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 »

LISTMANIA 2021: REVOLVER’S “25 BEST ALBUMS OF 2021”

 LISTMANIA 2021  9 Responses »
Nov 252021
 

 

As part of our annual LISTMANIA series we re-publish “best album” lists from some of the the few surviving print publications that cover metal, and from a handful of “big platform” sites that include metal in their on-line coverage, along with a range of other music genres and other aspects of popular culture.

Of course, as soon as you see the words “popular culture” you know those lists aren’t going to devote too much attention to the kind of music we cover at NCS. But it’s still amusing, and sometimes even edifying, to get a glimpse of what these “taste-making” organs are telling the more above-ground world are the year’s best metal releases.

Today Revolver magazine published their list of the “25 Best Albums of 2021” on-line. Revolver claims that “millions of passionate consumers” visit their website and view their videos across desktop and mobile; that the print edition is the “biggest hard-rock and metal magazine in North America,” with a subscriber base that’s three times larger than the “next biggest U.S. metal print publication”; and that they have a “highly engaged social following with over 1B impressions per month across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE LAST OF LUCY — “TEMPLE OF RATI”

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Nov 252021
 

 

The cover art created by Par Olofsson for Moksha, the new album by the technical death metal band The Last of Lucy, is an immediately arresting and disturbing vision, grotesquely alien and yet fascinating and formative of intrigue.

In those respects it turns out to be a fitting adornment to the new album, whose music the band have refined into an extremely vicious, often unearthly, yet undeniably captivating sonic creature. And much like the cover art, the music is also elaborate in its creation of menace and mayhem, and far from commonplace — as you’ll discover in our premiere of an album track named “Temple of Rati“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABHORRATION — “AFTER WINTER COMES WAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 252021
 

The Norwegian trio Abhorration (guitarist/vocalist Magnus, bassist Andreas, and drummer Øyvind) are a relatively new formation, having started life just last year, but their resumes portended quality, even before any of the music became public — because those members hail from such bands as Condor, Nekromantheon, Hecatomb, Resonaut, Purple Hill Witch, and Obliteration.

We hope that the foregoing list of bands has already peaked your interest in discovering what Abhorration‘s music is all about (it certainly peaked ours). The publicity distributed by Invictus Productions, which will release the band’s debut EP After Winter Comes War, makes further reference to death metal in the vein of such legends as classic Sadistic Intent, Morbid Angel, Possessed, and early Vader, which kindles even more interest.

All of this created high expectations in these quarters, and it’s such a pleasure to proclaim that those expectations were not merely met but exceeded. And thus it’s with genuine delight that we present a full stream of this heart-pounding EP for you today. Continue reading »

HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY TO US!

 Birthday Posts, Metal News  29 Responses »
Nov 252021
 

 

On November 21, 2009, I made the first post at this blog. On the 21st day of every November since then, I’ve made a post celebrating our birthday — except this year, when I completely forgot to do it. No one else who writes here or visits here seems to have remembered either, or maybe they remembered and were just quietly laughing at my brain fart. This year November 21 was a Sunday, and my spouse and I had house guests at the time, so I offer that as an excuse.

But this year the lapse isn’t as bad as it could have been, because by happenstance I remembered our anniversary today, which is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., and that works out well because giving thanks is ultimately what these annual birthday posts are really all about. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GORE BRIGADE — “THE ROT BECOMES YOU”

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Nov 242021
 

 

The three veteran Swedish musicians whose music is the subject of the following premiere proclaim their love for blood spatter and horror in the very name they chose for their collective enterprise: Gore Brigade. And of course it’s death metal they chose for the audio expression of their deviant adorations, a natural expression given the other bands on the resumes of this trio, who are: Guitarist Ludvig Johansson (Defiatory), drummer Jon Skäre (Defiatory, Wachenfeldt), and vocalist/lyricist Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Massacre) (who coincidentally was the subject of an interview we published earlier today).

Well, but death metal is a big tent that houses manifold mutations of sound, so what stylistic ingredients go into the musical blood cravings of Gore Brigade? Those will be fully revealed on December 10th, when Redefining Darkness Records will cremate the desiccated corpse of this year by releasing Gore Brigade‘s self-titled six-track EP, but today we give you a twisted taste of what’s coming through our premiere of an EP track named “The Rot Becomes You“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MONOTHEISTIC ENSLAVEMENT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 242021
 

 

In tale June of this year we premiered and reviewed an EP by the Swedish band Godhead Machinery named Masquerade Among Gods, which added to a discography that then included two full-lengths, Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019). We offered these thoughts about it (among many others):

“Through the four songs on this EP, when absorbed straight through, Godhead Machinery have created a truly harrowing and haunting experience. The music is multi-faceted and intricate, revealing (in the simplest of genre terms) an amalgamation of black, death, doom, and progressive metal that’s capable of generating visions of frightening calamity, earth-shaking upheaval, and terrible grandeur, but also casting mesmerizing spells and plunging the listener into moods of soul-shaking sorrow”.

Conceptually, the EP was connected to a then-upcoming album, both of them spawned from what the band stands for in general, which is to serve as “a tool to analyze how religious beliefs infiltrate laws, policy, behaviors, and moral codes of today’s society”. Now that album is fast approaching its November 26 release by Black Lion Records. The album’s name is Monotheistic Enslavement, and today you’ll have the opportunity to experience all of its tremendous power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VORGA — “DEATH MANIFESTING”

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Nov 242021
 

 

The title of Vorga‘s 2019 debut EP, Radiant Gloom, was itself a signpost to this German black metal band’s sound, and serves as a signpost to what their first album holds in store as well. The title of the new album, Striving Toward Oblivion, also forecasts the affecting darkness in the music, and yet it is indeed also radiant.

The album’s song titles and cover art point the way toward an excursion into the stunning expanse of the cosmos, but one whose ultimate destination is death manifesting — which happens to be the title of the album’s closing track that we’re presenting today.

This new song is a multi-faceted and thoroughly captivating one, which is emblematic of Vorga‘s many strengths and of the progression their songwriting has taken since that debut EP. It’s rhythmically arresting at a primal level, so much so that it’s capable of shaking listeners like rag dolls, but it’s also atmospheric, emotionally evocative, and memorable, blending moods of desperation and wonder with compelling intensity. Continue reading »

DAKHMA – BLESSINGS OF AMURDAD

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Nov 242021
 

(Andy Synn steps off the beaten path once more to discuss the new album by Swiss extremists Dakhma)

Genre terms – Death Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Doom Metal, and so on – are, ultimately, simply a tool like any other.

And, like any tool, they can be used productively, or counter-productively, depending on how (and how carefully) they’re employed.

For myself I find them to be very useful (especially when I’m trying to describe, in words, the experience of listening to music which many of my readers won’t actually have heard yet) but they’re certainly not the be-all and end-all by any means.

Case in point, the words “Blackened Death Metal” have become synonymous with the imperious, almost militaristic, blast-driven sound made famous by bands like Behemoth, Hate, Azarath, etc.

But there’s far more to this particular sub-genre than that, as demonstrated by the new album from Swiss duo Dakhma, whose more abrasive and arcane approach positions them more as sonic and spiritual cousins to the likes of Teitanblood, Vassafor, and Altarage.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JONNY PETTERSSON (MASSACRE, WOMBBATH)

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Nov 242021
 

 

(It seems that Swedish songwriter, musician, and vocalist Jonny Pettersson is always extremely busy. This year he participated in a new album by Massacre recently released by Nuclear Blast, a new album by Wombbath that’s coming out in late December via Transcending Obscurity, and a lot more. In this new interview NCS contributor Karina Noctum caught up with him to discuss these events.)

Massacre has always been one of my preferred bands when it comes to American DM, so when I heard that a new album was finally in the making, it was pretty awesome news. It became even more interesting upon learning that there were talented and experienced Swedish and Norwegian musicians participating in on the album. So I took the opportunity to talk with Jonny Pettersson, not only about Massacre’s Resurgence, but also about Wombbath’s upcoming release, Agma, which is definitely a must for fans of Swedish DM. Continue reading »

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