SEEN AND HEARD ON VALENTINE’S DAY: CHAINSWORD, A NOEND OF MINE, NANGA PARBAT, UNGRAVEN, MIASMATA, ALTARAGE, CIBOLA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Feb 132021
 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all (a day early, as Mr. Synn reminds me), including those of you who’ve had all the romance beaten out of you by life’s misfortunes. With black hearts and wilted flowers, I bring you the following musical gifts, some of them nastier than rabid wolves, some of them as beautiful as an alabaster corpse, some of them wilder and more destructive than a cyclone.

I started the day as usual, venturing onto my outdoor deck, bleary-eyed and clutching coffee, yearning for a couple of smokes. What greeted me was the sight of the forest around our island home blanketed in about five inches of snow that had fallen overnight, quiet, grey, and cold. The next thing that greeted me on my phone was a message that gave me the way to launch this round-up.

CHAINSWORD (Poland)

The message waiting for me on my phone as I smoked and caffeinated was from my Norwegian friend eiterorm. He wrote: “Can you please do a review so that this album cover is the header image for the blog?  There is so much going on in that artwork, but my favorite thing is obviously the five-nipple pentagram chain”. I replied: “Your wish is my command.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THIS IS TURIN — “EXCOMMUNICATE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

Beginning last fall, the British band This Is Turin have been gradually rolling out the three songs that make up their conceptual EP, T.U.R.I.N., with each song presented through its own video. The trilogy of tracks began with “Misery“, continued with “Absolution“, and concludes today with “Excommunicate” — the song and video that we’re now premiering on the day of the track’s official release.

With each new song the band have explained its meaning. In the case of “Misery” (which featured a guest appearance by CJ McMahon from Thy Art Is Murder), they wrote: “Misery is the point of no return. Misery is the cry for help that goes unheard. Misery is when life has stripped away every part of existence. It is giving up on hope. This is where the prayers go unanswered. Where absolution has failed. This is turning your back on salvation and finding solace in damnation. It is the soundtrack to complete spiritual discontent. Darkness will reign when the light fades.” Continue reading »

SUFFERING HOUR: “THE CYCLIC RECKONING”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the second album by Minnesota-based Suffering Hour, which will be released by Profound Lore on February 19th.)

It remains a true pleasure, pure and unsullied, to watch a band grow and ascend from humble beginnings towards true greatness.

Such is the case with Colorado terror-trio Suffering Hour, whose second album, The Cyclic Reckoning, may quite possibly be the first truly “great” record of 2021. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABJECTION — “AN ILLUSION OF SLEEP”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

We all have experienced the in-between mental states that occur as we descend into sleep and then emerge again into wakefulness, not being fully awake or asleep (the scientific terms for these similar but not identical phases are hypnagogia and hypnopompia). In those phases, it’s not uncommon to experience hallucinations, and sometimes sleep paralysis or lucid dreams. In the song we’re premiering today, “An Illusion of Sleep“, the lyrics suggest that the Canadian death metal band Abjection are exploring the unreal disturbances that can occur in these blurred transitional conditions — and the music itself manifests turmoil and insanity in frightening but electrifying ways.

“An Illusion of Sleep” is the first track to be revealed from the band’s ravaging debut EP, Malignant Deviation. It will be released by Godz ov War Productions on March 25th.

While Abjection is a new formation, its members have proven themselves already in other bands well-known in the underground. It combines the talents of vocalist Cole Benoit (Anion, Dead Again, Origami Swan), guitarist/bassist Sergey Jmourovski (The Weir, Polemos), lead guitarist Troy Horton (Sinews, Wiser Fool), and drummer Josh Bueckert (Wake, Spaewife). Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OMINATION

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

(With pleasure, we present Comrade Aleks’ extensive interview with Fedor Kovalevsky of the Tunisian extreme metal bands Vielikan and Omination, whose critically acclaimed new album NGR was just recently released by Hypnotic Dirge Records.)

This Tunisian funeral doom-death project offers high quality material. Created in around 2016 by Fedor Kovalevsky (who has Ukrainian roots), Omination consistently developed ’til it became the size of a trio consisting of Fedor at the helm and his bandmates from progressive death outfit Vielikan – Zied Kochbati and Nassim Toumi. With a full lineup and the support of Hypnotic Dirge Records, Fedor presents Omination’s second full-length NGR (New Golgotha Repvbliq), which has been out since the 5th of February.

The last times are upon us! So be forewarned! And don’t forget to take a listen to NGR. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AVERSED — “ABANDONED”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

 

2016 was the year in which Boston-based Aversed released their last record, an EP named Renewal, which followed the band’s 2011 self-titled EP. In the years since then the band’s members focused primarily on their other projects and live performance opportunities, including Seven Spires, a member playing live for Begat The Nephilim and another for Allegaeon/Continuum, and spending time as members of Solium Fatalis and Unflesh previously. But now Aversed are about to return in a big way.

On March 19th they will release their debut album, Impermanent. While the band haven’t jettisoned their progressively inclined take on melodic death metal, they’ve expanded their palette to include elements of blackened and orchestral metal in ways that make their sound even more difficult to succinctly summarize. Still at the forefront are the remarkably varied vocal talents of Haydee Irizarry, again backed by the both hard-hitting and sophisticated instrumental approach of guitarists Sungwoo Jeong and Alden Marchand, bassist Peter Albert de Reyna, and drummer Jeff Saltzman.

Two songs from the album have already surfaced, and today we’re bringing you a third one — “Abandoned“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TURRIS EBURNEA — “MALACHITE MOUNTAINS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 112021
 

 

Turris Eburnea is an experimental death metal band consisting of vocalist/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Gabriele Gramaglia (Cosmic Putrefaction, The Clearing Path, Summit) and bassist Nicholas McMaster (Krallice, Geryon, Edenic Past, ex-Castevet). Simply seeing those two names joined together is enough to generate a mix of curiosity and excitement. The music they’ve made together in this project, as it turns out, is both utterly fascinating and so twisted and discombobulating that it may feel like it’s flipping your mind upside-down and turning it inside-out.

We’re told that the band’s self-titled EP, which consists of four tracks, “was conceived and raised during the Covid-19 silent and desolating confinement periods”. It will be released by Everlasting Spew Records (CD and digital) on March 15th, with vinyl arriving later, and it comes with these words, which perhaps capture its inspiration:

“…Memory fades and time seems to stretch into a slow infinity, an emotional or existential dissociation, a mind/body separation, a disappearance of individuality into an undifferentiated mass… Like a post apocalyptic world suspended in an ethereal silence.” Continue reading »

THE INSANITY OF ONE-MAN BANDS IN CHINA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 112021
 

 

(The following article was written by guest contributor Ryan Dyer, who has been on a mission to spread the word about metal music from China, and in this article he focuses on one-man Chinese bands in the genres of grindcore, noise, and industrial.)

China is home to over a billion people. Hundreds of thousands of these individuals have artistic endeavors, but some don’t play well with others. The one-man band is a unique performance art in the musical spectrum. Usually, electronic music is where one would find them, and usually as a DJ. The one-man vehicle does reach out into other forms of music, however, such as rap, hip hop, industrial, noise, and even grindcore. As the result of one person’s imagination and drive, the output often defies genre limitations, becoming something which could be labeled “outsider music”.

The three musicians presented here are certainly outsiders. Hailing from Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, they prove that no single city is at the forefront of single-handed creative madness in China. It’s omnipresent and on the rise. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OAKMORD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Feb 102021
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with Sami Rautio and Jürgen Fröhling, former collaborators in My Shameful and current collaborators again in Oakmord, whose debut record will be released on February 15th.)

Sami Rautio (Finland) and Jürgen Fröhling (Germany) collaborated successfully for years running the bleak and painful doom/death project My Shameful. My Shameful was no more since 2015, so Jürgen was able to focus on his doom/sludge band Absent/Minded, and Sami… it seems Sami was occupied with his solo project Kadotettu. However, both of them reunited in order to channel a mix of creativity and negativity through a new collaboration – Oakmord.

As Sami confesses, it is on a different range of emotions, and as musicians they have naturally changed over the years, “grown if that term fits here…” I agree with that, and you can make sure yourself while reading this interview — quite a good interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAEDES CRUENTA — “OF RITUAL NECROPHAGIA AND MYSTERIOUS GHOUL CULTS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 102021
 

 

For their third album, and their first one in six years, the Greek black metal band Caedes Cruenta have gone BIG, one might even say Olympian. In the most objective (and mundane) of terms, it is roughly 62 minutes long. But the scale of the album is vast in other, more consequential, ways.

Unmistakably, Caedes Cruenta uphold the finest traditions of classic Greek black metal — the foundational works of Rotting Christ, Varathron, and Necromantia — by melding ferocious aggression and heavyweight punch with ringing heavy metal leads and judiciously deployed synths, as well as a vocal tandem of throat-slitting shrieks and horror-spawning growls. But they do this in ways that create a wide range of atmospheres and emotional sensations — as you shall discover through our premiere stream of the entire album in advance of its February 12 release by Helter Skelter Productions. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries