NO CLEAN SINGING

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: IMMOLATION, ABYSMAL DAWN, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, WHITE VOID, LUNAR TOMBFIELDS, TYHJÄ, HELLFROST AND FIRE, EXIMPERITUS, SILENT LEGES INTER ARMA, VERMISST, THORN, KRALLICE, GERYON

Dec 132021

I guess you noticed that we didn’t post anything new at the site on Saturday or Sunday. In 12+ years of our existence that has happened only a couple of other times. I went to holiday events on Friday and Saturday nights, got trashed at both of them, and spent the days after in a state of crippling mental and physical disability. So that’s the explanation in a nutshell.

There’s obviously a lot of catching up to do in the race for staying on top of new songs and videos, which explains why I’ve resorted to this OVERFLOWING STREAMS format. I made a conscious effort to include a fair share of black metal since I failed to post a SHADES OF BLACK column yesterday. Speaking of which, if you haven’t noticed I’ll mention the good news that a new Funeral Mist album is set for release on December 17th HERE (it appears that it will be released in its entirety that day, without any advance song streams).

IMMOLATION (U.S.)

I thought about alphabetizing this collection, as I usually do, but I have to begin with Immolation. Last week one of the best death metal bands of all time divulged a video for the first single from a new album, and it’s a breathtaker — explosive, blazing, bludgeoning, exotic, and crazed. Here’s a band who seem immune to the deleterious effects of aging. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOATBLOOD — “BLOODDAWN / ANNIHILATION OF THIS WORLD”

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Dec 132021

I’ve spilled many words about Goatblood over the years in a seemingly endless quest to describe just how maliciously ruinous yet gripping their music is. I have another opportunity today, because we’re premiering a new two-part album named Blooddawn/Annihilation Of This World.

Hatred, disgust, and violence have always seemed to be the dominating inspirations for this malefic duo’s bestial black/death metal ministrations, the more willfully offensive the better. The music’s not ostentatious or pretentious — quite the opposite, which is part of its primeval appeal. All those ingredients are again present and accounted for in this new album, but the two halves of it nonetheless present slightly different takes on the band’s core malignancy of sound. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HLADOMRAK

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Dec 132021

(Today we present another interview by Comrade Aleks, and this one is a discussion with the founder of the Swedish black metal band Hladomrak, whose latest album was released this fall by Non Serviam Records.)

From a first look Hladomrak is Swedish band which is tagged in Bandcamp like “pagan black metal” and even “Scandinavian black metal”. That’s simple. But the band’s name consists of two Slavonic words Hald (“cold”) and Mrak (“darkness”) and its mastermind Evgenerator started his underground career in he Latvian black metal band Nightwing twenty years ago.

And that’s another story, as nowadays Hladomrak has its third album Archaic Sacrifice out on the well-known Non Serviam Records, and the very fact of that guarantees them proper exposure. They keep the dark flame burning using the occult language “Reithariil” in their lyrics. In addition, they sound “true” and they sound “evil”… so why not to try to find out more behind this story? That’s what we were trying to do during this interview with Evgenerator himself. Continue reading »

2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE DISAPPOINTING

LISTMANIA 2021 28 Responses »

Dec 132021

(Andy Synn officially begins “List Week” with a round up of the year’s most “Disappointing” releases)

As has become my custom I’m kicking off List Week with what is always the most controversial entry, my list of the most “disappointing” albums of the year.

Now, to be clear, this article isn’t about just attacking bands you don’t like. So if you’re coming here to performatively shit on someone else’s work just to make yourself look big and clever… jog on.

No, the point is simply to acknowledge that the artists we love sometimes let us down – whether that’s because they simply fail to live up to their own potential, or because their latest release is more hype than substance – and to give readers a place to communicate, and commiserate, and come to terms with the fact that even our favourite bands aren’t perfect.

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THEURGIA — “IRRADIANT”

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Dec 102021

The Venezuelan black metal band Theurgia, now based in Bogotá, Colombia, has already built an impressive and continually ambitious and improving discography that consists of a 2015 EP (Anti perpetuo), a 2017 debut album (Transformation), and a 2020 split with Hacavitz and Veldraveth (Tercer nadir venenoso). Theurgia is now adding to those impressive records with a second full-length entitled VIRTUE, which will be released in mid-January by the Mexican label Vomit Records.

Trying to succinctly sum up Theurgia’s evolving music isn’t an easy task, but at a high level we can say that it has succeeded in creating haunting and disturbing occult atmospheric sensations and coupled those with viscerally powerful and significantly heavy rhythms and frighteningly impassioned vocals. The music is relentlessly dramatic, formidably savage, and immersive in its effects.

Those qualities (and others) come through again in the song we’re premiering today from VIRTUE, via a lyric video. Its name is “Irradiant“. Continue reading »

2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE EPs

LISTMANIA 2021, SHORT BUT SWEET 15 Responses »

Dec 102021

(Next week Andy Synn begins his annual roll-out of year-end lists as part of his ongoing attempt to cover as many different albums from the last twelve months as possible – but, before then, he’d like to draw your attention to some of the shorter, but no less sweet, releases from 2021)

Well, well, well… it’s been a whole year since we last did this little dance hasn’t it?

Sure, it might seem like it’s been longer than that, for a number of different reasons that we really don’t have time or space to go into here, but it’s actually only been twelve months.

Those twelve months have been absolutely packed with music though, and today we’re going to be taking a look, and a listen, to some – not all, of course, just as many as I managed to actually hear, so don’t get too upset when you realise that this isn’t totally comprehensive – of the EPs that were released this year, beginning with a general round-up of everything that I can remember and recommend, and closing with a countdown of my ten favourite short-form releases of the year.

So let us begin… Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF “THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021”

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Dec 102021

Stereogum easily qualifies as one of the “big platform” web sites whose year-end lists of metal we perennially include in our LISTMANIA series. Of course, the site appeals to an audience of music fans much larger than devoted metalheads, but its staff includes a talented and tasteful group of metal writers who among other things are responsible for the site’s monthly “The Black Market” column, which has been a great source of discovery for extreme music for nine years running now.

It follows that Stereogum‘s annual metal list is one I especially look forward to seeing every year, and the 2021 edition appeared yesterday. It again consists of only 10 entries, collectively assembled by Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, and Wyatt Marshall. It’s preceded from this statement by Ian: “In keeping with the grand tradition, Aaron Lariviere would like to remind you that ‘this list will disappoint you.’ He’s right. Instead of bests, we pick favorites. That always makes for a fittingly weird list. Hell yeah.” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CENOBITE

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Dec 092021

(Comrade Aleks has brought us this very lively interview with Kostek Dolganov from the Russian death metal band Cenobite, whose Hellraiser-themed debut album Dark Dimension was released in the fall of 2020.)

It’s strange but Metal-Archives indicates that only three metal bands bear the name Cenobite, and it seems that only the Russian followers of Hellraiser’s Leviathan cult are active.

The Russian band was formed by Chamber of Torture members – Kostek Dolganov (bass, vocals), Sergey Necrom (guitars), and Nikita Stepanov (drums). Well, actually there were three other drummers in this lineup, and the lineup who recorded the Dark Dimension album a year ago consists of Kostek and Sergey alongside Andrey Andrianov (drums) and Paul Skallig (guitars), who have already left the band.

But the lineup’s changes are the last thing that should interest our good readers, so it’s better to point out a far more important thing – that Cenobite perform pretty strict and thick death metal, and they do it well. As for other stuff… Kostek Dolganov is the one who can tell this story better. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIHILITY — “WILL TO POWER”

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Dec 092021

“Go numb and let your mind go black, let your soul be engulfed and captured by the void, then let this be the vessel for all your pent-up aggression and rage, for this is Nihility and this is the void.” And with those words Vicious Instinct Records introduces Nihility‘s new album Beyond Human Concepts, which is set for release on January 8, 2022.

This Portuguese quartet, who draw their influences from both death and black metal, trace their roots back to 2012 and made their blasphemous full-length debut with 2019’s Thus Spoke The Antichrist. The new album again combines ingredients in a powerful way, inspiring thoughts of Cannibal Corpse’s insane brutality, Death’s technical dexterity, and the bitter-cold melodies of such bands as Necrophobic.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for “Will To Power“, the second single to be released from Beyond Human Concepts — and it’s one that will kick your adrenaline into overdrive. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KVAEN — “THE GREAT BELOW”

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Dec 092021

Almost two years ago Black Lion Records released the killer debut album (The Funeral Pyre) by the Swedish band Kvaen. In the run-up to that release we premiered its title track, published an interview of the band, and launched a review by our Andy Synn which lauded the record as “a tight, forty-five (and a half) minutes of rip-roaring, Thrash and Speed injected, Black Metal that takes no prisoners and shows no mercy”. He wrote these words too:

“There’s just so much love, so much passion, so much fire (and ice) driving this album that you can’t help but fall in love with it. It’s fearless, shameless, and absolutely relentless, in its pursuit of pitch-black perfection, throwing in more riffs, more hooks, and more epic, extravagant solos (trust me, when you reach that point in the title-track you’ll know what I’m talking about) with the sort of reckless abandon that suggests its creator is either a madman or a genius (and I know which one I’m betting on). Inarguably one of the best albums, front to back, to have been released so far this year”.

And so we’re understandably pretty damned excited to help spread the word that Kvaen‘s madman/genius creator Jakob Björnfot (along with an eye-opening lineup of guests) is returning with a sophomore full-length that the same Black Lion Records has set for release on March 25th of next year. The new one is named The Great Below, and once again we’re delighted to host the premiere of its title song. Continue reading »

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