AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LIEWEAVER — “OBSESSED WITH PURITY”

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Nov 302021
 

In September of this waning year the Italian label Lethal Scissor Records released a debut EP named The Origin by the Ukrainian extremists Lieweaver. The band first began to coalesce in October 2018 through the union of vocalist Vasiliy Kutsenko, guitarist Alex Choopov, and drummer Bogdan Fesenko. Soon, guitarist Alex Reshetnuk joined the group, and together they released a a debut single, “Paradox Of Creation“. A few months later bassist Bogdan Khoroshilov joined the band, and in February 2021 Ruslan Kovtun (keys/synth) completed the line-up for the recording of The Origin.

What we have for you today is a playthrough video for the EP’s closing track, “Obsessed With Purity“, and it features the talents of guitarists Choopov and Reshetnuk and bassist Khoroshilov. Watching them execute their missions within “Obsessed With Purity” is a fascinating thing to see, and the music has its own fascinations — in addition to delivering a bludgeoning beating. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 140): NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION

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Nov 302021
 

Recommended for fans of: Wake, Fawn Limbs, Ion Dissonance

Italian quintet Noise Trail Immersion are a perfect example of how the words we use to describe artists can have a big impact on how they’re perceived by potential listeners.

Case in point, you’ll often see them described as a Mathcore band – that’s apparently why Metal Archives won’t feature them – but that overly-simplistic designation fully fails to capture the totality of their sound, which is just as much an amalgam of chaotic Black Metal, Blackened Grind, and Dissonant Death Metal (and more).

But however you choose to describe them, with four albums under their belt – the most recent of which was released just last week – Noise Trail Immersion are long past due a major feature here at NCS, which is why I’ve chosen them for this edition of The Synn Report.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): HÄSSLIG, DET EVIGA LEENDET, TERMINARCH

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Nov 292021
 

Somehow civilization didn’t collapse yesterday when I failed to post the usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column, though it did leave a black hole in our site for the day. I had plans for most of the day outside the house that took me away from my computer, and I unexpectedly slept in, so didn’t have time to get it done before departing.

My tentative selections for the column as of yesterday were extensive, which also contributed to my inability to get it done. I thought about cutting back the size of the column today, in an effort to make sure I got it done without further delay, but decided to hell with that. So here it is in all its humongous, twisting and turning, glory, though with only compact commentary — and divided into two Parts, with the second Part projected for tomorrow.

HÄSSLIG (Spain)

Dissociative Visions/Mystískaos sent out messages over the Thanksgiving holiday announcing four new releases, accompanied by music premieres. Three of those are targeted for release in February, but Hässlig‘s debut album is out now in full. Well, it’s called a full-length, but it falls just shy of 19 minutes across 8 tracks. Its name is Guillotine, and that turns out to be an evocative description; it drops, and heads will roll. Continue reading »

LOCK UP: “THE DREGS OF HADES”

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Nov 292021
 

 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by deathgrind superstars Lock Up, just released by Listenable Records.)

While everyone else was enjoying their holiday here in the States and those of us who worked retail dreaded the following day, your reviewer here was waiting patiently for that dreaded following day as well. Not because there was some innate urge to go trample someone in the charge to catch not only a potentially deadly disease but also a deal on a TV, but because that Friday also delivered to us an absolute bludgeoning of new releases to listen to. What this also provided was a fantastic case of genre-whiplash as Voices, In Mourning, and today’s subject Lock Up would also release their newest additions to their collective works.

The Dregs Of Hades is Lock Up‘s fifth full-length release in a pretty long career, but one that has seen newer releases becoming far more frequent than the gaps left between their second and third albums. It also has some new additions to the group. Notably, Nick Barker and his fantastic neverending drum fills have bowed out and Misery Index/Pig Destroyer drum-kit annihilator Adam Jarvis is in. Also, one of the changes that equally grabbed press was the return of Tomas Lindberg back into the fold on vocals – tag-teaming alongside Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp for an interesting hardcore punk tinge of gang shouts and dual-pronged vocal attacks to the group’s constantly hair-on-fire style of grind music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REJEKTS — “ADAMO”

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Nov 292021
 

 

I was unfamiliar with the previous recordings of the Italian band REJEKTS, but experienced a reflexive thrill when I read that their new album Adamo embraces “grindcore, black metal and more”. Blackened grindcore, when done well, usually gets my motor running, but it turns out that perhaps the most meaningful part of that quoted PR passage is the part that says “and more”.

The lyrical themes of REJEKTS are politically charged, in keeping with their punk and grindcore ethos, and on Adamo they do indeed strike with black-metal bursts of blasting drums, grim and cutting tremolo’d riffs, and shrieking vocal intensity. But yes, there’s more going on here — a lot more.

Unlike standard grindcore, the songs are elaborate and constantly surprising, fueled with gripping mood-changing melodies, and as devoted to the creation of harrowing “atmosphere” (for want of a better word) as they are to pushing a listener’s adrenaline into overdrive. The album experience is disturbing, but absolutely riveting from start to finish. And thus we take great pleasure in presenting a full stream in advance of its rapidly approaching December 3rd release by Slaughterhouse Records. Continue reading »

VHS: “I HEARD THEY SUCK… BLOOD”

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Nov 292021
 

 

(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by Ontario-based VHS, which is set for a December 3rd release by Wise Blood Records.)

Halloween lasts all year long unless you’re a poser. So it doesn’t really matter that Canada’s death fiends VHS aren’t dropping their album I Heard They Suck…Blood until December 3rd, the shit is going to hit you the same regardless. Like Halloween, the influences VHS lean on feel eternal in Metal’s history. Take one part Scream Bloody Gore, mix in some early Autopsy, Repulsion, and more recently Exhumed, and you have a fist-pumping, gore-spewing recipe for old school death metal.

While not exactly breaking the mold, VHS take the sound of their predecessors and make it their own. They look to a time when death metal’s DNA still had a lot of thrash mixed up in it. Not the polished excellence of the Bay Area bands, but that nasty sound pioneered by Kreator and early Slayer. Oftentimes, such as on “Fake Blood and Push-Up Bras”, a track that features Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, things take on an almost punk feel. For those sections, the Autopsy influence gives way to Abcess, yet when they do slow down, the evil melodies of Chris Reifert’s home base return. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NECHOCHWEN, SHAPE OF DESPAIR, THUMOS, SPIRITWORLD, REPENTANCE, ULTRA SILVAM, KAATAYRA, MAC GOLLEHON

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Nov 272021
 


Nechochwen

 

Very early this morning I spent time listening to new music in order to select what I would want to recommend to you, and made the following selections. But then I unexpectedly had to spend a couple of hours on the job that pays me (advising world leaders on how to deal with problems that confound their feeble minds), and that left me with almost no time to provide my own (unnecessary) impressions of the music. So it will have to speak for itself, which is no problem because it speaks so fluently.

This is an idiosyncratic set of song choices, with very little to connect them to each other other than my attraction to them. But I think it will be a very interesting, albeit unpredictable, journey if you stick with everything through to the end.

NECHOCHWEN (U.S.)

After nearly 8 years since the release of the fabulous Heart of Akamon, West Virginia’s beloved Nechochwen have returned, unveiling the title track from their impending new album, Kanawha Black. Kanawha Black will be released worldwide by Bindrune Recordings in Spring/Summer of 2022. Continue reading »

ANOMALIE – TRANCEFORMATION

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Nov 262021
 

(Andy Synn encourages you all to embrace change with the new album from Anomalie, out now on AOP Records)

In a lot of ways the music scene is like an ecosystem.

From the apex predators to the bottom feeders, every band/artist has their particular place, their particular niche, in the natural order of things.

Some of these niches, of course, are more fertile – creatively speaking, I mean – than others, and some of them are simply… overpopulated… but, either way, it’s still fascinating to watch all the inner workings of the scene, from the macro down to the micro level, as bands and artists are continually dying and being born in a seemingly endless cycle.

It’s even more interesting when you start being able to map and follow the evolution of various bands, and Anomalie’s progress in particular has been truly fascinating to observe.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REDEMPTOR — “LES RUINES DE POMPEI”

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Nov 262021
 

 

The lineup of Redemptor includes current and former members of Decapitated, Vader, Hate, Sceptic, Sothoth, Banisher, Deivos, and more, which should be enough to attract your attention to their new album Agonia even if you hadn’t heard any of their previous works — which were the subject of NCS scribe Andy Synn‘s 93rd SYNN REPORT.

When Andy wrote in detail about the collective discography of Redemptor as it existed almost four years ago, he summed it up this way:

“Over the course of three albums and one EP the Polish quintet have steadily evolved their sound from the Schuldiner-esque strains of their debut album None Pointless Balance to the angular hooks and merciless precision of 4th Density and The Jugglernaut, with the process finally culminating in the gargantuan grooves and captivating atmospherics of last year’s utterly crushing Arthaneum.”

And now we have the band’s newest work,  Agonia. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOLLOW WOODS — “A FROZEN GLANCE”

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Nov 262021
 

 

Winter is upon us, and we have a soundtrack for its descent.

We know very little about the Finnish black metal band Hollow Woods, neither the precise location nor the identity of its member (or members). We know something about what inspired their debut album, Cold Winds Cleave the Earth, which will be released on the Winter Solstice, December 21st of this waning year.

We’re told that the artwork and the album’s themes were inspired by the Finnish linguist and ethnographer Kai Donner (1888-1935), taken during his expeditions to Siberia for the purpose of studying the Ugric and Samodeic peoples, including their languages.

Beyond that, the music must speak for itself as Hollow Woods works within a framework of devotion to the primal world and nature mysticism. The song we present today, “A Frozen Glance“, speaks in terms that are deeply haunting and harrowing. Continue reading »

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