NO CLEAN SINGING

SHADES OF BLACK: CROCELL, HEATHEN DEITY, BØG

Oct 102021

Crocell

Last Thursday I seized on the chance to insert SHADES OF BLACK into the work-week with a trio of EPs as a way of trying to clear out a backlog of reviews that had been percolating in my head. I’ve decided to do the same thing today. Rather than include the usual scattering of advance tracks from forthcoming releases I’m focusing entirely on albums and EPs that are already out in the world.

Having said that, I have to confess that these reviews may not qualify as thorough reviews in the minds of some people. They’re more like brief previews and recommendations, leading all you horses to water and hoping you’ll drink.

CROCELL (Denmark)

The name Crocell has stuck in my head on the strength of their past releases (five albums over the course of a decade), despite the absence of anything new for the last 3 1/2 years. If you’ve been haunting NCS for a while, you’ve seen how often we’ve written about them. And so I didn’t waste much time reacting to the news that the band had released a pair of EPs, Funeral Bliss and Baptized in Bullets, on the same day near the end of September. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GLOSON, BLACK CILICE, UNDER THE CHURCH, FLESH OF ONCE DEMENTED, CREATURE, DECAYING

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Oct 092021

I hope you’re having a good weekend already, and I hope what I’ve chosen for this round-up of new songs and videos will make it even better. As usual, I had a lot to choose from based on discoveries from the past week. I thought about resorting to another “Overflowing Streams” deluge to get more of them in front of you, but decided instead to exercise a rare bit of discipline.

In making these choices I was influenced by previous knowledge about the music of five of these bands (all of whom are personal favorites) and knowledge about the past work of one of the creators, even though he’s creating under a new guise.

GLOSON (Sweden)

The first track here, “Impetus“, is a massive and unearthly song, one that takes a sledgehammer to your spine and claws at your mind. The central riff abrasively roils and darts; the ritualized drum rhythms go off like bunker-busting bombs; the yells and roars are harrowing. The song twists the tension dial, becomes sweeping, and then boils and pounds, the intensity unrelenting. You best get ready to flex your neck too.

The accompanying video made by Ulf Blomberg is as dark and unnerving as the music, but you can’t take your eyes off it. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: DECLINE OF THE I

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Oct 092021

(Andy Synn brings us another episode in his series about lyrics in Metal, and today the responses come from A.K. of the French band Decline of the I, whose latest album Johannes was released last spring by Agonia Records.)

I know it’s been a little while since we last published one of these columns – that’s largely because I want the various artists involved to work on them in their own time and without feeling pressured from my end – but the wait has definitely been worth it, as today we’re talking to songwriter, lyricist, and all-round mastermind A.K. of Decline of the I (along with many other bands).

It’s a fascinating piece, mark my words, which touches on the conceptual underpinnings of the group’s first album trilogy, and their next one, as well as the unusual methods involved in composing each record’s vivid yet dreamlike lyrics. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVESLAVE — “IN THE MOUTHS OF GIANTS”

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Oct 082021

Last summer we had the pleasure of premiering the title track from No Center, the latest album by Graveslave from the Minnesota Twin Cities, which was subsequently released on July 30th by TRVASFUK Music, adorned by the terrific cover art of Adam Burke. In an effort to sum up the music, we called it “a rich and relentlessly dynamic mix of sounds and sensations, which underscores the progressive elements of Graveslave‘s brand of death metal… intense in different ways and highly memorable”.

If you overlooked the album, today we have a reminder of just how good it is. What we’ve got today is a new music video for the album’s epic and unnerving closing track, “In the Mouths of Giants“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVPREMACIST — “DRUG OF CHOICE”

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Oct 082021

We’ve been covering the fiery ascent of the Israeli black metal band Svpremacist since their debut release in 2018 — Black Fuck You Metal. They released a second demo that same year (Book Burner) and a single for a compilation (“No Life Matters“) the following year. And now a debut album is at hand. Entitled Meaningless Death, it’s set for a November 5 release by the UK label Repose Records.

Our previous writings about Svpremacist‘s feral brand of take-no-prisoners black thrash have included such phrases as “raw and ripping”, “electrifying and infectious”, “diabolically unhinged and unpredictable”, “imperious and volcanic”, “delirious and explosive” — but we’ve also praised the well-structured nature of the songs and the band’s incorporation of other heavy metal ingredients to make the music even more attention-grabbing and contagious.

And so it’s a real pleasure to continue yelling about the band today, the occasion being our premiere of a track named “Drug of Choice” off the debut album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BLACKDEATH

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Oct 082021

(Comrade Aleks continues his streak of fascinating interviews with this very extensive one with Para Bellum of the long-running Russian black metal band Blackdeath, whose latest work Also sprach das Chaos is officially being released today.)

Saturn Sector, Fucking Fullmoon Foundation, Satan Macht Frei, and more… Blackdeath have recorded nine full-length albums since the late ’90s and a bunch of smaller releases, and they have done much more for the underground black metal scene besides recording and performing their blasphemous incantations.

Blackdeath’s line-up had just a few minor changes for years and its core since the first day, built by brothers Colonel Para Bellum (aka Dmitry, bass, vocals, lyrics) and Abysslooker (aka Denis, guitars, songwriting), has been accompanied by Polar Maya (drums) since 2007, and it seems like this line-up works in the most productive way one could expect. Being founded in 1995 under the name Draugwath, this band remain one of the most stable and creative black metal acts in Mother Russia’s territory and they prove their status once more with a new tenth album, Also Sprach das Chaos, coming out on the 8th of October via End All Life Productions.

We made this interview with Colonel some time ago but the decision was made to wait for the new album’s official release, and so the day has come. If the words “True Black Metal” mean something for you still, here we go. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET (SHADES OF BLACK EDITION): SØRGELIG, IKU-TURSO, MISANTHROPÆ

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 6 Responses »

Oct 072021

Time is always fleeting, but I kidnapped enough of it to write some brief reviews and heart-felt recommendations for three very recent short releases that have captivated me (maybe especially because more often than not I’m angry and depressed these days). The SHADES OF BLACK reference in the post title is intended to provide the clue that this is all black metal, but no two of these releases sound alike.

SØRGELIG (Greece)

One of the commenters on the Bandcamp page for Sørgelig‘s new EP Slaves of Tomorrow did a very nice job in capturing part of what makes the band, and this EP, so special:

“I love Sorgelig’s utterly ruthless and nihilistic, yet also surprisingly humane and hopeful, take on primal black metal. Yes, we all live ‘in the prison of dead dreams,’ but we *can* dream, we can rage, we can spit in the eyes of our masters and call *them* the slaves. We can burn this blighted hell of a failing so-called civilization to the ground and build something better”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILLYRIAN — “AGE OF CHAOS”

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Oct 072021

Take some big gulps of air and make sure your head is screwed on tight, because the fireball of a song we’re premiering today through a lyric video will suck the wind from your lungs and threaten to send your head spinning off into the clouds.

The track is “Age of Chaos“, and it’s off a forthcoming concept EP (Aegis) by Illyrian from Calgary, Canada, which presents an electrifying combination of thrash-fueled death metal with impressive technicality and an ear for evocative melody. The EP will also appeal to gamers, because it draws inspiration from the gaming world, and specifically Dark Souls. The song we present today is a prime example of these inspirations. The band explain:

“‘Age of Chaos’ is a song about a king’s hubris, a witch’s creation, and the downfall of a kingdom they built together. The Dark Souls fans in the room will recognize this story, along with those told on rest of the EP, but if you’re not familiar – it’s a whole lot of demons, dragons, and death (metal).” Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Oct 072021

(Andy Synn encourages you to check out four albums from last month which you might have missed)

Well then… how exactly do you try and address a month like September, which was, arguably, the biggest and busiest month of the year for new releases yet?

Hell, my initial shortlist (sorry, “short” list) for this column was a good eight or nine albums long, an even though I successfully spun one of them off as part of last month’s edition of The Synn Report, that still left me with more options than I could possibly fit into one article.

So what I ended up doing, to be frank, was just picking not-entirely-at-random and going with my gut for this latest edition of “Things You May Have Missed”, which ultimately ended up covering an intriguing array of artists/albums from across the (Extreme) Metal spectrum.

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURIAL –“INNER GATEWAYS TO THE SLUMBERING EQUILIBIRUM AT THE CENTER OF THE COSMOS”

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Oct 072021

Today we present our second track premiere from the debut album by the Italian death metal band Burial in advance of its October 29 release by Everlasting Spew Records. When presenting the first premiere, a track named “Halls of the Formless Unraveler“, we summed up the music as “both hideous and haunting, assaulting and anguished, unearthly and oppressive,” with “the capacity to hypnotize, and to create harrowing emotional disturbances”.

What we have for you today is the album’s title track, “Inner Gateways To The Slumbering Equilibrium At The Center Of Cosmos“. It’s a mammoth song, both in its length and in the stunning impact of the nightmarish musical sensations it presents. It sounds like a monstrous intrusion from some horrifying realm beyond our own plane of existence. Continue reading »

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