GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, JANUARY 2022

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262022
 


Confess

 

(Gonzo returns with his first 2022 end-of-month group of recommended new releases.)

With the craze of Listmania 2021 now in our rearview mirrors and January already on its way out, this edition of my monthly roundup took me by complete surprise for a few reasons:

  1. The unstoppable storm of amazing music we saw in ’21 has not slowed down a single bit
  2. January by itself has blindsided me with a slew of unexpectedly awesome new releases
  3. I was going to do a “things I wish I included in my top 20 of ‘21” post, but the above reasons compelled me to change my plans.

I could’ve made this post way longer, but in the interests of not droning on into a rambling ocean of incoherent enthusiasm, here are five albums that should be on your radar as we jump into a new year of metal. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2021’s MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 15): SKEPTICISM, RISE TO THE SKY, DAWN OF SOLACE

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  2 Responses »
Jan 252022
 


Skepticism

 

In looking back at the songs I’ve included in this list so far (you can see all of them here), it occurred to me that I hadn’t paid much attention to doom. That realization influenced me in the choices I made for today’s installment, which gives glimpses of the genre’s night-blooming diversity, because part of my aim in doing this list is to provide snapshots of what the last year brought us in metal, across a swath of genres.

But of course the songs must be infectious to qualify, and these are, even if the contagion they bring us is heartbreak.

SKEPTICISM (Finland)

Skepticism is the first funeral doom band whose music I ever heard, long ago. It was a gripping discovery. Skepticism always draws my attention for that reason, but also because of the band’s remarkable consistency over a career that spans three decades. Their latest work, 2021’s Companion, was as powerful and immersive as I’ve always come to expect. As is often the case with stand-out albums, it was home to more than one song I wanted to put on this list, but alas, my self-imposed rule compelled me to pick only one. Continue reading »

A REMINDER: THE NEXT NCS GUEST DJ SPOT AT GIMME METAL IS… TODAY!

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

We’ve already given you a heads-up that today — January 25th — three of our writers (DGR, Andy Synn, and Islander) will again be appearing as guest DJs on a two-hour show at the Gimme Metal online music platform. We promised you a reminder, for those who are calendar-challenged, and this is it.

The way the show works is that Gimme Metal will broadcast a playlist of songs we three chose, interspersed with our recorded dialogue about the music (and possibly other words of timeless wisdom, or not), and we will also be on-line to participate in live chats with anyone who drops by to listen.

Today’s show will air at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 7:oo pm Eastern Time, midnight in the UK, and 1:00 a.m. on January 26 CET. If you haven’t listened to Gimme Metal before, here’s how: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEEPER GRAVES — “THE COLOSSAL SLEEP”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

 

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks, lured away from the usual ferocity by music that beckons like ghost lights on the other side of our midnight walls of thorns and vipers. It conjures spells and splendid visions, and it often irresistibly quickens the pulse, but the lights are ephemeral and hopes are dashed where these alluring wraiths reside.

The allure of the new album by Deeper Graves that we’re about to premiere in full is powerful. The Colossal Sleep combines visceral rhythms and mesmerizing soundscapes that shine like moon-lit mists and reach heights of even greater splendor, but it harbors harsher aspects as well, and it doesn’t go too far to say that there is a deep and haunting darkness at its core. It often makes you want to bounce, but the gloom of sorrow persists. Continue reading »

AGE OF APOCALYPSE: “GRIM WISDOM”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

 

(Wil Cifer made an unexpected discovery when coming across a new album by the New York hardcore band Age of Apocalypse, which was just released by Closed Casket Activities, and he provides an enthusiastic review below.)

This album was on my top 10 most anticipated albums of the year list. Where most albums on the list I had not heard, the stream of this was sitting in my in-box. However I tell record labels this all the time, that I will only listen to a stream a few times. I either review it as I listen or just move on to the next album waiting in the in-box. I need to have an album on my iPod, to provide the soundtrack for my day in order to fully absorb and unlock the creative puzzle of what it is about. Otherwise I am mainly going off my first impressions, which might not be wrong, but are not fully explored or researched if you will.

My first impression of this album was that it could have come out in the ’90s. This is a compliment, for the ’90s were a very awkward decade for metal. While death metal really came into its own, other genres found themselves trying to shed the arena sparkle of the ’80s as they were caught between grunge and a hard place.

Some great albums emerged in that period that were not affected by the collision of the decades, one of them being Life of Agony’s 1993 album The River Runs Red. An album this band would have drawn inspiration from as they share a great deal of common ground with it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MALAURIU

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks had a conversation with Schizoid, the mastermind of the Italian black metal band Malauriu, whose latest release was a 2021 split with Malvento and Abigail.)

I have a very vague impression regarding the Italian black metal scene, and this interview with Schizoid (a.k.a. Asmodeus) helped me to learn a bit more about the Sicilian non-doom underground.

Schizoid started in the thrash / black duet Urlo Nero in 2011, then after its disbanding in 2013 he founded Malauriu (black metal) and its far less productive twin Sintenza (black metal). A year ago he returned to his thrash / black roots with the Ossario band, but after all Malauriu remains his main creature.

So how do the dark powers work through this band? Schizoid knows. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2021’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 14): PORTRAYAL OF GUILT, MERGER REMNANT, ARX ATRATA

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  3 Responses »
Jan 242022
 


Portrayal of Guilt

 

Today I begin the final full week for the rollout of this list (plus Monday of next week, and maybe including next weekend too). I did promise myself I would stop at the end of January, even though I know I’ll feel the list will be incomplete.

I have a hard time explaining why I grouped the following three songs together. I think there are a few stylistic similarities in the records that included the first two, but only a few. The third one really isn’t connected to the others at all. I guess I just wanted to make sure I added them to the list before running out of gas by February 1st. To see the preceding songs on the list, GO HERE.

PORTRAYAL OF GUILT (U.S.)

Let me tell you, this first pick was a damned difficult one — because this Texas band released a bunch of songs in 2021 that made it onto my list of candidates (with a lot of them suggested by our readers). Those candidates were spread across two albums the band released last year (We Are Always Alone and Christfucker), and a split with Chat Pile. To make the choice even more difficult, these dudes are such creative sonic alchemists that the songs go in very different directions, making the decision something of an apples-oranges comparison. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INSINERATEHYMN — “INTRANSITIVE SANCTION”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 242022
 

All is fire in the premiere we’re now presenting, from the very name of the band — Insineratehymn — to the conflagration consuming the demonic figures in the album’s fantastic cover art, and the blood-boiling heat of the song we’re premiering.

That song, “Intransitive Sanction“, comes from this Los Angeles band’s second full-length, Disembodied, which has been readied for a February 25 release by Blood Harvest Records, in conspiracy with Rotted Life. As the accompanying PR materials correctly observe, the new album presents “a masterclass in ’90s death metal, from the spiraling vortexes of early Tampa to the sewage to come from New York, on to eerie emanations from Europe and the dissonance at the dawn of the new millennium”.

And thus the new album truly does represent a step up from Insineratehymn‘s promising debut in 2018, an elevation that becomes quickly apparent when you hear the lethally contagious “Intransitive Sanction“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART II): PURE WRATH, IN APHELION, HELL MILITIA, SEPULCHRAL, OLDE THRONE, HELTEKVAD, FUNESTUS

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jan 242022
 

 

I hope you saw Part I of this column yesterday, because in my humble opinion it includes a lot of great charred music. The same is true of this second Part, even though it doesn’t involve quite as many musical twists and turns as the first one.

PURE WRATH (Indonesia)

This Indonesian black metal project has been a favorite of mine since discovering the first advance track from its debut album Ascetic Eventide back in 2016. Since then the band has moved from a local label (Hitam Kelam Records) to Pest Productions (for the second album) and then to Debemur Morti Productions, which released the 2020 EP The Forlorn Soldier and will soon release the band’s third album Hymn to the Woeful Hearts (which includes drumming by ex-White Ward drummer Yurii Kononov).

The second single from the new album, “Presages From A Restless Soul“, came out last week. I’d like to share the inspiration for the song as described by the band’s mastermind Januaryo Hardy: Continue reading »

SLOWBLEED – THE BLAZING SUN, A FIERY DAWN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 242022
 

(Andy Synn would like to tempt you all with a taste of the new album from  Slowbleed)

We all have our guilty pleasures, right?

Case in point, I’ve recently been enjoying a fun little show by the name of Dishmantled (hosted by the inimitable Titus Burgess) which tasks two chefs to recreate a specific dish… after it’s been blasted at them by a cannon.

It’s a ridiculous premise, obviously, but what makes it even more ridiculous is that the contestants are blindfolded during the first stage of the competition, meaning they can’t see what’s being blasted at them, they can only touch and taste whatever they manage to scrape off the walls.

There’s lots of reasons I like the show (it’s short, undemanding, and undeniably entertaining), but it also reminds me of what writing about music can feel like sometimes – blindly groping around trying to guess what different influences contribute to a band’s sound in the hope that you can then communicate this to your audience.

So, in that spirit, please join me on an audio-culinary journey as I try to suss out exactly what ingredients make up this particularly piquant platter of meaty Metallic Hardcore from Californian crossover crew Slowbleed.

Continue reading »

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