AN NCS PREMIERE: RUACH RAAH — “SKULLS CRACKED”

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May 282021
 

 

In your searching for new metal, if you need to check off boxes like “melodic”, “nuanced”, “forward-thinking”, “intricate”, or “soulful”, you should probably stop reading right now. On the other hand, if adjectives like “filthy”, “feral”, “primitive”, “carnal”, and “ferocious” are on your list, you’ve come to the right place.

With vitriol surging in torrents through their veins and no regard for the well-being of their listeners, the Portuguese black metal band Ruach Raah (now stripped down to a duo) are returning with their third album, Misanthropic Wolfgang, which is set for release by Signal Rex on June 30th. Based on the music, we’re guessing that the title isn’t an homage to Mozart but is instead a contraction of “wolf gang”. They do indeed sound like wolves on the hunt, racing their listeners into the ground with teeth bared — or maybe more accurately igniting a desire among listeners to run with them on their wild romps.

And make no mistake, as abrasive, rabid, and riotous as the music is, it’s primally infectious stuff — which you’ll discover through today’s premiere of the new album track “Skulls Cracked“. Continue reading »

SHEVILS: “MIRACLE OF THE SUN”

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May 282021
 

 

I continue to write about this Norwegian hardcore punk band (I’m calling them that here, though as you’ll learn, that’s an overly simplistic genre label) despite the fact that their music just hovers on the edges of what we usually cover here. Why is that?

I suppose part of the attraction is that I was into punk long before I was into metal, and even though (thanks to this blog) extreme metal has almost entirely supplanted punk in my listening, it’s still capable of striking a chord. But that’s not the whole story of why Shevils have grabbed me again, this time with their new album Miracle of the Sun — their best work yet and a marked evolution in their sound.

Though it would probably go too far to call Shevils a “metallic hardcore band”, the punch in their music still has heft behind it, enough to raise welts. And the songs also carry a dark intensity, an emotional fabric woven in multi-faceted ways, and that’s one of the key qualities that also draws me to metal.

Moreover, the songs are so full of hooks they would leave a fisherman envious and greedy. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): SORDIDE, MORAST

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May 272021
 

 

And now we come to the third and final Part of today’s new-music roundup. If you’ve been following along, you know that Part 1 consisted of music from two doom bands and Part 2 corralled songs from two death metal bands. And so perhaps it’s predictable that I’ve got two black metal bands in this final installment.

SORDIDE (France)

I hope Sordide’s new album Les Idées Blanches has been on your radar. I’ve done what I can to help that happen, having previously written in glowing terms about its first advance track, “Je n’ai nul pays”. And now that a second track has emerged, I’d like to continue the drumbeat. Continue reading »

SILVER TALON – DECADENCE AND DECAY

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May 272021
 

(Andy Synn has decided to break the cardinal rule of our site – again – by throwing his weight, and his words, behind the new album from Portland Progressive Power Metal paladins Silver Talon)

The ability to compare one band with another – or with many others – is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable tools in a writer’s arsenal.

Oh, sure, it can be abused and misused – so can any tool – but being able to say that “band [a] sound a bit like band [b]”, or “like the bastard child of [x] and [y]” or “a more modern version of [z]” is a great way to put your reader in the right sort of mindset, and give them some useful context and perspective, to help them appreciate the music they’re about to hear and/or read about.

Still, even I’m willing to admit that it can sometimes be used as a crutch, especially in cases – such as this one – where there’s one particularly obvious comparison that would be far, far, too easy to make.

So, to challenge myself, I’ve decided to review the new album from Progressive/Heavy/Power Metal posse Silver Talon without explicitly mentioning that band at all.

Will I be able to do it? Quoth the raven…

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): EXSANGUINATION, SEWER FIEND

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May 272021
 

 

Ii won’t completely regurgitate what I wrote in the intro to Part 1 of today’s round-up. Suffice to say that I’m just spitting up a couple of tracks at a time today rather than leave a long blank space in what’s happening at the site. Part 1 leaned hard into doom, and the songs below should appeal to devotees of death (metal).

EXSANGUINATION

After a self-titled debut last year, Massachusetts-based Exsanguination are gearing up for the June 11 release of their debut album, Spectral Hymns. I haven’t had a chance to let the entire album bleed all over me, but the two songs I’ve heard so far (which you’ll find below), are damned good. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THUMOS, OWL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 272021
 

 

This is a rare weekday at NCS. For the first time in maybe years, we have no premiere on our schedule. And none of my comrades has sent in a review or interview. And despite knowing that our calendar would be a big blank space today, I didn’t get my ass in gear to do anything in advance either.

So here I am, having wandered around exploring new music for a couple hours this morning but having written nothing. To avoid further delay in pitching something up onto the site, I decided to make a brief start with two new songs that seemed to fit together well (fans of doom will be attracted to them). As the day wears on, I’ll add one or two more Parts to this round-up as time permits.

THUMOS

Thumos is a mystery. Metal-Archives identifies the location as the United States, but the members are anonymous. On the other hand, it seems that Thumos is some kind of successor to a project named Mono No Aware, and M-A identifies that project as the creation of a Spaniard. So there, I’ve saved you a little time trying to ferret out background info about Thumos. With that, let’s consider “Epithumetikon“, the first song revealed from a Thumos album named The End of Words. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: MANNVEIRA, CULTUM INTERITUM, ANTEDILUVIAN, MYCELIUM, BROKEN GLASS SANCTUARY, UNIDAD TRAUMA, INFERN, FUNERAL CHASM, WORMWOOD, TRIALOGOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 262021
 


Mannveira

 

Hopefully you know the drill with these “Overflowing Streams” round-ups of new songs and videos: A ton of music, fewer words than usual from me, and (to save some time) minus the usual artwork and some of the links. Apart from enjoying the process of picking the selections, I also do try to have fun arranging the songs in these things, and there’s a bit of a curveball at the end.

MANNVEIRA (Iceland)

Back after five years, these Icelanders are bringing forth only their third release in a decade, a debut album named Vítahringur. It comes out via Dark Descent on July 2nd. To pave the way, “Í köldum faðmi” was revealed yesterday. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RIEXHUMATION — “THE FINAL REVELATION OF ABADDON”

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May 262021
 

 

After releasing a pair of demos and an EP from 2012 through 2017, the Italian death metal band Riexhumation then turned their energies to the creation of a debut album that’s now set for release by Lavadome Productions on this coming Friday, May 28th — and it turns out to be a big, eye-opening surprise that should be greedily welcomed by death metal connoisseurs.

It’s not as if this quartet are green newcomers — in addition to those three previous Riexhumation releases, a glance at their resumes on Metal-Archives shows their involvement in other noteworthy extreme metal collectives — but this album is still a most impressive accomplishment.

To borrow some of the (accurate) words from the PR material, it embraces primeval and frightening energies that “dwell somewhere deep within the chasms of the cosmos” to create “ominous, old school death metal darkness” that’s alternately “doom-laden, eerie, raw, and blistering”. It evokes anguished dread, instinctual terrors, and visceral thrills in equal measure, and does so with admirable song-writing dynamism and instrumental execution. Continue reading »

DÖDSRIT – MORTAL COIL

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 262021
 

(Sweden’s Dödsrit are back with their first album as a quartet – out this Friday via Wolves of Hades – and Andy Synn has the exclusive scoop right here)

The formula for mixing Black Metal and Crust Punk is so deceptively simple, but so undeniably effective, that it’s really no surprise that the past several years – the past decade, really – have seen such a major increase in bands looking to embrace this particular style and make it their own.

Of course, the crossover between the two styles isn’t a new phenomenon by any means, and stretches back even further than you might imagine, but the fact that it isn’t new doesn’t make it any less devastating in the right hands… and there’s practically no-one else whose hands I’d rather see it in than Dödsrit.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEADSHRINKER — “THE BURN OF INDIFFERENCE”

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May 252021
 

 

Almost exactly five years have passed since Chicago-based Polyptych released their third album, Defying the Metastasis. That album was a genre-bending head-spinner, an unconventional mix of death metal and black metal with progressive and technical elements woven within it. It made such a striking impact that we pleaded for a chance to premiere something from it (and our wish was granted).

While that band’s continued existence has been in question since then, it turns out that three of its members — Young Werther, Scott Skopec, and Frank Lato — have joined forces in a new Colorado-based group called Headshrinker, which also features the considerable talents of Havok drummer Pete Webber. Their debut album Callous Indifference is now set for release on August 27th, and once again we have the chance to host a song premiere. Continue reading »

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