A DGR REVIEW ARCHIVE (PART 3): BE’LAKOR AND MAYSALOON

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Nov 172021
 

 

(This is the third Part of a week-long series of reviews by DGR as he tries to clear out a back-log before year-end Listmania descends.)

Be’Lakor – Coherence

Australia’s prog-death long-form masters Be’lakor are now five albums deep into their career, with their latest record – and second for Napalm Records – Coherence releasing just a few days before Halloween this year. Despite the five-year gap between Coherence and its older sibling Vessels, there’s no sign whatsoever that Be’lakor are making any attempt to change what works for them.

Since 2009’s Stone’s Reach the run-times for their albums have consistently stayed within the fifty-five minute to one-hour range. Part of the experience has been listening to how the band try to earn their time with you, because in all honesty, with the absolute flood of metal that is out these days, it’s a pretty big ask that you invest an hour of your time with one specific group.

In Be’lakor‘s case though, they’ve nearly always earned the right to do so and have proven time and time again that their ‘no part left behind’ writing style can be made to work within the confines of the prog-minded melodeath scar that the band have carved into the Earth. Continue reading »

VERTEBRA ATLANTIS – LUSTRAL PURGE IN CERULEAN BLISS

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Nov 162021
 

(The year may be winding down, but it’s not over yet, and there are many more gems for Andy Synn still to uncover, including this one by Vertebra Atlantis, which was recently released by I, Voidhanger Records)

There are, let’s be honest, quite a few ridiculously talented individuals in the Metal scene, a revelation which I’m sure comes as a surprise to exactly none of you.

Take Gabriele Gramaglia (aka G.G.), the mastermind behind The Clearing Path, Cosmic Putrefaction, and many other projects (several of which we’ve also covered here at NCS in the past), whose songwriting skills and instrumental abilities are, by this point at least, pretty much beyond question.

The thing is, however, that while I absolutely loved Watershed Between Earth and Firmament (and still do) nothing else that he’s done has quite affected me in the same way, even though I’ve still been able to appreciate both the sheer amount of talent and the obvious dedication to his craft he’s shown with each and every piece of work since then.

That all changed recently though, with the release of Lustral Purge in Cerulean Bliss, the debut album by Vertebra Atlantis.

Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW ARCHIVE (PART 2): ZORNHEYM AND BROKEN GLASS SANCTUARY

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Nov 162021
 

 

(This is the second Part of a week-long series of reviews by DGR as he tries to clear out a back-log before year-end Listmania descends.)

Zornheym – The Zornheim Sleep Experiment

We do love a spectacle around these here parts, and the recent release of The Zornheim Sleep Experiment is certainly one of those. The group’s second album takes us back within their concept-album universe, guiding us into the darkened halls of a comically evil mental asylum and the psychological-horror-movie events that take place within it.

The Zornheim Sleep Experiment doesn’t step too far beyond the foundation laid by the group’s previous album Where Hatred Dwells And Darkness Reigns, but instead refines it a lot, at times aiming to be a little bit more bombastic and also allowing for a multi-pronged vocal attack to get a ton of mileage out of many a folk-metal-inspired chorus and hybrid melodeath and black metal movement. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIABLATION — “DES RUINES DE LA SOLITUDE ÉTERNELLE”

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Nov 162021
 

 

“Hell is in man, hell is man.” That could be considered a summing up of the debut album Allégeance by the French black metal band Diablation, and further, these commandments: “Reject your God, Erase your vows, Embrace the ineffable, Accept the Devil”.

Drawing upon the worship of the Devil as their essence, Diablation have created music that is an enthralling descent into darkness, a rendition of fealty and frenzy, of torment and pain, of unearthly splendor and diabolical peril.

As a riveting sign of their achievements, today we present the third track from Allégeance that has been disclosed so far in the path toward the album’s December 6 release by the distinctive French label Antiq. Its name is “Des Ruines de la Solitude Éternelle“. Continue reading »

ASCENSION FESTIVAL MMXXI: A REPORT (PART 3)

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Nov 162021
 

 

By the time most of you read this I will have begun the trip back to the Pacific Northwest from Reykjavík. Counting the early show-up time at Keflavik Airport, the long flight, the exit process at Sea-Tac Airport, and the eventual ferry ride home, my best guess is that it will take about 14 hours, not counting a pair of cab rides. With luck, I’ll be in bed between 4 and 5 a.m. tomorrow, Reykjavík time. But every minute and every mile will have been worth it.

If you had the patience to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this report on Ascension Festival Iceland MMXXI, you already know how much I loved it. I found something to enjoy in the performances of nearly every band, despite how varied the music turned to to be — indeed, because of that — and I only missed two of those bands over four action-packed days. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OLKOTH — “EIDOLON IN THE FLAMES”

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Nov 152021
 

 

Metal-Archives harbors a couple of U.S. bands named Olkoth. The one that’s releasing the song we’re about to premiere was formed in 2016 by Zach Jeter and Vance Jeffcoat (RIP 1981-2017) in Columbia, South Carolina, and now includes a four-person line-up that we’ll name later.

Olkoth have a three-song 2019 demo to their credit, and now this new single, which provides a preview of a new album that’s been in progress since 2020. The name of this new song is “Eidolon in the Flames“, and it’s a discharge of brutal, blackened technical death metal that will take your breath away. Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW ARCHIVE (PART 1): EXHUMED AND GRAND CADAVER

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Nov 152021
 


Exhumed

 

(This is the first Part of a week-long series of reviews by DGR as he tries to clear out a back-log before year-end Listmania descends.)

With year-end season quickly approaching it’s time for the final sailing of the good review ship. This time, like every year, there’s a collective of music that’s been unleashed over the past few months – and earlier, because the search for new noise never really stops – that deserves to be written about.

Whether it’s a surprise release from a larger name or a ‘why did we never follow up on this’ way down the line, this attempt to briefly review a whole smorgasbord of metal releases that emerged over the last few months is an effort to get some names out there before year-end season fully takes over the website and yours truly does the annual exercise of numbering things for my own amusement.

Throwing yourself into the heavy metal maelstrom never stops being fun – especially when you emerge from the other side with no clear idea how you’re still standing – so who knows what else we might discover in the near future. In the meantime though, here’s the first installment of a huge batch of offerings that may please the musical hordes. Continue reading »

ASCENSION FESTIVAL MMXXI: A REPORT (PART 2)

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Nov 152021
 

 

The preamble to Part 2 of this report on the just-completed Ascension Festival Iceland won’t be quite as long as the intro to Part 1 (which you can find here), though I can’t resist including one episode I omitted yesterday.

As forecast, this Part of my report mainly includes commentary about the music and photos from the third and fourth days of the festival. As before, I’ve pretty much just copy/pasted things I posted on Facebook while the event was in progress.

Part Three, whenever I can get to it, will be some kind of wrap-up. Continue reading »

ASCENSION FESTIVAL MMXXI: A REPORT (PART I)

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 142021
 

 

Ascension Festival Iceland MMXXI come to a glorious end last night, surmounting what seemed like a non-stop swarm of perils to provide a fantastic experience for all who attended. I was lucky to be there from beginning to end, for all four days and nights.

Both for myself and for many others, it was the first live music we had witnessed since March 2020 or earlier. That gave the experience both an extra poignancy and an extra shot of energy. I can hardly imagine a better way to have a taste of “normalcy” after so long, though of course “normal” is now a highly relative term.

Of course the music was only part of what made this covid-delayed edition of Ascension so memorable. It was a reunion of old friends and the good fortune of making new ones.  I’ll remember the people and the conversations as much as the music. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Nov 122021
 

(Last month was so busy that Andy Synn is still trying to catch up on all the things he, and we, missed)

Look, I told you last week that I was probably going to have to do two editions of “Things You May Have Missed” in order to catch up with the many, many artists and albums which were overlooked in October… so here we are.

Truthfully though, I could really do with doing at least one more edition after this was, such was the plethora of rifftastic riches which last month gave us, but if I want to stay on top of what’s being released this month then I really can’t spend any more time looking backwards.

Thankfully the four albums I’ve chosen to feature here are more than worth me sacrificing a bit more of my previous time in order to ensure they get (some of) the attention they deserve, so let’s not waste a moment more, shall we?

Continue reading »

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