SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): THY DARKENED SHADE, AMESTIGON, INCONCESSUS LUX LUCIS, SHAARIMOTH, VAINA

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
May 032021
 

 

Part 2 of this week’s Shades of Black isn’t as voluminous as Part 1 was. I had two objectives in making it: First, to give some early attention to a four-way split many of us have been eagerly awaiting for a very long time; and second, to follow through in recommending an album I had originally intended to include in Part 2 of last week’s column, but had to cut because I ran out of time.

SAMAELILITH: A CONJUNCTION OF THE FIREBORN

The long-awaited split is SamaeLilith: A Conjunction of the Fireborn, and it combines the prodigious talents of four groups we’ve been writing about with admiration for years: Thy Darkened Shade (Greece), Amestigon (Austria), Inconcessus Lux Lucis (UK), and Shaarimoth (Norway). It will be released on June 30th by W.T.C. Productions.

Each band contributed multiple tracks to the split, ranging from three to five, for a total of more than an hour and a half of music spread across 15 songs. Although I’ve been fortunate to recently receive the complete album, this isn’t something I want to rush into just in order to publish one of the first reviews. Just counting the minutes alone, there’s a lot to take in, and if past is prologue, one hurried listen to what these bands have done here won’t do their efforts justice either. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): ANAPILIN, PRÉSAGES, SXUPERION, ZGARD, TRHÄ, MORTIFERO, ZWEISPALT, VULTURE LORD, NUCLEAR REVENGE

 SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
May 022021
 

 

Part 1 of today’s column is in the vein of the giant round-up I prepared yesterday — a lot of music and not a lot of words. Though the music is of course “in the vein” of black metal, or at least in spiritual/aesthetic kinship with it (according to my own perceptions), you won’t find any two bands here that sound like they were raised in the same litter.

Part 2, which may appear later today or may appear tomorrow (because I haven’t written it yet), is devoted to four songs from a forthcoming (and long-awaited) four-way split, and a frightening album I meant to include in this column last week before I ran out of time.

ANAPILIN (Lithuania)

Rennie (of starkweather) pointed me to the song and lyric video I’ve chosen to lead with. At that time, it was apparent that an album by these gas-masked Lithuanians was on the way, but neither of us could find a name for it or a release date.

Those mysteries were solved this morning when the album just dropped out of the sky, fully formed. But by the time I awakened and saw Rennie’s message about the full release, I didn’t have time enough to listen to it, so I’m sticking with the original plan of focusing just on the one song and video — but including the full stream as well. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AT THE GATES, BEFORE THE DAWN, WOMBBATH, FRACTAL UNIVERSE, SEEMING EMPTINESS, IMPURE WILHELMINA, HESPER PAYNE, CULTES DES GHOULES, GRAVE MIASMA, VILDHJARTA, PERTURBATOR, MAGGOT CROWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 012021
 

 

It’s been a long time since I resorted to this Overflowing Streams format for spreading the word about new music I’ve enjoyed, but last week seemed more even more insane than usual — just a ton of new tracks were revealed by old gods, new gods, and assorted minor demons. As bloated as the following collection may seem, it’s still far from complete — I’ll include a few more in tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column.

Without further ado, here we go with lots of sights sounds and not many words, though I do encourage you to add your own in the Comments.

AT THE GATES

Speaking of old gods, I might have included the news about Darkthrone album No. 19 (Eternal Hails), but there’s no music yet, so I’ll wait. You can peep the cover art here. But among the old gods, At the Gates did give us a new song, and I had to lead with it. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 133): COLDCELL

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Apr 302021
 

(The April 2021 edition of THE SYNN REPORT is all about the soul-destroying discography of Swiss/German Black Metal collective ColdCell)

Recommended for fans of: Schammasch, Panzerfaust, Blaze of Perdition

Let me be honest with you, if I ever actually stopped to think about what it takes to actually put together each new edition of The Synn Report (which is now on its 133rd edition, and shows no signs of stopping any time too) I’d probably have long since collapsed into a gibbering wreck.

After all, we’re talking about a full, in-depth (or, at least, relatively in-depth) round up of a different band’s entire discography every month, complete with embedded album streams and helpful references/recommendations/comparisons, all of which I usually leave right up until the last minute because I’m an idiot who is incapable of learning from his mistakes or planning ahead.

But fate, thankfully, can be both a kind as well as cruel mistress, and sometimes things just line up in a way that takes the pressure of deciding what band I’m going to write about off me.

Case in point, when Swiss quintet ColdCell released their fourth, and arguably finest, album last week it immediately became apparent that I simply had to write about them for this month’s edition of The Synn Report, as their particular brand of bleak ‘n’ baleful Black Metal – hauntingly atmospheric without being “Atmospheric”, harrowingly emotional without falling over the line into DSBM territory – has long struck a chord with me, and so now seemed like the perfect opportunity to give them their due.

Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAGE OF CREATION — “I AM THE VOID II”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 302021
 

 

This marks the fourth time in five years that we’ve written about the unorthodox, genre-splicing Russian band Cage of Creation. The first time, in 2017, was our review of a record named III, which completed a trilogy of EPs. The second, in 2018, was a discussion of another EP named I Am the Void, which was the commencement of yet another trilogy. And then last year we premiered and reviewed their most recent full-length, Into Nowhere II. The persistent theme of all these written reactions was one of continual fascination with the band’s unbridled experimentation — within the context of songs that were nevertheless so seductive that they were damned difficult to get out of our heads.

The occasion for today’s happy reunion with Cage of Creation is the premiere stream of a new EP entitled I Am the Void II, which will be released on May 16th by Devoted Art Propaganda on 12″ vinyl. As the title suggests, it’s the second part of the new trilogy that began with I Am the Void in 2018, a three-part work that thematically focuses on experiences related to psychoactive explorations. This new EP presents two original works and a cover of Bethlehem’s “Nexus“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AKHENATEN — “HALLS OF AMENTI”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 302021
 

 

Today is the day when Satanath Records (Russia) and Dark Terror Temple (Mexico) will release The Emerald Tablets Of Thoth, the latest album by the US band Akhenaten, whose amalgamation of death and black metal with Eastern melodies and traditional Middle Eastern instrumentation has already proven to be an alluring combination.

The new album — the fourth full-length in Akhenaten’s discography and the first since 2018’s well-received Golden Serpent God — focuses on the themes surrounding the mysteries of the Emerald Tablets and the teachings of Thoth the Atlantean, and it carries forward the collaboration between Colorado-based brothers Jerred and Wyatt Houseman, who also join forces in the symphonic black metal band Helleborus.

Later today you will have the opportunity to listen to the entirety of the new album, but for now we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the second track in the running order — “Halls of Amenti“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: URFAUST

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 302021
 

 

(In this new interview, Comrade Aleks has brought us a discussion with one of the members of the Dutch band Urfaust, whose latest album was released by Ván Records on April 16th.)

Black metal never was my cup of tea, but there are bands who hold my attention for years, and Urfaust from the Netherlands is one of them. They are able to perform both atmospheric and quite strict raw stuff, but at the end of the day Urfaust has kept its grim individuality (in secrecy) for years.

Performing as a duet since 2003, VRDRBR (drums) and IX (guitars, vocals) seem to be always busy filling their discography with new recordings and even though their up-to-date full-length Teufelsgeist (2020) saw the light of day in November 2020, the band already has a curious new volume – Compilation of Intoxications — released literally a few days ago as I write this. Teufelsgeist is meditative to some degree, an ambient-laden ritual. Why not to talk about it and other Urfaust-related themes?

VRDRBR is here and he has some enlightening things to say. Enjoy, I’m going to keep hydrating! Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASCHENVATER — “LANDUNGSFELDMASSAKER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 292021
 

 

“The band name ‘Aschenvater‘ is inspired by the universe of Warhammer 40K. The sound is raw and destructive, like the rotting battlefields of the drop site massacre. Oldschool Death Metal is the perfect way for us to bring the content and the energy of the lyrics together with the music. The HM-2 is sculpting the violence and brutality of the fights in clay”.

This is how this German death metal trio introduce themselves, along with references to the inspirations of Bolt Thrower and Hail of Bullets. And to underscore the influence of Warhammer 40K, they named their debut EP Landungsfeldmassaker, in memory of a battle on Istvaan V, the “drop site massacre” as rendered in German, which is the language used for all the EP’s lyrics.

But when you listen to the EP’s seven songs you’ll come away convinced that this is no game, but is instead a viscerally powerful rendering of the mayhem, the bloodshed, and the desolating misery that plagues all human warzones. The grooves in the music are often massive and the riffing often highly infectious, but the overarching atmosphere of the EP is one of shattering decimaton and soul-crushing hopelessness.

And today we invite you to experience all of that for yourselves via our premiere of a complete stream of Landungsfeldmassaker in advance of its April 30 release (tomorrow!) by Dead Center Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ÅSKOG — “MÅNE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 292021
 

The Swedish duo known as Murdryck began musical life in 1999 as a “Blackened Dark Ambient” project, disappeared for a time, and then rejuvenated themselves as a black metal band in 2014. Thereafter, they released two excellent albums, 2016’s Antologi MMXV and 2019’s Födelsen. And then, to the sorrow of Murdryck’s fans, they disbanded. But it turns out that the two men behind Murdryck weren’t finished after all.

That duo — bassist/vocalist Lars Hansson and guitarist Adam Chapman — came back together early last summer, inspired to renew their cooperation in pursuit of fresh ideas. Adopting the name Åskog, they ensconced themselves in a decrepit forest house owned by Lars deep in the woods of Värmland and wrote four songs between July and August, which they released last fall as a demo entitled Varg and which we premiered and reviewed here.

The themes of that music were spawned by the band’s presence in that old forest house, with its own morbid history and its wilderness setting, during a time when the Covid-19 pandemic turned the world into chaos. Åskog told us then: “You only have to watch nature documentaries to realize the natural world is truly a horrific place. The great outdoors is romanticized, but the reality is it is brutal with no room for concession or concern.”

That first demo earned Åskog a lot of well-deserved attention and spurred them to complete work on their debut album Varþnaþer, which again lyrically deals with the dichotomy between good and evil in the context of the natural environment. The album is now set for release on May 12th by Grind to Death Records and Leviaphonic Records (both based in Sweden), with additional physical editions coming in June via Germany’s Corrupted Flesh Records. It’s our pleasure today to reveal the third song to be disclosed from the album so far — a multi-faceted, ravishing, and viscerally frightening track named “”Måne” (moon). Continue reading »

CHOCOBO BAND: “TALES FROM OTHER WORLDS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Apr 292021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli returns to NCS with the following recommendation of a new album released by Chocobo Band from Italy.)

I’ve been working on a big project for the website (hence the lack of activity, but trust that I’ve been keeping up with the music), and I’ve been gaming a lot, so I had a real excuse to just sit down and listen to music. I’m currently replaying through Blasphemous (great game btw) while I check out all the albums I personally give a shit about. I wrote an article this year about the relationship and instances where video games and metal intersect, but I was covering it from the perspective of the video games including the metal and not vice versa.

Todays subject of review, Tales From Other Worlds by Chocobo Band, is the inverse. This is a group of metalheads wanting to express their love for one of the most important landmark gaming franchises of all time, and to pay fitting tribute to Nobuo Uematsu, one of music’s greatest compositional virtuosos of ALL TIME.

A proper attempt by people who understand metal covering Final Fantasy music has rarely been attempted, especially this convincingly. Sure there’s one-man cover guys on YouTube, but it’s just never the same. There is always a disconnect between Westerners’ understanding of metal and translating Japanese works into it that feels like the one covering the music just doesn’t quite “get” it. Continue reading »

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