AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SIREN’S RAIN — “KEEPERS”

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Dec 162021
 

The folk metal band Siren’s Rain hail from Tacoma, Washington, just down the highway from our site’s home base. Their debut full-length, Rise Forth, was released earlier this fall, and it delves into themes of abandonment, betrayal, hope, despair, and resilience, while joining together elements of heavyweight metallic extremity and such folk instrumentation as mandolin, harp, and the nyckelharpa.

What we have for you today is the premiere of an official music video for a song off Rise Forth called “Keepers“. The video features the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. As vocalist Rena Hellzinger tells us, “We wanted to do a ‘metal band in the woods’ video, as this song is about protecting the environment”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FESTERDECAY — “ABORTICIDE”

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Dec 162021
 

 

If you haven’t yet discovered the wickedness of FesterDecay, they formed in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan in 2015 with the aim of reviving goregrind the way Carcass did it with their 1988 full-length debut, Reek of Putrefaction.

FesterDecay have already released two demos and a split with the band Crash Syndrom, and now they’re releasing a new single named Aborticide. To get an idea of what’s coming, the band say their intent was “to make your eyeballs rot while you are eaten by maggots and body fluids drain from every hole of your body while you get ready for something bigger and tastier!”

“To make this single even more delicious,” they say, “we also added some infested entrails, a delicate touch of juicy pus and a live version of the track ‘Maggot Bath’! Blueearghhhh!”

Okay, are you ready to become befouled? Because we’re now presenting the song “Aborticide” in all its disgusting glory. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SYMBOLICAL — “EPIPHANY & REVIVAL”

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Dec 162021
 

 

The death metal mystics in Symbolical have embarked on a new musical campaign, the purpose of which is to draw you into the darkness that ancients believed was “the home of all that is not yet in form but holds the energy of the creative source”. These Polish musicians proclaim that “Symbolical is our darkness, filled with fat, gloomy, remorseless, simple, and morbid sounds which create and destroy sorrow, depression and grief.”

The new campaign consists of a three-part series of EPs, the first of which — Igne — will be released on December 25, with the next two coming in 2022. Each EP includes a trio of tracks, each of which will be presented through a video. Two of the tracks included within Igne have already premiered through videos, and today we present the third one, “Epiphany & Revival“. Continue reading »

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

 LISTMANIA 2021  18 Responses »
Dec 162021
 

Once again Andy Synn sets out to try and capture the best of the year in just ten albums.
Does he succeed? Let’s find out!

For those of you who might be new to the site, allow me to explain.

My “Critical Top Ten” isn’t quite the same as your usual “Top Ten” you’ll find elsewhere.

For one thing, it’s not a ranked list. Rather, it’s purposefully structured to present a – hopefully – broad overview of the year’s best albums, ones which I think exemplify, in different ways, the best of their respective genres, in an attempt to feature as many different faces and facets of the year’s Metal scene as I can fit into just ten selections.

Of course, this is inevitably coloured by my own tastes, no matter how much I might try to be objective about things, and limited both by what I’ve actually heard (I can’t judge it if I haven’t listened to it, after all) and by the fact that ten albums is never enough to fully represent the vibrant variety of the last twelve months (case in point, I had to drop both In Asymmetry and Dordeduh at the last minute in order to keep it down to ten).

But, still, I’ve spent many hours agonising over each one of these choices (including the “bonus” recommendations for those already familiar with my main selections) hoping that, collectively, they at least aspire to being a representative sample of 2021 – the albums which are, you might say, critical, to understanding and appreciating the last twelve months in Metal.

Tomorrow, of course, I’ll be publishing my list of my “Personal” favourites of the year, something which is generally a lot easier and a lot less pressure, but for now… enjoy!

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: MYRDØD — “THE MOURNING HOLLOW”

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Dec 152021
 

 

(Todd Manning provides the following introduction to our premiere of the new album by Myrdød, whose release is imminent.)

Emerging from the rural nether-swamps of Pennsylvania, the duo known as Myrdød are set to release their full-length The Mourning Hollow on December 17th courtesy of Wise Blood Records. Originally formed by the mysterious Søppelskaler, the project released several singles before enlisting collaborator Fractal Creature.

While many bands claim both death and black metal influences, Myrdød truly blend the two genres and not in a fanboy sense. The Mourning Hollow reeks of pure death mysticism.  Søppelskaler states the following: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BENEATH THE SOD — “BENEATH THE SOD”

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Dec 152021
 

 

“Beneath the Sod scrape back the top soil to lay bare all that is repulsive and feculent beneath. Narcotic and eldritch, Beneath the Sod erodes the listener with a writhing tapestry of industrial doom, grinding noise and hallucinatory horror. Punishing and bewildering, with each release Beneath the Sod sinks deeper into their unique and singularly maddening mire”.

Those are the accurately evocative words with which Cursed Monk Records introduces a new self-titled EP by this utterly diabolical Irish band, an EP set for release on December 17th that we’re presenting today in the full bloom of its terrors. We have more detailed commentary of our own, of course, but at least one more way of attempting to sum up the experience might be this:

It is deeply unsettling, even to the point of inducing queasiness in the listener, and brings forward the stuff of nightmares as old as humanity, and yet manages to become bewitching, to transfix attention, maybe in part because it is so fiendishly effective in crushing the soul and unhinging the mind. Continue reading »

2021– A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT

 LISTMANIA 2021  24 Responses »
Dec 152021
 

(Today Andy Synn brings you his suggestions for the albums which represent the top tier of this year’s metallic crop)

So we’re now halfway through “List Week”, although it’s probably more than that considering yesterday’s “Good” post was easily the most complicated and time-consuming of all the week’s articles.

Case in point, today’s round-up of the “Great” albums – the ones which I think represent the crème de la crème of their particular genre(s), whether by pushing them further or simply by exemplifying their very best qualities – is less than half the length of yesterday’s.

After all, while greatness comes in many forms, trying to define it, even pseudo-objectively, means you’ve got to be a little more selective.

Obviously, this list isn’t comprehensive or definitive in any way (never trust any site or reviewer who claims otherwise) since it’s impossible for any one writer to hear everything that comes out in a given year, and you’ll probably spot the notable omission of albums by Frontierer (don’t worry, DGR will probably include that one), Clouds (excellent on first listen, but needs more time to really sink in), Møl (not a bad band, but overhyped in my opinion) and many more that I simply didn’t get around to due to the fact that time remains annoyingly linear.

You’ll also note that I’ve left off both albums I was involved in this year since I’m not arrogant enough to review my own records, but if you fancy checking out Apathy Noir’s final full-length, At the Edge of the World, or Beyond Grace’s second album, Our Kingdom Undone, feel free to do so in your own time!

Anyway, with all that preamble now out of the way here’s a collection of what I thought were the “Great” albums of 2021… and if you don’t see it here, that’s probably because I didn’t hear it (or I forgot about it).

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEPLETED URANIUM — “BETA PARTICLES”

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Dec 142021
 

 

When does insanity begin to make sense? When you yourself begin to feel like you’re losing your mental moorings? When the whole fucking world seems to be going insane around you? Or when you realize there’s an appealing method to the madness you witness? Or some combination of all of the above?

These ruminations were spawned by listening to Origins, the new record by the brawlers and mad scientists in the Canadian band Depleted Uranium, which is set for release on January 28th of the coming new year. The music (which could be thought of as a blending of powerviolence and math metal) genuinely sounds insane — furiously so — and yet something about the experience makes sense. Not just because it sounds like people throwing away mental shackles and conventions, but also because the music simultaneously gets its hooks in your head. There’s a sense of order and precision of execution in it, at the same time as it seems completely disruptive of order. Continue reading »

2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GOOD

 LISTMANIA 2021  22 Responses »
Dec 142021
 

(Andy Synn continues his annual round-up of the year in Metal)

Now that all the furore over yesterday’s debacle of disappointments has (hopefully) blown over, it’s time to get into the good stuff.

And I do mean the “Good” stuff, as while the wide variety of albums featured in this article (some 200+ by last count) run the gamut from just “pretty good” to “almost great”, they all have different things to recommend about them, some more so than others, obviously, and my hope is that this list will help at least some of you discover – or even rediscover – a bunch of new bands you’d otherwise overlooked.

Because, let’s face it, the real purpose of this particular piece – which, to be clear, is in no way comprehensive, as there’s lots of things I didn’t get chance to hear (and probably several things I did but have forgotten to include) – is simply to provide a useful round-up for our readers to pick and choose from at their leisure so they can, hopefully, catch up on some of what they might have missed!

In that spirit I’ve made some slight tweaks to the formatting this year, both to make things easier on myself and to make it easier for our audience, so – without further ado – here’s all the new releases from 2021 that I think didn’t quite make the cut for the “Great” list (although some of them came very, very close).

And, bear in mind if you don’t see something you’re looking for here there’s always a chance it will make an appearance in tomorrow’s list!

Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KADAVEREICH — “RADIANCE OF DOOM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 142021
 

 

On December 18th Godz Ov War Productions will release Radiance of Doom, the debut EP of the Russian blackened death metal band Kadavereich. Apart from a reference that the line-up includes members of Grond, Act Of God, and Gwarloth, Godz Ov War gave us no hints about the nature of the music the band had created when it asked that we host the EP’s full streaming premiere today. And thus the feeling of shock and awe that we experienced when listening to it was all the more stupefying.

In a nutshell, the sonic power of the EP is immense, and its impact is utterly devastating (but equally electrifying). It chokes the senses, blots out the ability to think of anything else, and becomes an all-consuming, bone-smashing, mind-mauling experience in remorseless destruction, abject terror, and paralyzing agony. If you’re looking for a transfixing visceral experience and don’t mind being subjected to ruthless audio ruination, you’ve come to the right place. Continue reading »

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