metal from the early ’90s, with a mission to create ferocious, in-your-face assaults as a means of channeling their frustrations with modern-day society. Their music is indeed ferocious, but it’s a lot more than that as well, as you’ll discover by listening to the song from the album that we’re premiering today. Its name is “The Untenanted Epoch“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FATHER BEFOULED — “SALIVATING FAITHLESSNESS”

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Mar 152022
 

At the end of last month we premiered “Katabatic Deliverance“, a song off the forthcoming fifth album by the harrowing Georgia-based death metal band Father Befouled, and now it’s our diabolical pleasure to bring you another track off this jaw-dropping new record.

The name of the album is Crowned in Veneficum. In case your Latin is rusty, veneficum is connected to the word veneficus, which connotes both poison and sorcery. And this new song you’re about to hear, “Salivating Faithlessness“, is indeed a dose of poisonous aural sorcery. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SAATTUE

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Mar 152022
 

(What we have here is Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with two members of the Finnish band Saatue, whose first release under that name came in 2004 and whose latest album (their fourth) was released last October.)

I got in touch with Tero Kalliomäki because of his involvement in Yearning, a Finnish melodic doom band which was active from 1994 until the premature death of its founder Juhani Palomäki in 2010. We spoke about Yearning as part of a short interviews’ series for Doom Metal Lexicanum II, but I kept in mind that Tero also performed guitars and keyboards in the authentic death-doom outfit Saattue since 2004. “Authentic death-doom”! They call it “Saattoo Metal” and the fourth album in this style, Vain Toinen Heistä, was released DIY in October 2021.

It’s strange to do interviews in times like this, but it makes sense and helps to keep at least an illusion of “normality”. The answers were provided by Tero Kalliomäki himself with some help from the band’s bass-player Samu Lahtinen. Continue reading »

PERSECUTORY – SUMMONING THE LAWLESS LEGIONS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 142022
 

(Andy Synn joins the lawless legions of Persecutory fans with this review of the band’s new album)

So, it’s official – my Hardcore phase which dominated the start of this year is now over and I am now fully engrossed in a shameless Black Metal binge, with new reviews for Vanum, Vimur, Terzij de Horde, Feral Light, and more, all in the works.

Before I get to any of those records, however, I want to draw your attention to Summoning the Lawless Legions, the recently-released second album from Istanbul’s Persecutory, as ever since I discovered it last week I’ve become addicted to its devilish delights. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZAAB — “B.L.O.O.D.B.O.R.N”

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Mar 142022
 

 

Following the release of two singles in 2017 and 2019, the Pakistani band Azaab are now on the verge of releasing their debut album, which bears the fitting title Summoning the Cataclysm — which is indeed what the band often do in their shifting amalgam of brutal, technical, melodic, and progressive death metal.

Their compositional and instrumental flair quickly becomes apparent, and so does the bestial hostility of the vocals. It’s a tribute to the talents of principal guitarist Shahab Khan and his Pakistani bandmates Waqar (bass), Afraz (guitar), and Saad (vocals), and to the lights-out performance of Indonesian drummer Adhytia Perkasa (from SiksaKubur).

And to add further reason to give the album a chance, it includes guest guitar solos by Bobby Koelble (ex-Death) and Phil Tougas (First Fragment), and guest vocals by Nick Mkhl (Brutal Sphere) and Aissam El Hassani (Vile Utopia).

Hopefully, what you’ve read so far has peaked your interest, but what will should really grab it is the song we’re premiering today, accompanied by a playthrough video that features the band’s dueling guitarists. It’s the explosive album closer, “B.L.O.O.D.B.O.R.N“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AFSIND — “TORTUR”

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Mar 142022
 

 

Relentless emotional intensity is a hallmark of the new song and video by the Danish trio Afsind that we’re presenting today, but so is change. The dark power of “Tortur” is ceaseless, but it takes different shapes. It has elements that someone might say are “atmospheric”, but it also packs a visceral punch. Black metal is a clear influence, but it pulls from other stylistic well-springs too.

It’s such a gripping and dynamic song that, all by itself, it marks Afsind as a band to watch closely, and their self-titled debut album as one to put on your wish list. It will be released by Vendetta Records on April 29th. Continue reading »

DEAD REGISTER: “ALIVE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 142022
 

 

(In this post Wil Cifer reviews the sophomore album by Dead Register, which is set for release on May 13th by Seeing Red Records.)

This Atlanta trio has graced a few of my end of the year best of lists. They are known for flirting with various shades of heavy, sludge and doom being the two sub-genres that come closest to describing the darkness thickly emoted from the sonic swathes they summon, using only bass, synths, and drums as the primary instrumentation. Their new album finds the band continuing deeper into the despairing abyss their previous work has gazed into. This time around the grooves are just more refined.

The title track that opens the album carries a sleek industrial stomp. The drumming gives the vocals plenty of room to lament. At times the tension has a shadowy post-punk feel, but with more oppression to its heavy-handed melancholy. Continue reading »

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