SEEN AND HEARD: DARK TRANQUILLITY, OMEGAVORTEX, SEPTAGE, WATASHI DAKE, VALDUR, HOLY DEATH, NOVARUPTA, DEAD SHAPE FIGURE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 112020
 

 

Earlier today one of our writers, purporting to speak for all of us, asserted that we at NCS are not perfect. I disagree. I, for one, am perfectly aware of my inability to keep up with the release of new music.

Last night I did manage to plow through the last two days of e-mails in our bulging in-box and checked a few other valued sources. From that effort I added roughly two-dozen new songs to check out, on top of a similar number I had identified the last time I went exploring just a couple of days ago.

A laughable thing to do, of course, given there’s no way I could make my way through all of that in time to write anything for today. So I threw mental darts at the list, with some hits and some misses. The following eight new songs were among the hits. I’ll pick some more for your listening pleasure on Saturday.

DARK TRANQUILLITY (Sweden)

In “Phantom Days” Dark Tranquillity launched the run-up to their new album Moment with a sure-fire crowd-pleaser — nothing terribly different, but capable of stimulating the pleasure centers of fans. I confess that I felt stimulated, though not to the point of tumescence. Will I remember it? That’s a different question. Continue reading »

THINGS WE MISSED: AVERNAL / BAERUS / DEADWOOD TREE / DUMAL / ETHICIST / SWAMP LANTERN

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Sep 112020
 


Avernal

 

(Andy Synn wrote the following six brief reviews, and of course speaks solely for himself in the first sentence despite the breadth of the claim.)

I have a confession to make, on behalf of all of us here at NCS… we’re not perfect.

I know, I know, this admission has probably come as a serious shock to some of you, but it’s true. Sometimes, despite our general all-round awesomeness, we miss things.

But the silver lining to that, of course, is that it gives us a chance to play catch-up now and then and to bring you not one, not two, but six different bands/albums which you might otherwise have missed out on too! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABYSSAL ASCENDANT — “WOMBS OF TORMENT”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 102020
 

 

Almost exactly one month ago we had the ghoulish pleasure of premiering a track from the forthcoming second album by the French death metal band Abyssal Ascendant. Entitled Chronicles of the Doomed Worlds – Part. II : Deacons of Abhorrence, it will be released by Dolorem Records on October 9th, accompanied by the striking artistic handiwork of Daniele Lupidi.

As on their debut album, Abyssal Ascendant have again drawn their inspirations from the Lovecraftian mythos of The Ancient Ones and the ’90s death metal of such greats as Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, and Obituary. Appropriate to their subject matter, the band demonstrate a sure-handed talent for creating sensations of supernatural horror, mindless fear, and slaughtering savagery. And as further proof of that, today we’re following our first premiere with a second one — this one named “Wombs of Torment“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE MYOPIA CONDITION — “SEPARATION FROM CLASSIFICATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 102020
 

 

Hailing from the Red Deer, Alberta, The Myopia Condition came together under a hybrid of heavy influences that ranged from the cathartic spirit of metalcore to the divergent grooves of Meshuggah and Lamb of God. They opened enough eyes to be selected for the finals of the Canadian Wacken Metal Battle in 2018 and festival appearances that included Armstrong Metalfest and Loud As Hell. And now the band are preparing for the October 16 release of their debut album Event Horizon.

Today we’re presenting a lyric video for the album’s first single, “Separation From Classification“, and it too is a hybrid, though not entirely what you might expect from the influences listed above. Continue reading »

EXIST: “EGOIISTA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 102020
 

 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli provides a detailed review of the new album by Baltimore-based Exist, which was released on August 28th by Prosthetic Records.)

You ever hear a band that has remarkably talented musicians, some definite top-tier songwriting chops, and unique sound elements to distinguish them, but you felt like they themselves were their own worst enemy in achieving the pinnacle of what they could do?

That was Exist for me.

Exist’s last full-length So True, So Bound was a good album, but I found this band extremely difficult to talk about or even quantify and I found that record, while good, to be inconsistent.  This mainly came down to Exist getting stuck in a rut, in too much of a focus on atmospherics and passive sorts of grooves.  These guys really want to be Cynic 3.0 in the worst way, and that’s not meant to be a knock in any way shape or form.  Except unlike Cynic, they don’t forget their death metal roots, which leads to a progressive experience that kind of mixes the best aspects of newer Cynic combined with the primal emotion and intensity of albums like Focus, Death’s latter-era work, or even Atheist’s commitment to discernable nonsense. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOXAEMIA — “TOXAEMIA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 092020
 

 

What causes a cult Swedish death metal band to come back to life after almost 30 years of silence? Not fame and fortune, at least not in the case of Toxaemia. Their roots go back to 1989, and their early demos and other recordings in 1990 and 1991 can legitimately be considered part of the pioneering sound of early Swedish death metal, but they’re not a household name in 2020. Rather than trying to cash in on a name, it’s a much better guess that this revival was spawned by one thing and one thing only: passion for the music.

Sure, you might guess that nostalgia had something to do with it, but when you hear the music they’ve now made on a debut album that gestated this long, what you feel is fire and fury. The name of that album is Where Paths Divide, and it’s set for release by Emanzipation Productions on November 20th. One single from that album (“Pestilence”) has already been released, and today we’re premiering a second one that shares the band’s name. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THOSE WHO BRING THE TORTURE — “DARK CHAPTERS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 092020
 

 

One person’s torture is another person’s joy. And no, we’re not talking about a sadomasochistic relationship, but instead about the kind of death metal that might sear the brains of your neighbors but will bring a big smile to connoisseurs of preternatural menace and mayhem. And who better to do that than a band who proudly name themselves Those Who Bring the Torture?

That name will be familiar to many death metal connoisseurs out there. Founded by the ever-busy Rogga Johansson more than a dozen years ago, the band has produced six albums and a pair of EPs, and a seventh full-length named Dark Chapters is now on the horizon.

The line-up has changed from time to time, as has the direction of the music. On this new record, which will be released on September 30th by Iron Blood and Death Corporation, Rogga handles guitars, bass, and vocals and is joined by lead guitarist Kjetil Lynghaug (Paganizer, Ribspreader, Johansson & Speckmann) and drummer Jon Rudin (Wombbath, Just Before Dawn). As for the music, we have a strong taste of that for you through our premiere of the album’s title track. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: DECOHERENCE / THE INFERNAL SEA / ODOACER

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Sep 092020
 


The Infernal Sea

 

(Andy Synn again focuses on the music of bands from his homeland, this time leaning into black metal with reviews of three new albums.)

As the sole British member of the NCS crew (and therefore the only one who can actually write worth a damn… kidding!) it’s my responsibility, and my privilege, to use the platform afforded me here to highlight some of the best and brightest bands who hail from these green and pleasant lands.

Of course, that responsibility is kind of a double-edged sword.

If I’m too critical of a band or album there’s always someone more than happy to attack me for “not supporting the scene”.

But if I’m too positive about someone/something then I’ll inevitably get accused of being biased because I’m a part of the scene.

Hell, it’s actually a blade that cuts three ways when you think about it, because even when I don’t write anything at all about a band’s new record it inevitably leads to people to assume I have something against it/them… it’s a classic lose/lose/lose situation!

Still, as masochistic as it may seem, none of that’s going to stop me from continuing to separate the wheat from the chaff, and today’s column features a bountiful harvest of British Black Metal for your ears only. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRUST

 Interviews  No Responses »
Sep 092020
 

 

(In this new interview — and a very good read it is — Comrade Aleks talked with Artur Filenko, vocalist and bassist of the Russian genre-bending band Crust, whose new album was released in August of this year.)

Crust from Veliky Novgorod, Russia, searched for their own working formula beginning in 2015 when their first, self-titled EP was recorded. Three more EPs and a full-length, The Promised Land (2019), led them to the sound they embody with their crushing new album …And a Dirge Becomes An Anthem released by [addicted label] / no name label, on which Vlad Tatarsky (guitars), Roman Romanov (drums), and Artur Filenko (vocals, bass) perform a nihilistic and driving combination of death-doom with some shades of black.

Recorded live at the studio, this material offers tasty old school vibes and severe delivery. I dig this album, so the interview with Artur was just a question of time. Continue reading »

THE RETURN OF INDUSTRIAL METAL: REALIZE AND BLACK MAGNET

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 082020
 

 

(In this post Todd Manning combines reviews of new albums by Arizona’s Realize (coming on September 25th via Relapse Records) and Oklahoma’s Black Magnet, released on September 4th by 20 Buck Spin.)

It’s easy to look to the past with rose-colored glasses, but the late eighties and early nineties sure do seem like a distant utopia at times. Yet, that time period spawned the unholy marriage of Industrial music and Extreme Metal, which can often produce some of the most nightmare-ish tunes this side of the river Styx.

It’s only fitting that this kind of stuff is making a comeback nowadays as the material seems well-suited to describe the not-so-slow-motion apocalypse we are being forced to live through. Bleakness and relentless tragedy are the order of the day, and Realize and Black Magnet are two bands diving headfirst into this chasm. Continue reading »

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