AN NCS PREMIERE: ÆPOCH — “AMNESIA”

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Aug 102021
 

 

The Ontario progressive death metal band Æpoch are returning to the fray with a new line-up and a new EP set for release on September 10th named Hiraeth, and we’re presenting a track from it today. But before we experience “Amnesia“, we’ll share the band’s description about the chilling tale narrated through the music, which will illuminate the song you’re about to hear:

“Hiraeth is a concept EP about a character who has awoken in a post apocalyptic type environment with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He begins to wander in the desolate wasteland desert for days without any food or clean water. His body and mind grow weak from malnutrition and he begins to hallucinate. He eventually stumbles upon what appears to be fertile land. He sees a looming and eerie silhouette of some sort of decrepit totem. He becomes fixated on the monument.

“As he approaches, he gazes upon its carved trunk he notices the foul smell from all around him. This is the smell of the decaying flesh of those who walked this path before him, their minds consumed by the demonic spirit of the monolith. This creature, we call ‘The god of rot’ in the songs and the god of rot infects the mind of its victims, enthralling them to its will. The god of rot feeds off of the life source of its victims by having them sacrifice themselves once they are fully enthralled in a way similar to seppuku (Japanese samurai ritual suicide) and dress its limbs in their innards before they expire. The cover art depicts our protagonist approaching the god of rot.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALUSTRIUM, FLUISTERAARS, JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS, SERMON OF FLAMES, SEEDS OF PERDITION, SHED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 102021
 

 

If a blogger like me could pull together roundups of recommended new music on a daily basis, it would be a lot easier to keep my head above the constantly rising musical tides. But sadly I don’t have enough time for that, and so I wind up doing things like this and this as the week ends and the weekend begins. Which is to say that what you’re about to embark on has become a rarity — a roundup early in the week. And this one, again arrangd alphabetically, turns out to be a real roller-coaster ride. Enjoy!

ALUSTRIUM (US)

The lead-off item is a new video (with a message) for a song that’s a head-spinner, one that melds barking growls and caustic screams, darting symphonics and scintillating drumwork, feelings of jolting hostility and jittery tension, a jazz-like interlude, and abundant flurries of flickering and fret-leaping guitar. Deep drilling tones give the music a cold, grim, and desolate mood as the song draws to a tragic and haunting end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RUNESPELL — “VENGEANCE REIGN”

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Aug 102021
 

 

The creative fires that burn in Australia’s Runespell seem unquenchable. Since the Unhallowed Blood Oath debut full-length in 2017, the band has released significant new works every year, including 2018’s Order of Vengeance, 2019’s Voice of Opprobrium, and the 2020 split with Forest Mysticism, Wandering Forlorn. And, like clockwork, Runespell has completed a new album that will be released on September 10th of this year by Iron Bonehead Productions, which has ushered forth all of the previous releases as well.

Runespell has already staked out a musical territory that presents (in the accurate words of the press materials) “grandiose melancholy given majestic flight” coupled with “bloodlusting energy no matter the tempo — widescreen in its vast landscapes yet fiercely focused….” And the new album displays those qualities again, but does so in ways that are perhaps even more dazzling in their extravagance, more unearthly in their aura, and more heart-stricken in their melodic moods. Witness the track we’re premiering today, “Vengeance Reign“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRESCENT

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Aug 102021
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us his interview with Ismaeel Attallah and Youssef Saleh from the Egyptian band Crescent, whose latest album was released at the end of last month by Listenable Records.)

Highly influenced by Swedish Black Metal in their early days, Crescent from Cairo, Egypt never hurried and have worked out their image patiently and carefully since 1999. This attitude and the band’s place of origin explain why it took so much time ’til they managed to finish their first album Pyramid Slaves in 2014. They didn’t wake up famous the next day, but a contract with Listenable Records and a few big festivals were in their hands.

Crescent totally changed direction with their sophomore album The Order of Amenti (2018), yet some pieces of black metal were left in their body though death metal influences were far stronger. And if you are wondering how this Egyptian blackened death metal sounds today, then Crescent’s new big work Carving the Fires of Akhet is your best chance to dig it out. Ismaeel Attallah (vocals,guitars) and Youssef Saleh (guitars) are our guests tonight. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VELA PULSAR — “REVERENCE OF BEING”

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Aug 092021
 

 

Vela Pulsar began as a transcontinental collaboration between Ryan Mueller from Toronto and Samantha Holmes from Portland, Oregon. When the project became more serious and Samantha proposed creating an album, Ryan recruited his brother Cam to handle the drums (both brothers are also members of A Flock Named Murder) — and thus they recorded their debut record Memoirs of Unbecoming, which was digitally released last December, adorned by the haunting cover art of Marie Cherniy.

The music is a hybrid of symphonic and post-black metal that’s both ravishing and profound. Over the course of three long tracks it creates wide-ranging sensations of turmoil, longing, and transcendence that are all artfully constructed and emotionally involving at a visceral level. What we have for you today is a lyric video for one of those three tracks, “Reverence of Being“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCULSED — “LURID PLACELESS ECHOES”

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Aug 092021
 

 

In what other genre of music but death metal could adjectives like “grotesque”, “putrid”, “abysmal”, and “abhorrent” be used as compliments? None come to mind. But of course even in the realm of death metal those adjectives are complimentary only when the music has other qualities that make it viscerally exciting and memorable. Simply wallowing in a choking vat of formless excrement and vomit does not alone become pleasurable, even for people whose tastes run hard to the more disgusting offshoots of old school death.

Which brings us back to Occulsed, and the second song we’re ghoulishly happy to premiere from their debut album Crepitation of Phlegethon in the run-up to its September 17 release by Everlasting Spew Records. The music of Occulsed merits all those adjectives above, but it’s also so well-constructed and maliciously well-realized that it becomes addictive (as well as foul). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DØDSFERD, TUMBA DE CARNE, WALDGEFLÜSTER

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Aug 092021
 

 

As you can see, this is Part 2 of the weekly column I began yesterday. Because I’m hurrying to finish it before turning to the usual Monday flurry of activity at our site, I’ll dispense with any further introduction and get right to the music.

DØDSFERD (Greece)

On August 10th this Greek black metal band will commemorate its 20th anniversary of existence by releasing a new album named Suicide and the Rest of Your Kind Will Follow Part II, which arrives a dozen years after Part I. It consists of two long songs, the first of which premiered yesterday at Metal Addicts through a video made by Nikolaos Stavridakis (VisionBlack), which builds upon artwork created by Georgios Gyzis (aka Bacchus of the black metal band Grab). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): KATAVASIA, FLESIA, KORGONTHURUS, REMAH, SÔLT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Aug 082021
 

 

After spending a ton of time listening to new songs and writing about many of them in the two enormous roundups I posted on Friday and Saturday I despaired of being able to do very much with this week’s SHADES OF BLACK column. But I got a second wind and became inspired by the varying sounds you’re about to discover.

In this two-part edition the bands whose music I chose include some old personal favorites and some very promising newcomers.  My second wind is dying, so you’ll most likely have to look for Part 2 on Monday.

KATAVASIA (Greece)

These Greek black metal luminaries, whose lineup includes members drawn from Varathron, Hail Spirit Noir, Aenaon, Melan Selas, and Agnes Vein, have a new two-track EP headed our way, and the first of the two songs — “Descending to Acheron” — has now surfaced. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (STILL TOO MANY NAMES TO PUT IN A POST TITLE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 072021
 

 

By some kind of industry consensus Fridays have become big days for the release of new music. When you stack a Bandcamp Friday on top of that, you get a deluge of biblical proportions. In an effort to keep up with the torrent, I compiled an extra-large roundup yesterday, but even though it included 14 new songs and videos that I enjoyed it still only scratched the surface. So I decided to do it again today, and to go even bigger, though I didn’t quite make it to Z in the alphabet.

Once again, there are a lot of bigger names in this collection, and once again I’ve injected some lesser-knowns as well. I’ve also included some playthrough videos. There’s not a lot of black metal in the mix, but that’s because tomorrow is Sunday, and you know what that means. Don’t you?

A THOUSAND SUFFERINGS (Belgium)

In this first song the dark, folksy, acoustic opening grabbed me, and then I felt both swept aloft and heart-stricken by the ensuing waves of bleak but grand melody and the shattering screams. The sounds are immense, stately, and emotionally crushing, even with the softer, haunting interstitials that arrive. The music boils over into sounds of torment and fury, and becomes almost hallucinatory in its agony, which makes this rendering of black/doom even more powerful. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FLESHBORE — “EMBERS GATHERING”

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Aug 062021
 

 

It’s our pleasure today to present a full stream of the debut album by the Indianapolis-based tech-death crew Fleshbore, which is set for an August 13 release by Innerstrength Records. It represents a redefining of the band’s sound over years of effort, and the results (to borrow some words you’ll see in the following review) are both body-mangling and mind-blowing.

In the opening track, “Momentum”, a compulsive rhythmic beat and grand ringing chords provide the introduction to an obliterating percussive assault accompanied by slicing, swirling, and darting fretwork and savage growls and screams. The music continues to morph, becoming both oppressive and eerily glorious, jolting the spine with punishing power and writhing like diseased reptiles. Continue reading »

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