AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HIGH FIGHTER — “BEFORE I DISAPPEAR”

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Jun 182020
 


photo by Basti Grim

 

Of all the songs on High Fighter‘s tremendous second album Champain (released last summer by Argonauta Records), “Before I Disappear” is one of the most punishing and emotionally piercing. It’s a bruising, battering, and compulsively head-moving experience, coupled with melodies of searing impact. It showcases the whole band’s riveting power but perhaps especially the gripping intensity of Mona Miluski‘s voice in all of its dramatically changing manifestations. No wonder that the band chose it as the subject of the music video we’re premiering today — a video that provides a gripping presentation of a transfixing song.

Champain represents a new chapter in the band’s evolution, revealing a coherent (and heavy-as-hell) amalgamation of contrasting sensations that draws upon elements of doom, sludge, stoner, psychedelia, blues, and more. The changes will be quite evident if you compare it to the band’s 2014 debut EP (Goat Ritual) and their 2016 debut album Scars & Crosses, and it represents a great leap ahead. “Before I Disappear” doesn’t completely reveal all of the album’s many facets, but it definitely displays the marked increase in brutality, ferocity, and emotional darkness, as well as the penetrating intensity of the song-writing. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: YSENGRIN — “ODE À L’ESCARBOUCLE”

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Jun 172020
 

 

In 2008 the unusual French band Ysengrin released their debut demo, an album-length presentation entitled T.R.I.A.D.E. In the dozen years since then more than a dozen additional releases have followed, including two albums and many splits, but it seems that the life of Ysengrin is drawing to a close, with what will be the final album now slated for release by I, Voidhanger Records on July 17th, to be followed by a final split release.

The new album, Initiatio, consists of four tracks from that early T.R.I.A.D.E. demo, “re-imagined” and re-recorded under the direction of the band’s guiding hand, Guido Saint Roch. In addition, the album includes a revised version of “Monumentum” from the Archivum MMV-MMX demo dating to 2010, plus four new compositions, including two ambient numbers recorded live with the help of Frater Stéphane (N.K.R.T., Rosa Crux). As I, Voidhanger, says, “Initiatio is therefore an ouroboros serpent biting its tail: the end is the beginning, and the beginning becomes the end”.

One song from the new album, “Potencée d’Or”, has alredy been revealed, and we’ll come back to that one later. But our primary mission today is to present another track from the album, “Ode à l’Escarboucle“, which is one of the pieces that had its origins on the T.R.I.A.D.E. demo. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IVAN — “SILVER SCREENS”

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Jun 172020
 

 

As a way of complimenting an unusually long piece of music, it has become almost cliched to say that the time passes without really noticing it, that the music seems shorter than the clock tells you it is. At least in the case of rock and metal, that kind of description may also be intended to break down a barrier to entry, to induce people to listen who otherwise might be deterred by the demands on their time.

But promises of losing track of time are often exaggerated. Hell, even in making my own way through very long tracks that I ultimately enjoy, I sometimes find myself checking the player to see where I am, and how many minutes are left. Life is too full of distractions, and the pestering voice in the back of your head that says you should be doing something else, even if you don’t know what, can often be hard to ignore.

So, we take such promises with a grain of salt, and with good reason, but I’ll still promise you this: time really does seem to vanish in listening to “Silver Screens“, the 19 1/2 minute title track to the new fourth album by the unusual Australian funeral death-doom band Ivan. And the same phenomenon happens again and again over the course of the next three tracks. Getting lost in them is very easy, because they are so incredibly absorbing in so many ways, and so surprising in how they unfold.

You’ll learn that for yourselves today, because we’re premiering a full stream of the album in advance of its June 19 release by Solitude Productions. Continue reading »

I THE INTRUDER: “HUNGER”

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Jun 172020
 

 

(This is DGR’s evocative review of the debut album by the Tunisian metal band I the Intruder, which was released on April 27th.)

Sometimes it’s fun to guess why a certain album might be sent to yours truly with a note that says, “You should probably check this out”. Psychological analysis aside, the fun part is trying to figure out why they sent it specifically in this way and what they saw in it that said, “Y’know what? maybe this person might like it”. I certainly can’t be the only one who semi-enjoys this game when friends recommend stuff, so when the late-April-released album Hunger by I The Intruder came sailing across the desk, the immediate “Okay, why?” came into play.

In this case, I would have to wonder if it was my unabashed love for Vitriol’s To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice last year and how it was a relentless beating of an album that just kept unleashing musical whirlwind after musical whirlwind. While not quite as suffocating a brand of death metal (I The Intruder do have a knack for rapid-fire grooves that just pile on top of each other), Hunger is of a similar nature, at eight tracks and a little over a half hour of non-stop deathgrind. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BULLETBELT — “BLADE ON THE FIRE”

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Jun 162020
 

 

First time I heard Bulletbelt was back in September 2014. It was a song off their then-forthcoming album Rise of the Banshee (their second full-length), which had premiered at NZ writer Craig Hayes‘ Six Noises blog. I hammered out my immediate reaction on the keyboard: “Punk stomp and black metal acid and heavy metal swagger, gun-shot drumming and gut-shot riffing, risk of serious neck strain, catchy as chlamydia.” Not long after that we premiered the whole album, with Craig Hayes writing an enthusiastic introduction.

Four years later Bulletbelt returned with their next album, Nine Centuries, which was the final album with vocalist Jolene Tempest, but also featured guest appearances by Midnight’s Vanik, Massacre’s Kam Lee, and a string quartet from The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. We were lucky to have Craig Hayes review it (here). He noted that the record was, in comparison to the preceding one, “a much grimmer release, lyrically”, and that the band had “matched that narrative darkness with a rawer and more visceral sound –– reflecting, perhaps, the violence of the album’s lyrics” — and was all the better for it.

And now Bulletbelt are returning again with another full-length, after an intervening EP (Faster Than Death) and a split with Sabbat. The new album is named Warlords and it’s set for release on July 1st. And today we’re fuckin’ pumped to premiere the first single off the album: “Blade On the Fire“. Continue reading »

FOETAL JUICE: “GLUTTONY”

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Jun 162020
 

 

(We present Vonlughlio’s review of the new sophomore album by the UK’s Foetal Juice, which features cover art by Roberto Toderico. It was released by Gore House Productions on June 12th.)

I believe I have mentioned before that feeling you get when you discover (or were recommended) a band whose music leaves you amazed, and wondering to yourself why you weren’t able to hear about them before.

That’s what happened in the case of Foetal Juice, based in the United Kingdom, who just released their sophomore effort Gluttony through Gore House Productions. I found out about the project when the label was promoting one of the singles for this release, which left a favorable impression on yours truly. Continue reading »

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR: “EDEN IN REVERSE”

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Jun 162020
 

 

We are all well aware of beloved metal bands whose creative interests and impulses have led them to places very different from where they began. Sometimes, comparing starting and ending points can become jarring juxtapositions, even if directional signposts were evident along the way (at least for those who were paying attention). In other instances, change is more abrupt, perhaps the result of line-up revisions or of blatant commercial calculation.

Regardless of the explanation, change is risky, even when the results are superlative — and catastrophic when the outcomes are deplorable. But change is also the spice of life. It is also, in fact, the inherent underpinning of life. Without it, all of us would still be single-cell organisms swimming in salt seas. Because of it, we may someday swim among the stars.

Which brings us to Eden In Reverse, the brilliant new album by Hail Spirit Noir, and perhaps even an explanation of what the foregoing paragraphs have to do with the album. Continue reading »

…AND OCEANS: “COSMIC WORLD MOTHER”

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Jun 162020
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of the latest album by the Finnish symphonic black metal band …And Oceans, which was released on May 8th by Season of Mist.)

…And Oceans‘ latest album Cosmic World Mother is a handful of different things: It’s a comeback album, the group’s first full-length release since 2002, with a small series of splits, silence as the crew continued on as Havoc Unit before splitting, and then an EP in 2019 after the band had re-formed. It’s also a return to their older sound because it is almost singularly focused on being a black metal release with a healthy symphonic element in the background (it is so singularly focused, in fact, that at times it can be overwhelming in its intensity. with every element available to the band ratcheted up to 100).

It is also one of the more blistering releases to come out in 2020, as it seems like …And Oceans decided their new modus operandi was going to be absolute hellfire in song form, a fierce shrieking assault propelled forward by a volley of drums just hammering away in the background — fitting, when you have Gloria Morti‘s current drummer behind the kit, because if anyone is going to be fairly blast-happy it’s that gentleman.

Further, it is an album that because of those aforementioned elements can feel surprisingly long at times. Cosmic World Mother is nearly fifty minutes in length — near the high end of the average, but without the sticker shock of seeing an hour plus — and though it’s a trope to proclaim that you’d be perfectly okay taking a break at the midpoint of an album and then throwing yourself back into it, Cosmic World Mother recognize this. But intentionally or not, the …And Oceans crew have built in one of the best mid-points of an album out there, giving the record a very distinct ‘two act’ feel. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVART LOTUS — “NEKROESTETIKK”

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Jun 152020
 

 

Sometimes bands that begin as “side projects” are destined to live in the shadows of their members’ main bands, even when all evidence demonstrates that they have become living things in their own right, with their own personalities and strengths, and bright futures of their own. That is certainly true of the Norwegian black metal band Svart Lotus, which began as the solo project of 1349 bassist Tor R. Stavenes and has come to include Disintegration members Eivin Brye (drums) and Øyvind Kaslegard (bass), as well as guitarist Sigve Jordheim.

This isn’t to suggest that people are failing to give Svart Lotus the recognition they deserve, but it might be to suggest that not enough people are doing that. The band may have begun as a way for Tor R. Stavenes to spread his wings, picking up the guitar and using his own voice and songwriting talents, but it has blossomed into a musically compelling entity that’s both true to the spirit of Norwegian black metal but also adventurous. Continue reading »

PROTEST THE HERO: “PALIMPSEST”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Jun 152020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Ontario, Canada, metal band Protest the Hero, which will be released on June 18th.)

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. While adversity… adversity is a son of a bitch.

Progressive Tech-Metal punks Protest the Hero are all too familiar with adversity, as the years since the band’s last release, 2016’s piecemeal (but promising) EP Pacific Myth, have been riddled with ups and downs, setbacks and delays, and one extremely worrying period where it looked like singer Rody Walker might have to hang up the microphone for good.

But, wouldn’t you know it, the band’s dedication and bloody-minded perseverance has paid off handsomely, as you’re all about to discover. Continue reading »

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