AN NCS PREMIERE: MERGER REMNANT — “ALL-OUT VIOLENCE UPON LIFE”

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Dec 092020
 

 

Before listening to the song you’re now about to hear, I had some expectations about what it might sound like, but the expectations were based solely on the previous musical output of one of this new Swedish band’s members rather than any advance descriptive information about the music — of which there was none. What I found turned out to be an electrifying surprise.

The band is Merger Remnant, and it’s a collaboration between Björn Larsson (who performs vocals, guitars, bass, and drums) and his friend Jonas Ström (keys, samples, ambience, guitars). Larsson is best-known to me and to many others as a member of the death metal bands Mordbrand and God Macabre, and that’s what formed the early expectations. Ström, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any kind of metal pedigree.

What they’ve created together, as represented on their debut EP Dregs, is difficult to pin down in genre terms. Based on the song we’re premiering from the EP today — “All-out Violence Upon Life” — death metal is in the mix, but so are strains of black metal, doom, and ambient music, and the song also has a powerful and multi-faceted atmospheric quality. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RAAT — “AURORA”

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Dec 092020
 

 

I’ve been closely following the progress of the Indian band Raat since the 2018 release of the projects’s debut EP (Once). The work of a single Delhi-based creator, S.R., who has been in involved in other solo endeavors, including Nightgrave, Raat’s music has displayed persistent connections to black metal, but without being hemmed in by black metal conventions. And so S.R. has also drawn upon other styles, some of which go beyond the bounds of metal altogether, to better channel the emotions that have inspired the sounds.

The animating emotions seem to vacillate between depressiveness and despair, on the one hand, and hope on the other, and the music is capable of being both intensely ravaging and unnerving as well as beautiful. In all of its changing phases, however, the music, as they say, always wears its heart on its sleeve, in ways that feel genuine and often poignant.

Raat’s latest creation is a new album named Raison D’être, which is set for release by the Italian label Flowing Downward on December 12th. It provides a contrast with Raat’s last album, Déraciné. As S.R. has commented, while that album “was quite distinct and warm sounding, the new album is at once decidedly heavier and darker in its atmosphere. In more ways than one, the sound portrays the present day calamity our world is crushed under. Simultaneously, it also maintains moments of rapture and euphoria.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE EYE OF THE NORTH — “WINDS OF DEATH”

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Dec 082020
 

 

The magnificent cover art for the debut album of The Eye of the North should be enough by itself to entice any died-in-the-wool metalhead to investigate the album, but if (somehow) that weren’t enough, we have a further enticement for you today in the form of the album’s opening track, “Winds of Death“.

The name of the album is Black Thrashing Onslaught, which is a vivid clue to the band’s music. The band is the solo project of G., who is the leader in the Norwegian bestial black metal horde Goatkraft, and in this new project he indulges a fascination with murderous thrash metal from the second part of the ’80s and the ’90’s mixed with black metal “in the raw and purest form”, building upon the inspiration of such bands as Kreator, Urgehal, and later on Destroyer 666 and Aura Noir. In the song we’re premiering today, he has created an experience of high-voltage electrification that’s as wildly magnificent as it is brazenly unhinged in its ferocity. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WORMVEIL — “SAILS OF FLESH”

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Dec 082020
 

 

Jonny Pettersson seems to be a perpetually busy musician. The Metal-Archives list of active bands in which he’s a participant runs to more than 20 names, including Wombbath, Heads for the Dead, Pale King, and Henry Kane. And now MA will have to update its list, because Pettersson has given birth to a new project named Wormveil, in which he’s joined by his Wombbath and Pale King bandmate Jon Rudin performing the drums.

Wormveil’s debut outing is an album named Profane Excellence, which will be released in January 2021 by Hecatombe Records, and today it’s our pleasure to reveal a track from the album named “Sails of Flesh” — which includes a guest guitar solo by another one of Pettersson’s Wombbath and Pale King comrades, Håkan Stuvemark. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LACOLPA — “RELICS”

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Dec 082020
 

 

On the day of the Winter Solstice, the 21st of December, Brucia Records will release the second full-length by the Italian band LaColpa. Given the critical acclaim heaped upon the band’s first album, 2017’s Mea Maxima Culpa, both intrigue and anticipation have circled around this new one, the title of which is Post Tenebras Lux.

The album’s title translates to “after darkness, light”, but it is often difficult to imagine that any light will survive the nightmarish experiences that the band have crafted through their amalgam of blackened doom, drone, and improvisational harsh noise. Thematically, as the band’s label explains, “this new album outlines LaColpa’s philosophy of pain, deeply rooted in the human condition of eternal suffering”. In what we judge to be the band’s own words, the inspiration for the music is a harrowing philosophy: Continue reading »

2020 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GOOD

 LISTMANIA 2020  26 Responses »
Dec 082020
 

(We dom’t publish a single “official” NCS year-end list of best releases. Instead, each of our staff members compiles his own individual list. Andy Synn‘s week-long series of year-end lists continues today with his large collection of 2020’s “Good” albums across a wide range of genres.)

So, now that all the fury and furore about yesterday’s list has (hopefully) died down, it’s time for us to get stuck into the good stuff.

And I do mean the “good” stuff, as today’s list features a wide variety of albums and artists all of whom I think are worth giving a listen to, some of which came very close to making it onto tomorrow’s “great” list, while others sit more in the “flawed, but still fun” category, but which all ultimately offer something worthwhile whether or not you’re a new listener or a long-time fan.

As always, I have to point out that this list is in no way “ranked”… it’s more of a general round-up of things (over 200 of them at last count) which I’ve had chance to listen to and form a semi-coherent opinion on over the course of the last twelve months… and is designed primarily to help our readers discover (or give a second chance to) things they might otherwise have missed or dismissed.

Oh, and if anything does catch your ear (and if nothing does then perhaps you’re on the wrong site?) then just give the band name a click and it should take you to their bandcamp page (or equivalent).

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get going, shall we? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MAR DE GRISES

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Dec 072020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us the following interview of Sergio Álvarez, guitarist for the sadly split-up Chilean band Mar de Grises, whose albums The Tatterdemalion Express and Draining The Waterheart have recently been released by the Spanish label The Vinyl Division on vinyl format with remastered audio.)

Mar de Grises was one of most promising doom-acts from Chile since the release of their debut The Tatterdemalion Express in 2004. They presented a melodic yet aggressive version of doom death, I would compare it with Daylight Dies and Katatonia of the Brave Murder Day period, with a proper amount of keyboards parts, but actually Mar de Grises never copied anyone and their influences are wider. Their style was always recognizable because of utter melodies, progressive dynamics, math-breaks and powerful extreme vocals.

The band split-up in 2013, and its members walked their own paths, but news of the vinyl reissue of their first two albums made me get in touch with Mar de Grises‘ ex-guitarist Sergio Álvarez and complete a short interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE NOCTAMBULANT — “HELLRAZOR”

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Dec 072020
 

 

Black metal will probably always be principally associated with the cold climes of northern Europe. That is, after all, where the second wave originated and where it has achieved its greatest and most long-lasting popularity. Even as black metal has spread like another plague into almost every corner of the globe, much of the music still tends to gravitate toward the Scandinavian templates, even when bands come from places that couldn’t be more different.

One such place is southern Florida, where The Noctambulant make their home. With a trio of opening EPs under their belts and two albums, the last of which was 2019’s The Cold and Formless Deep, The Noctambulant had carved a black path that also drew upon Scandinavian traditions, albeit with an emphasis on hook-heavy melody as well as sinister, supernatural, and venomous atmosphere — and with a pronounced place for swaggering, hard-rocking heat.

Yet after five years of exploring the musical landscape of Black Metal, The Noctambulant have decided to adopt an aesthetic that they see as more authentic to their southern Floridian roots. “Being steeped in the traditions of Blues, Rockabilly, Goth rock and American Country”, they report that they have “found their niche in the Southern Gothic motif that they were raised around”. In a realm of pine forests and hot, oppressive swamps, they’ve changed course in a way that better reflects that environment.

As a sign of the band’s changed direction, we present a video for a new single being released today named “Hellrazor“, a video whose high production values contrast with the setting in which the band perform and a devilishly seductive figure cavorts. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIG ME NO GRAVE — “MORTUUS TEMPLARIS”

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Dec 072020
 

 

On December 15th of this waning year the Mexican label Iron Blood & Death Corp. will release the third album of the Russian “ancient death metal band” Dig Me No Grave. Entitled Under The Pyramids, it’s a 10-track onslaught whose song lengths are mainly in the three-to-four-minute range, and represents the work of the band’s new line-up of vocalist Alexey Rumyantsev, guitarist Nikita Smirnov, guitarist/bassist Ivan Mishin, and drummer Anatoly Schenikov (with appearances on some tracks by bassist Vlad Kotov and drummer Roman Galinov).

Today we present the new album’s fourth track, “Mortuus Templaris“, and if your ass happens to be dragging today, it will fix that problem quickly by providing a swift jolt of high-octane fuel for your nervous system. Continue reading »

2020 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE DISAPPOINTING

 LISTMANIA 2020  40 Responses »
Dec 072020
 

 

(We don’t publish a single “official” NCS year-end list of best releases.  Instead, each of our staff members compiles his own individual list. As usual, we have begun this year with a series of lists compiled by Andy Synn. Last Friday we published his list of 2020’s best EPs, and this week we’re rolling out the rest of them, day by day. As in the past we’re starting with an installment that veers off our usual theme of focusing on music we enthusiastically recommend. Feel free to disagree — some of us here may disagree as well — but also feel free to share in the Comments your own thoughts about 2020 albums that disappointed you.)

And so it begins…

Once again I’m starting off my annual week-long listravaganza with a round-up of those albums which I felt ultimately failed to live up to their promise and potential (and, in some cases, hype).

As always, however, I come here today not to praise Caesar… but not to bury him either…. but simply to point out that sometimes, sometimes, the emperor is a little under-dressed.

Of course, if I’m being totally honest, doing this column actually makes me a little sad, as it frequently (including this time) features bands who I consider some of my personal favourites.

But, by the same token, I think it’s important, and necessary, to acknowledge that even the best bands, even the bands we love the most, aren’t perfect, and sometimes come in under the bar.

This is especially relevant to this year’s article, as it contains a number of big/famous/seminal names, all with lengthy careers behind them (and hopefully lengthy careers still before them), who – for various reasons – simply didn’t produce their best work this year.

Chances are you won’t agree with all of my choices here. Some of you may even be upset by them (though you don’t need to be, this won’t harm any of the bands – in fact it might even help them identify some weaknesses in their overall game). But, no matter what, I hope we can all remain civil and polite in the comments.

After all, we’re all here because we love music… even when it sometimes disappoints us. Continue reading »

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