NO CLEAN SINGING

DVNE – ETEMEN ÆNKA

Mar 152021

(Andy Synn returns to the golden path to praise the new album from Dvne, out this Friday via Metal Blade)

As anyone who’s been following this site for more than a few years will be able to tell you, I absolutely love Asheran, the 2017 album from Scottish Post/Prog Metal prodigies Dvne.

Not only is it one of my favourite albums of all time, but it’s also one I legitimately consider to be among the best full-length records of the last decade (and I know quite a lot of our readers agree).

So when I found out that the band were not only working on a follow-up but had been snatched up by Metal Blade at the same time… well, as you can imagine my excitement levels went through the roof.

And now that the moment of its release is (almost) upon us, there’s just three questions about Etemen Ænka which need answering.

Is it as good as (or even better than, if that’s possible) Asheran?
Will it help the band reach a whole new audience and get them the attention and acclaim they deserve?
Could it possibly, maybe, one day supplant its predecessor in my affections?

Well, the answers to those questions are, in order, “yes”, “I hope so”, and “only time will tell”…

AN NCS PREMIERE: EREMIT — “ENSHRINED IN INDISSOLUBLE CHAINS AND ENLIGHTENED DARKNESS”

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Mar 152021

Sometimes as you gaze through your musical playlist all you want is the quick hit, a burst of adrenaline, an episode of violence, a jolt to the muscle reflexes, a spinning centrifuge for your brain. And maybe at other times you just want to sink yourself into another world, to lose yourself in a different realm — even if it’s one where it seems all life is being methodically snuffed out. Sometimes becoming spellbound is the goal, even if the spell is darker than midnight.

Which brings us to “Enshrined in Indissoluble Chains and Enlightened Darkness“, one of the three massive tracks that make up the new album by Germany’s Eremit, which is set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on June 11th, and which continues the mythological story arc that the band started on their debut album, Carrier of Weight. It is not a quick hit. It is an experience of the other kind, a complete immersion in a different realm, the makings of a pitch-black (yet often poignant) spell — a meticulously plotted pageant of pain created through a union of bleak, earth-shaking heaviness, wraith-like eeriness, and the voice of a man being destroyed. Continue reading »

MARE COGNITUM: “SOLAR PAROXYSM”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Mar 152021

(We present Nathan Ferreira‘s review of the new album by Mare Cognitum from Portland, Oregon. The album wll be released on March 19th by I, Voidhanger Records and Extraconscious Records.)

Honestly, I questioned even writing this review because one thing I prefer to do when I can is to give extra attention and appreciation to bands that go under the radar. But Mare Cognitum needs no introduction to most – they’re one of the defining modern black metal bands of the 2010s, to the point where I now see them mentioned as an influence in the promo blurbs of up-and-coming artists.

Jacob Buczarski, the project’s sole mastermind, runs his own label wherein he curates bands of a similar style and ethos, which itself includes scores of mind-bending music. The guy’s a damn black metal institution at this point, and the album I’m about to review is already sold out on Bandcamp (not on I, Voidhanger’s page, fortunately) weeks before it comes out on March 19th. Do I really need to hype this up any more?

Yes. Yes is the answer to that question. Solar Paroxysm is amazing, even with the high expectations that the previous albums set for it. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SPHERE, SETH, EXAVERSUM, ZEIT, TRENCHES

SHADES OF BLACK 2 Responses »

Mar 142021

I think of this week’s column as falling into two parts that I’ve arranged by design. The first part consists of three segments — advance tracks from three forthcoming album. Although I’d be foolish to claim they are completely similar, I think they do share certain ingredients and feelings that tie them together in ways that make for a very good mini-playlist. In the second part I’ve reviewed two albums (though one of them isn’t out yet) which I also think fit together. They are very different from the tracks in the first part.

SPHERE (France)

The first offering here is an 18-minute song named “Invocation” from the forthcoming second album (entitled π) by the French black metal band Sphere. It features a guest performance by Déhà. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, THE DROWNED GOD, CONAN, THY CATAFALQUE, SHINY DAGGERS, REAPER, GYAOS:DIABOLICAL, HALLUCINATION, BEAST MODE, THE SECOND FOVEA, WHEEL

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Mar 132021

I’m going to indulge myself and let you know what’s recently been going on behind the scenes here at our putrid site before we get to the music below.

As I moaned and bitched about over the last couple of weeks, I have indeed been crushed by a project for my day job. For many days last week I couldn’t do anything but write premieres I had promised to do, and for two of those days I couldn’t even do that. Thankfully, Andy Synn stepped in and did the editing and posting of some things written by others (and by himself) so that the site didn’t go dark.

While consumed by work, I couldn’t even pay much attention to our email or announcements on social media and music-related messages from friends. But the worst part of that project ended yesterday, and I did a little catching up (just a few days’ worth), enough that I made a list of 47 songs and videos to check out (I’m not making that up). Of course I’ve only randomly jumped around in that list. I’ll probably never get to the rest of it, much less everything else that came out while I was missing in action. From that random darting around I picked the following songs and videos. Continue reading »

A TALE OF TWO WOLVES

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Mar 122021

(In this post our contributor Gonzo reviews two wolfish records which were released one week ago — and this dual review would have been published one week ago except for our editor (me) having been brutally distracted by his day job.)

I feel like the onslaught of high-quality albums we’re already seeing in 2021 is a promising sign. Either that or everyone’s going out of their fucking minds without shows, travel, and the requisite level of creative outlets. (Hopefully not for very much longer.) Whatever it is, it’s already March and this month is chock-full of music that sounds urgent as hell, commanding your attention when the rest of the world continues to unfurl from its unending corridor of suck.

Last week, though, we saw the release of new music from Wolf King and Wolfheart. If the old legends are true and there are in fact two wolves that live inside of us all, existing in a perpetual state of conflict over which one gets to wrest control of our collective psyche in some kind of moral struggle for the ages, then… I dunno, maybe they were just really into wolves? My metaphor game is leaving some serious shit to be desired today.

Fortunately, the music released by both wolves today is anything but lacking. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELSLAVE — “ROTTING PILE OF FLESH”

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Mar 122021

Last month we had the fiendish pleasure of premiering the first single from the forthcoming second album by the Italian death-dealers Helslave. We don’t have a crystal ball, but we’ll still predict that their new album, From the Sulphur Depths, is going to become a huge favorite for fans of massive, marauding, deliciously gruesome old school death metal. And as a further teaser for its horrifying pleasures, we’re equally pleased to bring you the album’s second advance track today — “Rotting Pile of Flesh“.

We summed up that first single, “Unholy Graves“, as “bombastic chainsaw death metal of the finest kind, an electrifying, turbocharged thrill-ride that’s as crushing as a pile-driver and as ferocious as giant famished wolves on the hunt”. The song we’re bringing you today is just as exhilarating — even when the band introduce a ghastly change of pace. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEADS FOR THE DEAD — “THE SEANCE”

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Mar 122021

Soon, we will light the candles, join hands, and our seance will begin. Your mind’s eye will be opened to visions of the supernatural, entering a realm of wondrous horrors. But the eyes in the front of your head will witness visions of a different but equally wondrous kind.

Our seance takes the form of a fantastic music video, and for this entertainment ovations should be given not only to the maker of the video and the makers of the music but also to the performer who threatens to steal the show. Continue reading »

WESENWILLE – II: A MATERIAL GOD

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 122021

(Andy Synn opts to finish off the week with a last-minute review of the brand new album from Wesenwille, out now on Les Acteurs De L’Ombre Productions.)

I doubt it’s going to be much of a shock or a revelation when I say that, historically, much of Black Metal’s (f)ire and fury has been fuelled by disaffection and dissatisfaction with the modern world.

Whether it’s materialism, consumerism, capitalism… pick your poison really… many practitioners of “the black arts” seem to consider themselves above and beyond such mundane matters, which is probably one reason (among many) why so much Black Metal seeks to recapture or rediscover the glories of the pagan past… regardless of whether those glory days ever actually truly existed.

On the flip-side, however, there are still those artists who, rather than simply rejecting the trials and trappings of modernity out of hand, choose instead to embrace and channel the alienation and estrangement of our empty existence into their music, exploring the urban concrete jungle of now rather than the great vast forest of then.

And A Material God, the second album from Dutch duo Wesenwille, is the latest attempt to provide a fitting soundtrack to our everyday experiences of existential dread and post-industrial ennui.

OMINOUS RUIN- AMIDST VOICES THAT ECHO IN STONE

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 112021

(Find out what our man DGR thought of the new album from San Francisco’s Ominous Ruin, out now on Willowtip Records.)

Ominous Ruin‘s first full length album – after a string of demo’s and EPs throughout the late aughts – Amidst Voices That Echo In Stone starts in a very different spot from where it ends up.

The band’s sound is one of multiple extreme genres in all-out combat with each other, fully unloading from the hyperactive Tech Death scene even as it drains the arsenal from a very Brutal Death inspired segment as well.

It’s an ambitious album for sure, but not one that feels intentionally crafted to become a journey – more that it just wound up that way as songs morphed over time, from that previously mentioned superspeed blast festival into something weirdly proggy, incredibly dense, and all too willing to dive headlong into some profoundly (and joyously) dumb caveman chug all over the course of nine songs.

If it seems like the Bay Area crew are one of those amorphous bands able to reach tentacles into a variety of places and drag down so much of it back into their maw by that descriptor, you wouldn’t be too far off, but the fact that they make it work here…now that’s worth talking about.

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