LISTMANIA 2020: A YEAR-END LIST FROM GONZO (PART II)

 LISTMANIA 2020  2 Responses »
Jan 012021
 

 

(This is Part II of a “Top 20 of 2020” year-end list compiled by NCS writer Gonzo. It counts down from No. 10 through No. 1. You can find Part I here.)

 

As I’m writing this, there’s less than 12 hours left in 2020, and the existential dread of how fucked up life might be through the first half of 2021 is slowly beginning to creep in. If it wasn’t for music and legal weed, I don’t know where the hell I’d be mentally right now.

But, enough of that. We’re here for the music. My top 10 albums of the year did a damn fine job of lifting my spirits when I needed it and were also malleable enough to wallow in grief and despair with me when appropriate.

While we collectively light a match and throw it into the five-alarm dumpster fire of 2020 without even so much as turning back to look at the explosion, may I present to you my soundtrack of choice for the occasion. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FEDSMOKER — “SPLATTER PATTERN”

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Dec 312020
 

 

After listening to “Splatter Pattern” a few times, it occurred to me that when Fedsmoker decided to release the track on New Year’s Eve they really weren’t trying to ring out the old year, but to bludgeon and burn it to the ground — all of it, from January 1 straight through today. I’ll drink to that!

We’re told that “Splatter Pattern” was the result of this Pacific Northwest powerviolence/hardcore trio — drummer Benjamin Hall (from Rot Monger and Honey Badger), guitarist Devon Jensen (Infrablaster, The Festering), and vocalist Scott Rozell (Sterileprayer, Scatterbox) — experiencing months of pandemic cabin fever. They’re not alone in that experience, of course, they just have ways of letting the fever run wild which most of us don’t have. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: BRUTALITOPIA’S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2020

 LISTMANIA 2020  1 Response »
Dec 312020
 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our annual LISTMANIA series includes re-posts of lists from “big platform” music sites and selected print zines, but we usually don’t re-post lists from other metal blogs because that truly would make this long series virtually endless. But we’ve again made an exception for Brutalitopia, because through a variety of MDF hijinks over the years, the NCS crew have become fast friends with the miscreants wonderful people behind Brutalitopia — Tom, Mick, and Durf. The following is a Top 10 synthesis they compiled from their individual lists originally published at their site — which you can find HERE.

During this year of years when we needed music most, 2020 delivered in droves. Tons of music that seemed limitless at times; limited only in that there was no live venue for us to enjoy it in. Many bands worked long and hard to ensure their albums during this time of quiet for live venues and we at Brutalitöpia have compiled a Töp 10 from the respective lists (much like we did in 2016 and 2017 and even I did way back in 2011 after the death of The Number of the Blog) of Mick, Durf and myself. Kind of gives you a little bit of what we have been doing this year even if we weren’t writing a ton. Here’s to a better 2021 for all.

–Tom Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: A YEAR-END LIST FROM KARINA NOCTUM

 LISTMANIA 2020  3 Responses »
Dec 312020
 

 

(Below our Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum presents her own year-end list of 2020 favorites.)

2020 was awful. I retreated for several weeks to the mountains to escape from everything and took with me some of the releases in this list. The music helps me a lot to cope. I also went more thrash and old school this time because that gives me happiness and it works as therapy through these plague-ridden dark times. So this list of the best is actually more like a survival kit: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: YEAR-END LISTS FROM THEMADISRAELI

 LISTMANIA 2020  1 Response »
Dec 312020
 

 

(Along with Andy Synn and DGR, TheMadIsraeli has been on the NCS staff the longest, and although a tough year reduced his writing, he didn’t stop listening, and here we have his 2020 year-end lists.)

This year was a tough one for me personally.  Quarantine sending the flow of time into a perpetual state of flux, my father passing away this year, and struggling against some tough times that have faced many of us, including threats of eviction, not being able to make bills, etc, this year was a brutal one to say the least.  Metal got me through it as always, but I will admit that this year I wasn’t able to be as tuned into the musical landscape as I’d have liked to be.  I still managed to encounter some releases though, and I still listened to (by my count) 170+ albums this year, although trust me when I say that for me, Andy, DGR, and Islander, that’s honestly child’s play numbers.

This will, I THINK, change going into 2021.  Things have stabilized and I honestly found a refreshed vigor in my life of heavy music with how it helped me survive this year.  I have some more ambitious projects planned or in progress, including a new Higher Criticism series set to arrive approximately by late January/early February.  Enough about all that though, let’s get to my picks this year. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 129): MALADIE

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  3 Responses »
Dec 302020
 

 

(For the final SYNN REPORT of 2020, Andy Synn reviews all the rcords in the significant discography of the unorthodox German black metal band Maladie.)

Recommended for fans of: Solefald, Sigh, Dødheimsgard

Well, it’s the end of the year as we know it and I feel… well, to be quite honest I’m not sure how I feel.

After all, it’s been a very strange (not to mention challenging) twelve months for most of us, with this site being one of the very few constants capable of brightening the bleak monotony of daily life in 2020.

So, I thought to myself, why not end the year with a feature on a band who are, in their own way, just as strange, and just as challenging (though far more rewarding)? Which is why you’re about to read my in-depth analysis of the still-expanding discography of the multi-headed metallic entity known as Maladie.

Musically-speaking the band’s sound is rooted in Black Metal, sure… but it’s also wilfully Avant-Garde, wickedly Progressive, jazzily indulgent, turbulently Technical, and everything in between, running the gamut from strafing blastbeats to swirling saxophone to groove-heavy riffs to grandiose synths, all topped off with a cacophonous chorus of shrieks and snarls, barks and bellows, sonorous croons and high-toned harmonies delivered in a polyglottal mix of English, French, Spanish, German, and Latin!

As complex and chaotic as all that sounds though, Maladie aren’t afraid to deploy hooks and/or heaviness to keep their listener(s) engaged, and – as a result of the band’s kitchen-sink-in-a-blender approach – there’s a good chance that there’ll be something here to appeal not just to fans of the three bands mentioned above (Solefald, Sigh, and Dødheimsgard) but to people who love Satyricon, Sear Bliss, Arcturus, Ne Obliviscaris, Vintersorg, In Vain, Ihsahn’s solo work, and more. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: A YEAR-END LIST FROM GONZO (PART I)

 LISTMANIA 2020  No Responses »
Dec 302020
 

 

(This is Part I of a “Top 20 of 2020” year-end list compiled by NCS writer Gonzo. It counts down from No. 20 through No. 11, and in Part II we’ll have the top ten.)

If nothing else, 2020 has proven to us that there’s no force in hell or on earth that can stop the gods and lesser idols of metal from cranking out quality material.

Musically speaking, 2020 surprised the shit out of me. When the world came to a grinding halt in March, I was all but certain that creating a “Top 20” or “Top Anything” list come December would be a depressing exercise. Bands were going to stop touring. Gigs were canceled worldwide. And with everything looking so grim and uncertain, I was bracing myself for a down year in metal.

In this case, I was happy to be wrong: Apparently, quarantine lent itself to creativity in brutality. Paired with the litany of political and socioeconomic issues that dominated headlines during this hellish 12 months, it seems plenty of bands drew from a vast pool of inspiration to churn out some seriously impressive work.

Like everyone else here, I didn’t get a chance to listen to everything I probably should have, but here’s the first half of my top 20 picks from the best of a very weird year. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE — “THE GOLDEN PATH”

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Dec 302020
 

 

A. White has been making audio sensations (purists would object to calling all of it “music”) for more than 25 years, through a variety of projects. Most recently he has become known for his work in Vessel of Iniquity and Crown of Ascension (we premiered the latter’s debut EP earlier this month), but the longest-running project has been Uncertainty Principle, which has amassed a catalogue of 16 albums that date back to 1999, and a handful of shorter releases. Now a 17th full-length is on the way.

This new album, aptly named Sonic Terror, is a survey of Uncertainty Principle‘s entire career — not a compilation, mind you, but a re-recording of songs that has involved a process of deconstruction and rebuilding, with an updated and improved sound and an adjustment in the way the sonic ingredients work together. As described by Xenoglossy Productions, which will release Sonic Terror on February 5th, the album “focuses on some of the heaviest doom metal you will ever hear, mixing harsh noise, funeral doom, sludge and drone, like an extreme hybrid between Godflesh and the Australian doom band Halo“. Judging from the song we’re premiering today from Sonic Terror, that’s not an exaggeration. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOHAN HULDTGREN (OBITUS)

 LISTMANIA 2020  1 Response »
Dec 302020
 

 

(Holy hell, it has been 10 years. For the 10th year in a row, our friend Johan Huldtgren of the Swedish black metal band Obitus — whose 2017 album Slaves of the Vast Machine (reviewed and premiered here) is their latest release — has again allowed us to share with you his year-end list, which originally appeared on Johan’s own blog.)

This marks the tenth year in a row I get to share a few albums I’ve enjoyed this past year. So as it’s a double-digit anniversary ending in zero I’m going to do something I’ve not done before and expand on my own published list with a couple of very personal albums which I think deserve some added attention. I say personal because these are all made by close friends of many years, but don’t let that deter you, because these are amazing albums in their own right. In alphabetical order: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VOID, WØMB, NERVOUS DECAY, OMNIKINETIC, ENSANGUINATE, GRAVEDÄNCER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 292020
 

 

Just a few days left in this year that has been so miserable in so many ways, but so great when it comes to heavy music. Speaking of which, my plan is to finish rolling out our year-end lists by January 1st. At this point, I have five more slated to post. Soon after the beginning of the new year I’ll begin the last stage of NCS LISTMANIA, which is my list of 2020’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. I have a lot of thinking to do about that between now and then.

In the meantime I’m still trying to keep up with newly arriving metal. My fucking day job has been relatively calm over the holidays, which makes this task a bit easier, though I expect it to heat up again after New Year’s Day. Here’s some of what I discovered over the last 24 hours that lit me up.

VOID (UK)

The London-based avant-garde black metal band Void, who have been active since 1999, don’t hurry their releases. If you’ve heard either of their first two albums — 2003’s Posthuman and 2011’s Void, you’ll understand why. This isn’t the kind of music that can be thrown together quickly, but it has been so unusually good that it rewards the patience of fans. And now, a decade after their last album, Void will be releasing a new one through Duplicate Records near the end of January 2021. Continue reading »

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