NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ASCIAN

Dec 212021

(This time Comrade Aleks has shared with us an interview of one of the guitarists from the German band Ascian, who released an excellent debut album last year and, as you shall see, are hard at work on the next one.)

Another promo album which I almost lost in the maelstrom of 2021 is Ascian’s Elysion, released on October 2nd, 2020. The time has come, I’ve opened the necessary folder, and was fascinated with their very first song ‘Misery Seeds’, which offers to listeners a flawless, solemn, doom death mass with emotional delivery of combined clean and growling vocals.

The entire album grants pure pleasure, with a slow dive into the melancholic void this German quartet easily create with their instruments. And then I found the official video for Ascian’s ‘Dead Will Carry the Dead’… Who could expect that such a young band pays so much attention to visual aspects as well?

Now that you’ve got an idea what Ascian is about, I believe I can hand it over to the band’s guitarist P. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DØDSKVAD — “KRØNIKE II”

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Dec 202021

With Krønike II, now set for a January 20 release by Caligari Records, the Norwegian death metal band Dødskvad continue on the journey through the old legends of their homeland which they began on Krønike I in 2020. Founder E.R. (Desolation Realm, Stygian Ruin) is still at the helm, joined by members of Obliteration and Sovereign (among other bands). Taking their inspiration from Norse myths, they’ve compiled four tracks, and they introduce the soundscapes with these words:

“In the midst of bloody battlefields; through thundering heavens; on the outer branches of the world tree; within the deep caverns beneath the roots. Across a blackened land, fate strikes dissonant chords.”

Dissonance does play a role in these songs, along with other ingredients that make them disconcerting. But every song is multi-faceted in ways that constantly will keep listeners on their toes — and rock them back on their heels, with heads spinning. True to the inspirations, the music also sounds otherworldly, manifesting strange and often terrifying visions, a changing pattern of cold dread and crazed exhilaration. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BENTHIK ZONE — “NA ILUMINAÇÃO DO PRESENTE”

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Dec 202021

The British label Onism Productions recommends the new album εἴδωλον (“eidolon” in English) by the atmospheric/progressive black metal duo Benthik Zone for fans of Esoctrilihum, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Darkspace. When I saw that I whispered a “hell yes”. Reading further, I saw that it was also being recommended for fans of Summoning, Blut Aus Nord, and Leviathan. Another “hell yes”.

And then I read that the instruments used on the album include didgeridoo, transverse flute, flute, berimbau, and hangpan. The band’s description of the inspirations and intentions behind the album created even more intrigue — but we’ll get to that a bit later.

Of course we have all learned to take FFO references with a few grains of salt, and to make up our minds based on the music itself. So that you can begin to make up your own minds, what we have for you today is the premiere of the first single from εἴδωλον in advance of its January 28, 2022 release. The song’s name is “Na iluminação do presente“. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END LIST EXTRAVAGANZA: 50-41

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Dec 202021

(Today we begin the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list with Part One, encompassing his picks from 50 through 41.)

When I started this list I had 65 albums and EPs that I had set aside to construct my year end list out of. I’m not saying this to brag about how much music I’m able to digest throughout the year, because in the face of some of our other writers around here it’s pretty clear that I’m not anywhere close to being able to do that. I say this because in all honesty I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do my usual ridiculous top fifty this year.

For a large chunk of it I couldn’t even remember what had come out. Nothing was sticking – save for the few I had written down in my ongoing text file that morphs into this list – and more often that not it felt like there was a haze hovering over much of 2021, as if we were still trapped within the confines of 2020 and that year had just never ended.

With so many bands unable to tour or even play shows, and those that were brave enough to do so often cancelling multiple dates when the inevitable COVID-positive test would happen, it seemed like now was the time for any sort of EP/Single release they could pull off. In that case many bands even went year-over-year with releases, so there are some names here in very similar spots where you might find yourself saying, ‘But we saw that last year too!’. Don’t worry, I thought the same thing.

Taking this list down from 65 – which I reiterate is an incredible number of releases that I would be deeming worthy – to 50 was surprisingly difficult. So much so that it was tempting to do the usual ‘on the fence’ section of the list, and I just may as I get deeper in, but it also may be tempting to do a segment on some of the more notable absences in this year-end list. We’ll see where the winds take us. It may also be that my fingers will have cramped up by then.

Preamble out of the way, let’s begin our tour through what may have in fact been the year 2021, no matter what my brain seems to think. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: ROLLING STONE’S LIST OF THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021

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Dec 202021

Here’s another entry in the part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy where we re-post lists of metal from “big platform” web sites and print zines — the kind of places that get a lot more eyeballs on them than filthy little metal-only hovels like ours.

Rolling Stone magazine should need no introduction, so I’m not going to provide one. Last year we didn’t include a Rolling Stone metal list in our year-end LISTMANIA series — because they didn’t publish one. I thought they’d jettisoned the idea permanently, but their Top 10 metal list has made a return this year — and it’s better than I expected it would be. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: USTALOST, DIABOLISCHES WERK, CLAMOSUM, VALRAVNE

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Dec 192021

News flash: If you don’t get shit-faced at night, sleep half the next day away and wake up with a crippling hangover, you can get more stuff done. Unlike last weekend, I didn’t do any of that this weekend. Turns out that parking on the couch with snoozing cats and watching movies while sipping moderate amounts of booze works out a lot better when it comes to writing for NCS the next day. And so I got this column done in time to blacken the sabbath, as usual.

The following selections are a reminder that lots of new music is still coming out near year-end, even though it’s less likely to get noticed now. We still have the winter solstice ahead of us, and especially in the pagan-influenced realms of black metal we’ll undoubtedly see a surge that day, even with only 10 days left in 2021 at that point. By all means, enjoy all the YE lists that are coming out here and elsewhere, but don’t completely take your eyes off what else December is bringing us.

USTALOST (U.S.)

Anything connected to the NYBM band Yellow Eyes is going to be worth a listen, and that’s certainly true of Ustalost, even if you missed the project’s tremendous full-length debut in 2016 (The Spoor of Vipers). The connection in this case is that Yellow Eyes vocalist/guitarist Will Skarstad is the man behind Ustalost. Under the Ustalost name he released a new album named Before the Glinting Spell Unvests on December 17th (via Gilead Media). Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: NAPALM DEATH, WIEGEDOOD, THULCANDRA, DESTRUCTION, DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER, CHOROSIA, SHAMBLES, DEAD CHASM, FURIS IGNIS

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Dec 182021

photo credit: Jelena Jakovljevic Photography

We had a very good week here at NCS, with a sharp increase in visitors largely driven by Andy Synn‘s five-part of year-end lists. It has warmed our cold dead hearts to see the positive responses and the gratitude expressed to him for the ton of work he devoted to developing those lists. Maybe we would be better off just stopping there rather than risk drowning our visitors in more lists (or rather, those visitors who weren’t already drowned during the week that just ended), but we have a lot more to share in the next couple of weeks.

Next week we’ll have DGR‘s lists, plus lists from Neill Jameson, Wil Cifer, Professor D. Grover the XIIIth, and Seb Painchaud (of Tumbleweed Dealer), and I’m expecting to receive even more lists from other NCS writers and old friends which we’ll publish before the year expires. And let’s not forget that our big collection of year-end reader lists continues to grow (you can see those, and contribute to them, in the comments to this post).

Meanwhile, I’m beginning to figure out what will go into this year’s list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and of course I’m continuing to make a (largely unsuccessful) effort to keep abreast of new songs and videos — which continue to emerge every day despite the rapid approach of the holiday season and the expiration of 2021. Which brings me to today’s gigantic collection….

NAPALM DEATH (UK)

I’m probably the last metalhead on Earth to check out the new Napalm Death single, “Narcissus“. I knew it was out there, but kept forgetting to hit it. It’s on a forthcoming ND EP named Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of Throes, which includes previously unreleased material and cover songs. Barney Greenway described the new song thusly: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PANTHEIST

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Dec 172021

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks catches up again with Kostas Panagiotou, mastermind of Pantheist, whose latest album Closer to God was released earlier this month.)

Years ago Pantheist was known as a funeral doom metal band, international to some degree, and sometimes experimental. Twenty years passed since the release of their first demo 1000 Years and Pantheist went far away from the point where they were back then. 21 years, 24 different members, 6 full-length albums, and one man who holds this project on his shoulders – it’s obvious that he’s free to do whatever he finds necessary to this creature, whatever he feels right.

It’s Kostas Panagiotou who not only performs the duties of vocalist and keyboard player, but also writes music and lyrics and produces Pantheist. Is it a one-man band indeed? We’ll know it soon, of course. The new album Closer to God was born during this anxious and stressful lockdown, as Kostas lists the ingredients of the new material — “the ghost of Ennio Morricone; the soundtrack of videogames endlessly played; an unfulfilled need for connection; an acute awareness of the futility of it all…”

The album was planned to be a single track, but after all there are four gorgeous tracks on the verge of different genres yet based on a funeral doom fundament. The result of Pantheist‘s recording sessions is inspiring, the band gives some food for the soul and the brains, and Kostas serves it for us in this interview. Continue reading »

2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP TEN

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Dec 172021

(Andy Synn closes out his annual List-Week with a ranked round-up of his personal favourites)

And here we are, finally. Can you hear my sigh of relief ?

Don’t get me wrong, doing all these round-ups and lists is, ultimately, quite a rewarding experience – especially when people tell me that it’s help them discover, or re-evaluate, something they might not otherwise have listened to – but it’s also quite a bit of work, and no matter how early I start putting it all together I somehow always end up having to finish things off in a rush at the last minute.

Thankfully my final list of the week is, this year at least, relatively easy, as I’m 99% certain as I write this that I know exactly which albums I want to include as part of my “Personal Top Ten”.

These albums aren’t necessarily the biggest, or the best, or the most popular/well-known releases by any means, but they’re definitely the ones which have resonated with me the most on a purely personal level.

So let’s just crack on, shall we, and give you all some insight into my listening tastes/habits this year.

FUNERAL MIST: “DEIFORM”

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Dec 172021

Funeral Mist‘s last album, Hekatomb, dropped in June 2018 without any preview. I rushed to listen to it, and rushed a review into print, more to urge it upon listeners than to give it a carefully considered assessment, especially an assessment that would compare it to the band’s preceding albums.

Well, today NoEvDia released a new Funeral Mist album named Deiform, and I’m basically doing the same thing.

This time I actually received an advance copy, but it wasn’t very much in advance of today’s release and it came at a time when I couldn’t drop everything else (much as I wanted to) and really become immersed in what Arioch had created this time around.

So once again, although I’m providing my immediate impressions of the album, I’m mainly urging people to listen to it, especially year-end list-makers who haven’t finished their lists, because Deiform has the capacity to up-end the process. Continue reading »

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