SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MORK, AGRYPNIE, TOTALITARIAN, LYKHAEON

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Jun 272021
 


photo by Terje Johansen

 

You might have noticed that I didn’t publish the usual Saturday round-up yesterday. I’ll spare you the reasons, but will say that I spent hours going through dozens of new songs and videos that I’d added to my enormous listening list over the last week. Some of those were black metal songs of different styles. I made some hard choices about which of those to include in this usual Sunday column, but still wound up with enough for a two-parter.

What you’ll find in Part 1 are four new videos, two of them for songs from releases that have been out in the world for a while and two of them for tracks off forthcoming albums.

MORK

I learned about the first video through a press release by Peaceville Records that arrived yesterday. I had to scroll through lots of text and photos about Darkthrone’s new album before coming to the Mork news, and I haven’t yet seen any reports about the video on social media or elsewhere. Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit in writing about it, but the press release treated the video as something that had already premiered, so it seems fair game. I assume word will spread further on Monday.

The song featured in the video, “Født Til Å Herske”, happens to be one of my favorites on Mork’s newest album, Katedralen, which is packed with strong songs. “Født Til Å Herske” includes a guest vocal appearance by Kampfar’s Dolk (who also appears in this video), and the additional tonal texture and feeling he adds to the song is one reason why it stands out to me. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JÄRNBÖRD — “GÖR OM, GÖR FEL”

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Jun 252021
 

 

Imagine having electrodes jammed into your neck and someone spinning up the voltage dial to full power while other marauders beat you with hammers, scamper about the room in savage ecstasy, and bray in your face with raw, vitriolic yells. You spasm, become savagely bruised, and yet it all feels fucking great.

That kind of vision might be what comes to mind when you listen to the title track off Järnbörd‘s new album Gör om, gör fel (meaning something like “do again, do wrong”), which will be released this year by Downfall Records. The album includes 10 tracks of fast and heavy grindcore and punk, plus a long 11th track that presents a remix of the first 10 tracks using harsh electronics and synth-filled landscapes of noise. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GALVANIZER — “THE EVER-CRESCENT”

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Jun 252021
 

 

Three years ago we had the ghoulish pleasure of premiering the debut album of the precocious Finnish death metal band Galvanizer, summing it up as “a full-throttle, titanically toned barrage”, with each compact song delivering “an electrifying death/grind rampage, each one spliced with grooves”. As we wrote then, “the music rips, romps, and pounds, and sometimes (but not often) it drops into a grisly, staggering lurch,” with the whole affair draped in “a morbid mantle of horror”.

Sanguine Vigil was indeed hellishly impressive, and so is their full-length follow-up, Prying Sight of Imperception. It’s so impressive that Me Saco Un Ojo and Everlasting Spew have again teamed up to release it, as they did the debut album, and so impressive that we’ve again signed on for a premiere in advance of the July 26 release date. Today’s revelation is “The Ever-Crescent“. Continue reading »

THY CATAFALQUE: “VADAK”

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Jun 242021
 

 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth returns to NCS with this review of the new album by Thy Catafalque, which will be out tomorrow on Season of Mist. A full stream of the album follows the review.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. Once again, the impending release of something truly special rouses me from my nocturnal haze and guides me to my keyboard, compelling me to write. Yes, as the title of the article likely gives away, there is a new Thy Catafalque album ready to enter the public eye, and so I take upon myself the honor of reviewing it. Vadak is the tenth Thy Catafalque album, compilations and the Zápor EP notwithstanding, and as is fitting for such a significant number, it’s a truly noteworthy album in a discography full of noteworthy albums.

By this point in time, my devotion to the work of Tamás Kátai is a well-worn, well-documented history, but for the uninitiated, Thy Catafalque is primarily the work of one man, typically with a number of guests. Kátai is a Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and the driving force behind this project, and (as I will further explain in the paragraphs to come) is something of a musical genius. In the 23 years that Kátai has been recording under this moniker, the band’s style has evolved almost constantly from a relatively experimental black metal project to something that is, frankly, impossible to define. In the lead-up to this review, I did a chronological listen to the entire Thy Catafalque discography, front to back (including the first three albums, which are the most black metal releases and my least favorite simply because they’re the harshest and least listenable), and that endeavor served to further bolster the knowledge that Kátai’s musical fingerprints have been all over this project since the beginning. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUFFER YOURSELF — “RIP TIDE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 242021
 

 

During a falling or ebbing tide the outflow of water through constricted channels can create a powerful surge capable of carrying a person caught within it far offshore, or dangerously submerging them in the surging flow, with little ability to escape and find air once again. This phenomenon is called a rip tide — and when you listen to the remarkable new album by Suffer Yourself you will understand why they chose Rip Tide as its name.

This multinational funeral doom collective, which first began as the solo project of Polish musician Stanislav Govorukha and then blossomed, like a night-blooming flower, into a full band, has released two previous albums, 2014’s Inner Sanctum and 2016’s Ectoplasm. On this third one, they’ve expanded and altered their musical range in ways that bring them closer to the deathly terrain of such bands as Esoteric and Evoken — though it would be a mistake to push that comparison too far, because Suffer Yourself possess their own distinctive identity and have drawn within their music a multitude of stylistic and tonal ingredients that make each song different from the others and the album as a whole an unconventional experience.

You’ll be able to discover all of that for yourselves today, because we’re now premiering a full stream of Rip Tide on the eve of its release by Aesthetic Death. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST — “HAIR AS THE SALT OF CARTHAGO”

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Jun 242021
 

 

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the fascinatingly distinctive Italian black metal band Laetitia In Holocaust. To celebrate the occasion, the band have recorded a new three-song EP entitled I Fall With the Saints, and Brucia Records is releasing it on a limited run of tapes, along with a book that includes photos and an exclusive interview with the band covering much of their history. Today, in addition to sharing this news, we’re reviewing the EP and premiering one of its three songs, “Hair as the Salt of Carthago“.

For those who may only now be discovering this band despite their longevity, Laetitia in Holocaust was formed in 2001 by Stefano G. and Nicola D.A. That duo self-released two demos, one EP, and two albums before being joined by drummer Marcello M. for the release (by Third I Rex) of the remarkable (and enormously surprising) Fauci tra Fauci in 2019, which we had the thrill of premiering here. And they followed that with the release last year of the transfixing Heritage (via Nifihel Records).

It’s possible to make comparisons of this band’s idiosyncratic creations to the avant-garde stylings of a few other bands, but the truth is that they really don’t sound like anyone else I’ve encountered. Trying to sum up their music in succinct sentences would be a daunting challenge. Forgetting the music after you’ve heard it would be an impossibility. This new EP is a vivid demonstration of all that. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MODERN RITES, BIAŁYWILK, VAELMYST, WITCH VOMIT, MAZE OF TERROR, DIMENTIANON, UNREQVITED

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 232021
 

 

Lots of good stuff in today’s round-up, with a variety of new black metal, death metal, and thrash, plus a towering exit song. All of the songs are off forthcoming records, with the exception of a just-released EP that I’ve sandwiched in the middle. You’ll see some really good cover art in this collection too.

Even though I and most of the NCS writers are in the U.S., the preponderance of the music we cover (along with half our readers) seems to emanate from outside U.S. borders. Thus it’s unusual that (coincidentally) almost all of the following music comes from U.S. bands.

MODERN RITES (U.S./Switzerland)

The opening song today, “Self Synthesis“, swells in sound, like what you might hear if gradually approaching an industrial metal-mangling machine, and then erupts in a hammering, searing discharge of instrumental and vocal intensity — with eerie, wraith-like tones swirling in sorrow above. It revisits those mangling sensations, which begin to seem apocalyptic…. Continue reading »

AMENRA – DE DOORN

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 232021
 

(Andy Synn continues his long-running love affair with Amenra by delving into their unusual new album, which is set for release this Friday on Relapse Records)

There’s a certain type of person, and I might be one of them, who seems to think that Amenra can do no wrong.

And, truth be told, a quick glimpse at the band’s history would seem to prove them/me/us right.

But just because the band have yet to disappoint doesn’t mean you should think you know exactly what to expect from them, especially when it comes to their new album, De Doorn. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SIDEREAN — “LOST ON VOID’S HORIZON”

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Jun 232021
 

 

The Slovenian band Siderean began their career under the name Teleport, and as Teleport they released a sequence of demos culminating in 2018’s remarkable Expansion. Afterward came the name change, and a refinement of sound, which was displayed on Siderean’s 2020 demo, aptly named Sidereal Evolution, which was released by Edged Circle Productions. And now, at last, Edged Circle Productions will soon release Siderean’s debut album, Lost On Void’s Horizon.

In their Teleport incarnation, the band drew influence from the likes of Gorguts, Voivod, and Australia’s Stargazer, with musical connections to contemporaries such as Blood Incantation and Sacriphyx. But as revealed on that 2020 demo and even more so on the new album (which includes those demo tracks), they’ve ventured out into more mind-bending and off-planet dimensions, creating a combination of progressive and technical death metal that’s as fascinating and enthralling as it is disorienting.

Thus, it’s with a genuine thrill that we present a full stream of the album just days away from its June 25 release, preceded by our review. Continue reading »

FRACTAL UNIVERSE: “THE IMPASSABLE HORIZON”

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Jun 232021
 

 

(DGR wrote the following extensive review of the new album by the French progressive death metal band Fractal Universe, which will be out on June 25th via Metal Blade.)

There are times when one can feel like some sort of mystic far-seer when it comes to an album release, hovering over whatever magical talisman grants them vision into other realms, timelines, worlds, various 7-11 bathrooms, and so on, and able to see an album like some sort of organic creature, as if it were a living plant, sparked from the seed of an earlier being, and you somehow feel like you can follow that trail all the way back to its genesis, point to it, and say “This, this right here, is what created this exact moment in time”.

Of course, given how music is written and that most musicians are more likely to have an idea come to them in the shower than any concrete expanding upon specific concepts, you’d mostly be dead wrong on that early prediction. Yet in the case of Fractal Universe‘s latest Metal Blade offering – the being known as The Impassable Horizon – it is difficult not to pontificate on what songs bore fruit from the group’s prior release and how it might have led to this one.

In this case, there is one song in particular on the group’s 2019 release Rhizomes of Insanity that seems to have grown into its own fifty-some-odd-minute album, and that song is the angular and prog-worshiping song that arrived near the end of that particular release, “Fundamental Dividing Principal”. Continue reading »

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