GLASSING: “TWIN DREAM”

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Nov 032021
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Austin, Texas-based Glassing, which will be released on November 5th by Brutal Panda Records.)

At first you think …ok, this is a sludge album with a great deal of post-rock atmosphere, not an uncommon sub-genre these days. While that might be in play on the opener, there is a great deal of powerful heaviness that hits you outside the sonic scope of sludge. Angular twists and turns as well as sections that pound at you like an angry hardcore band, or I suppose screamo, since that tends to blend its sonic texture more in this direction. The scathing scream of the vocals meets somewhere between black metal and screamo.

When the kind of spastic chaos is expressed in say grindcore, the results are more abrasive. Here everything flows very smoothly. That is not to say that Glassing aren’t at times hyper-aggressive. This is a very heavy album, just heavy sonically. It falls outside the meaty chugs and blast beats most of the bands we cover here deal in, yet I am sure Islander will agree that my niche here is bringing bands on the fringe of metal into the spotlight. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CUTTERRED FLESH — “GOOD BOY”

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Nov 022021
 

 

The video we’re about to present shows us… how shall we say it?… an interesting household. A seemingly innocent little boy and his pet rabbit. An abusive mother who doesn’t realize where her rages are going to lead. And in the living room, a bunch of death metal barbarians turning the humble surroundings into a psychotic war zone.

Oh yes, it’s an interesting video, with blood spatter in its future. And it makes an attention-riveting companion to the absolutely bludgeoning and eviscerating song “Good Boy” that it presents — a bombastic, mind-mauling, and terrifically brutalizing track by the Czech death metal band Cutterred Flesh.

Adorned by the macabre cover art of Par Olofsson, which itself features a couple of “good boys”, the album that includes this track will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on December 3rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BROODING FEAR — “SCORN”

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Nov 022021
 

 

We’re about to give you a gift of thrills, the kind of full-throttle, head-spinning spectacle that comes with our occasional warning to take plenty of deep breaths before you press Play.

The song is “Scorn“, and it does indeed have a vicious, clobbering, and condemnatory intensity, but it’s also absolutely wild, and guaranteed to light a fire under your nerves. It’s the work of a part-Dutch, part-Hungarian band of technically jaw-dropping death metal marauders who’ve taken the name Brooding Fear. It comes from their explosive new release, Abomination, which will be detonated by Ungodly Ruins Productions on December 3rd.

Take a good look at the wild, savage cover art for Abomination, because it provides a further big clue as to what’s coming. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WINTAAR — “I WILL WAIT FOR YOU IN MY HELL”

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Nov 022021
 

We’re about to expose you to a big jolt of electrifying insanity, one that’s sure to get your pulse jumping and your head spinning. It’s a hell-for-leather, no-holds-barred song called “I Will Wait For You In My Hell” by the Russian black metal band Wintaar off their new album Tear You Down, which is set for release on November 25th by the triumvirate of Satanath Records, Valgriind, and Svanrenne Music.

Even a quick glance at Wintaar‘s Metal Archives page demonstrates that the project has been incredibly prolific, releasing nearly 30 albums in just the last four years, and that’s not counting the participation of its sole creator WV in many other bands. And now Tear You Down adds to that discography, but also represents a change, in that WV has now been joined by two other permanent members, guitarist Namiros and drummer E.J.C. (who also performs additional bass and backing vocal).

In addition, WIntaar characterizes the new album as one that takes the band’s aggressiveness to the boiling point, and represents its fastest and heaviest work yet, while still presenting significant variations among the songs. Continue reading »

OBSCURA: “A VALEDICTION”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 022021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli has re-surfaced with this review because Obscura‘s new album left him no choice. It’s set for release on November 19th by Nuclear Blast.)

I’ve been keeping a low profile as of late and probably won’t be submitting a year-end list for NCS or doing any more reviews for the year. Many things have brought this about, just personal life things and trying to get my shit in some vague semblance of an order going into next year. I might even change the alias I use for this website, and I feel like in the spirit of that I’d do my last review for the year and talk about Obscura.

It’s funny, because in the same “different face, same presentation” manner that I’m thinking of changing my writing alias for this website, so too has Obscura decided to do the same regarding their sonic identity with A Valediction. Obscura is one of my favorite bands of all time, although I didn’t used to feel that way. I was that guy who in the case of Cosmogenesis was was using unimaginative, uneducated language like “boring”, “pretentious”, and “wanky”to describe what was in reality some of the most mature guitar-centric progressive and technical death metal produced aside from Necrophagist. Continue reading »

CALLIGRAM / MASTIFF / HIDDEN MOTHERS – LIVE IN NOTTINGHAM 30/10/21

 Concert Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 012021
 

(Andy Synn reports back from a recent show – remember those? – he was lucky enough to attend)

I was going to start out this article with a comment on how it feels like things are finally getting back to “normal”… but, to be honest, that’s not really true.

Of course, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss all the ways in which the world is still in an incredibly weird and uncertain place, so instead I’d just like to say how lucky I feel to have been able to enjoy a gig like this, when so many others can’t, and that I hope you guys get the chance to do so yourselves soon too.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONCRETE WINDS — “DEMONIC TRUCULENCE”

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Nov 012021
 

Good morning class. Today we have a case study for you, a study in paradox. The paradox in question is how musicians who have clearly taken leave of their senses are able to create sonic sensations that are utterly maniacal, and yet make their stupendously berserk convulsions somehow sound… catchy? Yes, catchy! (Although it’s possible we’ve taken leave of our senses as a result of listening to this.)

The subject of the case study is a track named “Demonic Truculence” (bonus points for using “truculence” in a song title, and for making music that merits the word, especially when modified by the adjective “demonic”). The two evident maniacs who made it (Jonatan Johansson and Mikko Josefsson) go by the name Concrete Winds. The album that includes the track goes by the accurately descriptive name Nerve Butcherer. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOMBBATH — “THE SEVENTH SEAL”

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Nov 012021
 

What do you do if you have mastered a particular art form? Some artists would just happily continue doing what they had mastered, on the theory that success breeds more success and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Others might retire and rest on their laurels. But some might create new challenges for themselves by focusing their energies on how to make what they had mastered sound different and new. And that’s what the Swedish death metal band Wombbath have done on their new album, Agma.

It should go without saying by now that Wombbath have mastered the art form of old-school HM-2-powered Swedish-style death metal. They got an early start on their mastery in the mid-’90s, went away for about 20 years, and then resumed work with 2015’s Downfall Rising. Since then founding guitarist Håkan Stuvemark and a new group of very talented comrades have pumped out three more albums which collectively proved, in increasingly convincing ways, that they were on very sure footing.

But now we have Agma, which is brimming with new ideas, so many of them that it’s a double-album, encompassing 16 tracks and more than an hour and 12 minutes of music. We are revealing one of those today in advance of Agma‘s December 31st release by Transcending Obscurity Records, a late date that we hope won’t cause Agma to be overlooked on EOY lists, because it can certainly lay just claim to be included. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, OCTOBER 2021

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Nov 012021
 


Light of the Morning Star

 

(October has ended, Halloween has concluded, and so it’s time for Gonzo to spotlight four of his favorite releases from the month.)

We’re officially at that point in the year when I’m taking stock of my favorite music that’s been released, subtly preparing to create a monster best-of list by the time December rolls around.

The trouble with this is good heavy music is still being released with impunity, which complicates everything in ways that I welcome. October hasn’t made this any easier. My fellow NCS scribes have uncovered some seriously bowel-shaking heaviness in recent months, and I am more fulfilled for having paid attention.

And that brings us to right now. Because I’m about to get on a plane to Iceland in a few hours, this intro (and column) may be a little shorter than usual, but I am nothing if not verbose when it comes to describing music (and most everything else). Let’s bang this out while my liver still functions, shall we?

Let’s go. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (SAMHAIN EDITION): COSCRADH, DEATHNOISEFREQUENCY, CEMETERIUM, KHNVM

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Oct 312021
 


from a painting by George Cruikshank (1792–1878)

 

This year Halloween falls on a Sunday, and thus lines up nicely with our weekly effort to blacken the Sabbath. It also provides an occasion for a brief reminder about how Halloween came to be, though I’m sure many of you already know it. The following sketch is drawn from this article, which appeared in this morning’s Washington Post.

In a nutshell, the holiday traces its roots to a celebration called Samhain (pronounced “SOW-in”) that was observed by Irish Celts for thousands of years before the arrival of Christianity in the 6th century CE. Literally translated, it means “summer’s end,” and was thus a new year’s celebration. It was a time when they thought the veil between worlds was at its thinnest, and that all kinds of things could cross over on that night.

After Christian missionaries arrived in Ireland they eventually did what they did all over the world — they attempted to co-opt existing pagan traditions for their own purposes, to aid in converting the “heathens”. Continue reading »

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