NO CLEAN SINGING

CRUST – STOIC

Apr 062021

(Andy Synn keeps the ball rolling with a review of the recently-released third album from Russia’s Crust)

Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, an artist will produce an album which seems like it was tailor-made just for you.

Every song strikes a chord, every track touches a nerve, and every piece of the puzzle just fits so perfectly that you’d think the band was actively capable of peering directly into your brain.

It’s always exciting, especially when the band in question has a deeper discography for you to dig into too, as was the case when I stumbled across the new album from Russia’s own Blackened Sludgelords Crust recently, as not only did I instantly fall head over heels in love with the group’s hypnotically grim and humongously groove-laden sound, I was also compelled to go and pick up their entire physical back-catalogue (along with their entire digital discography) as part of last week’s #BandcampFriday.

And while I originally intended to save writing about these guys until the end of the month (as part of the next edition of The Synn Report) I quickly realised I couldn’t wait that long to lay out just why Stoic has become one of my favourite albums of the year so far.

MORE NEW MUSIC FROM VEGAS (PREVIEWS FROM A FORTHCOMING ALBUM)

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Apr 062021

Ever since discovering VEGAS (aka VVEGAS and V.E.G.A.S.) through their four-song EP Sagevisule in 2014, I’ve been repeatedly transfixed by their music. In their own words, their shifting amalgams of metal and hardcore embrace the “confrontational nature of Japanese punks G.I.S.M. via early-80’s ferocity of LIFE’S BLOOD & apocalyptic tenets of bands like INTEGRITY“, but passing time has seen them draw in other ingredients as well. The inability to predict exactly what they will do from release to release is part of the attraction — along with the persistently visceral intensity that burns at the core of every recording.

They also don’t let much grass grow beneath their feet. Their most recent album …not ever appeared last summer, but they’ve already been hard at work on a new one. Hints of it surfaced through singles that were scattered through the remaining months of last year, and most recently in a track named “Recovery” that was released last month. But we’ve been privy to even more of what the new album holds in store, with an advance peak at 10 pre-mastered tracks (four more are also in various other stages of completion). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SYLVATICA — “HELIOS”

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Apr 062021

Almost seven years after the appearance of their debut album Evil Seeds, the Danish melodic death metal band Sylvatica are at last returning with their sophomore full-length Ashes and Snow, which will be co-released on April 20th by Satanath Records and Pest Records. Two songs from the album have surfaced so far, and today we premiere a third one through a lyric video. Its name is “Helios“.

The words narrate the apocalyptic impact of extravagant solar flares on Earth and its human inhabitants, whose fragility is exposed by the invasion of those ravishing solar spirits. But while the lyrics are harrowing, the music is, in a word, spectacular — the kind of experience that gets the heart pumping and the head spinning. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BEATEN TO DEATH — “HALLWAY TO HELL”

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Apr 062021

Last September the eccentric Norwegian grindcore band Beaten To Death made a vinyl release of a new album named Laat maar, ik verhuis naar het bos (which Google translate renders as “Never mind, I’m moving to the woods”). In keeping with other enticing peculiarities about the band, they then made a digital release of the album — but divided its four segments into four EPs that emerged every other week during November and December.

Each of those four segments was ostensibly devoted to a different forest — the Dutch forest Mastbos, the Japanese forest 青木ヶ原 located northwest of Mount Fuji, the Norwegian forest Østmarka near Oslo, and the forest moon of Endor (of Star Wars fame). If it seems odd that a grindcore band would devote themselves to the beauties of woodland nature, it’s not entirely clear that they did, given the presence of such song titles as “Flatulence of Emotions”, “The Night Is Young and We’re All Out Of Nekro”, “Rectal Dark Ages”, “If Your Music Were A Blowjob It Wouldn’t Suck”, and the song that’s the subject of the video we’re premiering today — “Hallway To Hell“.

On the other hand, there are surprising moments of beauty in Beaten To Death‘s music, which is part of what makes their unusual approach to grind so enticing. Continue reading »

ZAO – THE CRIMSON CORRIDOR

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Apr 052021

(Andy Synn couldn’t wait any longer to share his thoughts on the new Zao album, set for release this Friday)

For those unfamiliar with the “Ship of Theseus” paradox, this two thousand year old thought experiment asks the following question:

If an object (in this case, the infamous ship) has all its parts and pieces (first its oars, then its planks, its mast, its keel, so on and so forth) replaced as time passes, at what point does it cease to be itself?

Or is it still, fundamentally, the same object? Is there some essential soul or essence which maintains continuity, even as all the individual components wear out and are replaced?

So it’s more than a little appropriate that Zao’s new album, the second since their fantastic 2016 comeback The Well-Intentioned Virus, features a song named “Ship of Theseus” right at the start, because The Crimson Corridor showcases a strikingly different – fundamentally darker, denser, and borderline doomier – version of the band than the one you might be familiar with…

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NIVATAKAVACHAS — “ASCRAEDUNUM”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Apr 052021

The creative energies of Swiss artist Bornyhake Ormenos seem boundless, and so multifarious that each impulsive surge of them may give rise to some new project, which seems to be the case in the spawning of his solo project Nivatakavachas.

Undoubtedly, this new menace has been gestating for some unknown period of time, building up its stockpile of evil power, but it is now ready to be revealed through a debut album named Ascraedunum, set for release by Satanath Records and Azif Records tomorrow (April 6th). One day early, we have a full stream of it for you. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOE UNTO ME

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Apr 052021

(In this interview Comrade Aleks posed questions to Artem Serdyuk, harsh vocalist and guitarist of the Belarusian band Woe Unto Me, whose new EP, Spiral-Shaped Hopewreck, was released on March 12th by BadMoodMan Music, a division of Solitude Productions.)

Woe Unto Me remains a most creative Belarusian doom band still, despite the social catastrophe which has happened in their country. The band was formed in 2008, and as their debut album A Step into the Waters of Forgetfulness (2014) was without doubt sheer funeral doom of epic scale, the second full-length Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed (2017) tended toward more complex, multi-layered structures and even avant-garde sound.

Their new EP Spiral-Shaped Hopewreck takes us further in a desperate sonic journey of doom, woe, and lethargy, but how far? The band’s founder and ideologist Artem Serdyuk (harsh vocals, guitars) is here tonight to answer this and other questions. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INFERNO, SORDIDE, THY CATAFALQUE, OSSAERT, SCHAMMASCH, SVPREMACIST

SHADES OF BLACK 2 Responses »

Apr 042021

I explained yesterday that I’m on a weekend vacation. I also wrote that I wasn’t sure if I would prepare this usual Sunday column. Obviously, I have.

But because I’m really trying to make as much room as I can for rest and relaxation (which in my case is like making room for self-mutilation), I’ve limited myself to things I can quickly and impulsively react to — just a scattering of advance tracks and one stand-alone video. It was even easier for me to make these selections because all of them are by bands in whom I already had complete confidence.

I’ve also been listening to some albums this weekend that have also seized my attention. Depending on how the day goes, I might have a second installment devoted to those. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: EREB ALTOR, PERILAXE OCCLUSION, ODAL

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Apr 032021

I’m on a short vacation. First time away from the small community where I live in nine months. Along with a group of family and friends, we made the trip yesterday to an AirBnB on the water in a place called Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, Washington, in the Puget Sound. The photo above was one of the sunset views last night from the deck of this rental.

I had originally decided not to do any blogging this weekend, but I was awake this morning so much earlier than anyone else in the house that I started listening to a few new songs, and here I am blogging again. It’s just three new songs, so that’s a compromise of sorts.

I’m not sure if I’ll write a SHADES OF BLACK column for tomorrow. We’ll be headed home on Monday morning. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PHRENETICUM — “DER STILLE ZERFALL”

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Apr 022021

On the 4th day of April the German black metal band Phreneticum will release their debut album Der Stille Zerfall through the collaboration of Satanath Records and Onism Productions, but you won’t have to wait until then to be consumed by it, because we’re presenting a full stream of all the madness today.

From the band’s inception in 2015 the line-up has varied, but this new full-length is the work of only two performers — vocalist Leichenfresse and multi-instrumentalist Tino Fluch (from Abigorum, Trond, and Wulfgar). As a hint of what they’ve done together, the releasing labels recommend the album for fans of Sarkrista, Imperium Dekadenz, and Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult. But here are a few more hints about what you’ll be experiencing: Continue reading »

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