“RUINS OF HUMANITY”: A SPLIT BY HAJDUK, AKANTHA, NIMBIFER, AND SØRGELIG

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 022021
 

 

(We welcome guest writer Nick Awad, who shares his review of a 2020 black metal split release among Hajduk, Akantha, Nimbifer, and Sørgelig that deserves more attention.)

Though the style of Raw Black Metal is not particularly new, it is currently having a moment. These days, countless bands are emerging from the shadows with ominous promo photos, grainy audio production, and fast-selling physical releases. Depending on who you ask, this is either a golden age or the dumbest thing since the recent OSDM revival. As with most things, there is some validity to either stance. For every worthwhile Raw Black Metal project, there are about a hundred duds. Duds that may check plenty of the grim aesthetic boxes, but offer no real substance. That being said, those aforementioned worthwhile projects are absolute gold. Among those praiseworthy projects is a split released in the late summer of 2020.

Ruins of Humanity is a four-way split full of vicious songwriting and macabre ecstasy. The bands on the release; Hajduk (Bulgaria), Akantha (Greece), Nimbifer (Germany), and Sørgelig (Greece); prove themselves to be an arterial cut above the endless menagerie of aesthetic-obsessed internet vampires. Though the songs on this split do nod to the ideas that precede them, they are far from the soulless riff recitations of a “worship-style” project. They represent a culmination of traditions coupled with modern influence that does not stray from the necessary orthodoxy of the craft of Black Metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARTACH — “SHE GATHERS LEAVES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

You would be forgiven if you got the wrong idea about the music of Artach based on their location and some of the ideas that inspire their approach to black metal. This duo hail from St. John’s, Newfoundland, a place they describe as “the coldest, windiest, snowiest, foggiest, provincial capital city in Canada”, a location that would “give many Norwegian cities a challenge for gloomiest weather”.

Moreover, many of their songs are about nature, and many of those involve winter. Their 2020 debut album was entitled Chronicles of a Black Winter, and their forthcoming sophomore full-length, Sworn To Avenge, includes such song titles as “Ice Throne”, “Endless Tundra” (an epic 20-minute exploration about the doomed Franklin expedition of 1846), and “Into the Frozen Woodlands”.

But if you’re expecting naught by icy grimness, think again. As you’ll discover from the song we’re premiering today through a lyric video, Artach’s music is equally capable of discharging full-throttle fieriness, maniacal fervor, and a feeling of visceral lust. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DANTALION — “TIME TO CLOSE THE CIRCLE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

On July 31st the Spanish label Darkwoods will release the eighth album by the powerful Galician band Dantalion. Bearing the name Time to Pass Away, and adorned by the cover art of the great Russian artist Vergvoktre and further artwork by el dios perezoso, it represents a return to the band’s black metal roots (as well as the spectacular return of Sanguinist as the vocalist).

Today it’s our privilege to help spread the word about the new album by premiering a gripping video for its first single, “Time To Close the Circle“, which is being digitally released today as a stand-alone track. The dark emotional power of the song is undeniable, and so is its blood-rushing intensity. Continue reading »

EVILE: “HELL UNLEASHED”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the latest album by the UK band Evile, which was released in April by Napalm Records.)

I think the story going on with this album and band right now is pretty cool: Matt Drake stepping down from Evile due to health issues, only for his brother, who’d left the band previously to pursue other endeavors, to come back and keep the band going.

Matt and Ol Drake both worked hard on this band. Evile is undoubtedly at the absolute top of the thrash resurgence hierarchy if ever a band deserved it. Their immaculately calculated mix of technicality, precision, speed, melody, chaos, and brutality is something a lot of their contemporaries just lack in some form or another, Moreover, Matt and Ol Drake are one of the most comprehensively synergistic guitar duos in modern metal. Ol Drake is, frankly, probably the only shredder in the modern thrash metal space worth paying attention to right now.

So, considering what just happened — the Evile we knew didn’t unify; it just changed forms again with only half of the core that defined the band still present — what do they do from here?

They write the best thrash metal record of 2021, past, present, or future. Continue reading »

MEMORIAL DAY METAL?

 Off Topic  4 Responses »
May 312021
 

 

In the United States, today is Memorial Day, a national holiday. Here, it marks the unofficial beginning of summer and is typically a time of social gathering and celebration. This year its celebratory aspects are even greater, because many of the pandemic-related restrictions on social activity have been lifted. People are traveling by air and car at levels not seen since March of last year. Bars and restaurants are packed. So are parks and beaches.

I don’t want to pour cold water on any of this, but the Memorial Day holiday was not established as a day of celebration. It was created as a day of remembrance and mourning of American military personnel who died in the performance of their duties. In its earliest incarnation after the Civil War, it was called “Decoration Day”, because mourners honored the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers.

Nowadays, there are still solemn remembrances, but those are usually overshadowed by all the fun-loving activities, and by politicians and businesses who use the day as an excuse to engage in flag-waving glorification of the military. Many of those are the same people who hypocritically do nothing to help military personnel once they’re out of uniform, but badly need help because of physical or mental injuries suffered during their service. Trying to survive apparently doesn’t count nearly as much as dying. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 134): ABYSSKVLT

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
May 312021
 

Recommended for fans of: Esoteric, Drown, The Ruins of Beverast

As I’ve been enjoying so much music from Russia lately I thought it made sense to keep to that theme by dedicating this month’s edition of The Synn Report to the dense, doom-laden discography of Abysskvlt.

A word of warning, however, the band’s three albums – the most recent of which was released just a few weeks ago – are definitely not for the faint of heart (or those with a short attention span), as each one clocks in at well over an hour in length.

Not only that, but while each record delivers a spine-tingling, soul-crushing, at times almost asphyxiatingly atmospheric, blend of monstrous, funereal heaviness and bitter, blackened melancholy (along with an undercurrent of eerie ambience reminiscent of sinisterly cinematic artists like Lustmord and Treha Sektori), there’s also an even deeper level of mystery underlying the band’s work, which was conceived as a way to explore Tibetan spiritual culture (particularly the pre-Buddhist tradition of Bön) through the use of traditional Tibetan instruments as well as the incorporation of lyrics frequently written and performed in Tibetan or Shangshung.

As you might have gathered then, each of the group’s albums is best experienced as a complete whole, rather than as a simple selection of tracks, so your best bet is to set aside a big block of time – trust me, you’ll need it – and maybe have someone come to check on you every seventy minutes or so, because you’re about to go on one hell of a journey.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BECERUS — “PRIMEVAL IGNORANTIA”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 312021
 


Becerus co-stars

Goat mosh pit!

Hold that thought for a minute.

Back in February you might have caught our premiere of a track named “Primeval Ignorantia” off Homo Homini Brutus, the thoroughly killer debut album by the Sicilian death metal band Becerus. If you did check out that song, or the album as a whole, then you already know that the music of Becerus is surprising in more ways than one.

It’s surprising, first, because this group sound a lot more seasoned than their newcomer status would suggest. But it’s also surprising because there’s more going on in their songs than brutish caveman bludgeoning, which is what some of the outward trappings of the band might lead you to guess.

But if you didn’t catch that previous premiere and have failed to discover the album (shame on you!), you’ll get to experience these surprises for the first time, because today we’re presenting a video for that same song — and it’s a highly entertaining video, one that make clear that these dudes don’t take themselves too seriously, even though their music delivers a serious ass-kicking. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: RITUAL MOON, GRINNING DEATH’S HEAD, PA VESH EN, GROZA, AAMON, GLIMT, THRON, OPPRESS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
May 302021
 


Ritual Moon

 

Especially after yesterday’s humongous round-up it probably wasn’t smart for me to follow it with another one, but that’s what I’ve done. As you’ve probably figured out by now, careful thinking and reflection never have much to do with my NCS contributions. Impulse and enthusiasm tend to rule the day.

RITUAL MOON (U.S.)

I had intended to fully explore this L.A. band’s January 2021 debut album after listening to an advance track many months ago, but never got back to it until my comrade DGR recently posted about it. He figured it would be up my alley. It definitely is. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR: JOE STUMP, GARY MOORE, JEFF BECK

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  11 Responses »
May 302021
 

 

We used to have a series called The Rearview Mirror on Sundays. Like many of our ideas, it eventually withered away, like a night-blooming flower that didn’t get enough nutrients from its tenders (us). It provided a vehicle for me and other writers to unearth old albums that meant something to us, and introduce them to people who might not know about them.

It was a good idea, and fun for us to do, but like everything else we do here its survival depended on the intensity of our own innate interest, which is a way of saying that we don’t force anything. Things happen naturally, or they don’t. And so it died, R.I.P., though the entire series is still available here.

I’m not really making a concerted effort to revive The Rearview Mirror today. In fact, the song that prompted me to make this post isn’t even old. But it’s a tribute to a long-lost artist and it made me re-live some treasured memories of my own, so I thought this one-off addition to the series, almost three years after it expired, was the right format. (And don’t worry, SHADES OF BLACK is still coming later today.) Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AT THE GATES, NIGHTRAGE, AGRYPNIE, CLOUD RAT, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, BONES OF THE EARTH, PRAISE THE PLAGUE, MENTAL CRUELTY, PROGENY OF SUN, DELUSION, INFESTATION, ANTUCO, TRIALOGOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
May 292021
 

 

To improve your Saturday, and quite possibly your whole weekend, I’ve collected a baker’s dozen of new songs and videos (including a couple of previously hard-to-find tracks from forthcoming reissues).

I grouped these 13 offerings in ways that I thought made sense. As usual for these kinds of posts, I didn’t take time to track down and upload artwork or purchase links, and I decided to organize my meager introductory comments by the categories I’ve arranged. (Don’t punch me too hard because of the category labels I chose, because I do realize they’re not 100% accurate.)

MELODIC DEATH METAL

The first two choices here were recommended by DGR, and the above label clearly applies to both. Andy Synn recommended the third one, and although most people wouldn’t categories Agrypnie as melodic death metal, I do think their new song fits well alongside the first two. Continue reading »

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