AN NCS PREMIERE: HARK FROM THE TOMB — “FEEDING HIS HUNGERING FLAMES”

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Sep 012020
 

 

The Swedish duo who have joined forces under the name Hark From the Tomb prefer to remain anonymous, though we’re told that they’ve been participants in the Swedish black metal scene extending back to the early ’90s, and members of much better-known bands. Why then did they choose to create a new vehicle for their musical creativity?

One inspiration was to channel a deep disgust with the current state of the human species — “the inability of humanity to evolve intellectually, the revolting character of mankind as a whole, and the unforgivable error of letting religion exist as anything more than an artefact of Bronze Age mythology”. As they have further explained:

“The combination of easily led idiots, the charlatans that exploit the weak, and the ultimately cataclysmic symbiosis of the dumb and the evil that collectively holds back humanity as a species is the worst and most poisonous trait that both threatens the survival of humanity as a whole, and the source of the revulsion that led to the creation of Let Them Die.”

The band’s musical inspirations — the contours of sound through which they’ve expressed such utter contempt on this debut album Let Them Die — derive from the old-school, primitive parts of their Nordic black metal antecedents. But the music is more than an experience in unbridled ferocity, as you’ll discover through our premiere of the album track “Feeding His Hungering Flames“. Continue reading »

TON: “ASHES WHERE THEY STOOD”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 012020
 

 

(Vonlughlio prepared this review of the new third album by the Ohio death metal band TON, which was released in August by Ungodly Ruins Productions.)

The Ohio death metal project called TON have been around since 1993. They released a handful of demos leading up to their full-length debut Plague in 1999. After that they went on a hiatus of sorts until 2015 when they released their sophomore album, Bow Down to Extinction, and that is when I learned of their existence (late to the party, I suppose).

I enjoyed their second release quite a bit, including the kind of natural production that allowed each of the instruments be heard as a collaborative force, instead of some being buried in the mix. The riffs were quite entertaining, providing the driving force leading the way in each of the eight songs which proved to be an engaging 32-minute experience. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 124): HAVUKRUUNU

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  3 Responses »
Aug 312020
 

 

(For the August 2020 edition of The Synn Report, Andy Synn has decided to compile reviews of all the releases by the tremendously talented Finnish band Havukruunu, including their newest album released earlier this month by Naturmacht Productions.)

Recommended for fans of: Moonsorrow, Immortal, Vintersorg

Black Metal, as we all know, comes in many different forms.

Punky and primal, proggy and polished, feral and fierce, mighty and majestic… and all shades and shapes in between.

And for this month’s Synn Report it’s the latter style I’ve chosen to focus on, with this deep dive into the discography of formidable Finnish foursome Havukruunu.

Three albums into their career (the most recent of which was released earlier this month) the band have, effectively, become masters of a scintillating brand of Black Metal which fuses the epic extravagance of their countrymen in Moonsorrow with the swaggering, riff-centric approach of Immortal and the fearless melodic mettle of Bathory… although, as accurate (maybe even a little too obvious) as those references are, I’d say that Havukruunu have more than made this sound their own at this point.

So fill your cups, sharpen your blades, and ready yourselves to ride the blazing Northern skies as we take a journey through the band’s bountiful back catalogue. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MEGALITH LEVITATION

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 312020
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with a member of the Russian acid doom band Megalith Levitation, who just released a split album with Dekonstruktor earlier this month through Aesthetic Death, and are now finishing their second album.)

Megalith Levitation from the heavy industrialized Russian city of Chelyabinsk didn’t waste their time during the Covid quarantine. They’re low and they’re acid, as their doom is hallucinogenic and hypnotizing. Almost accidentally the trio found themselves having enough material for an EP and an LP, and the decision was made to unite in unholy collaboration with their Moscow-based colleagues Dekonstruktor. And so two bands united to commit new acid doom rites and to make close to total entropy by eating the universe alive. No way back, fuck life, they go further.

Megalith Levitation‘s SAA (vocals, guitars) was summoned, we ask, he answers. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GORATORY — “EVOLUTIONARY WART”

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Aug 312020
 

 

Sixteen years is  long time between albums. Over the course of that extravagant span of time, which marks the distance between Goratory’s third record and the fourth one that’s going to be evacuated upon the world by Everlasting Spew Records in October, the members of Goratory went on to perform with such bands as Arsis, Deeds of Flesh, Job for A Cowboy, The Black Dahlia Murder, Despised Icon, Sexcrement, and Abnormality. Surely, they still have other things to do with their wicked time. So why now have Adam Mason (Vocals), Al Glassman (Guitars), Zach Pappas (Bass) and Darren Cesca (Drums) decided to resurrect Goratory’s brand of degenerating, grinding and schizoid technical Brutal Death?

Well, take a look around you. What better time than in the midst of the humongous shitshow that is 2020 for these deviants to bare their giant balls again? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INTERCEPTING PATTERN — “THE ENCOUNTER”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 312020
 

 

As a listener, there is more than one way you might envision in your mind’s eye the wondrous musical excursion of Intercepting Pattern‘s debut album The Encounter. Perhaps you’ll think of being aboard a spacecraft traversing the solar system, or tunneling through a wormhole to locations vastly beyond our home system. Or maybe you’ll conclude that the trip isn’t bounded by any dimension of “reality”, extraterrestrial or not. There is, after all, a track named for the prince of demons. Or perhaps you’ll think of being suspended in the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, experiencing lucid dreams or bizarre hallucinations (there’s another track named for that state of threshold consciousness).

I thought of all those things, but also remembered two other things. One of those memories was Rod Serling‘s repeated introduction to his famous TV series (I’ll come to the other memory at the end of this introduction to our premiere of the album):

“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call… the Twilight Zone.” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): LORD ALMIGHTY, NINKHARSAG, CHANID, ÚZKOST, REVERORUM IB MALACHT

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 302020
 

 

I’ll dispense with an introduction to this closing Part of today’s column. The intro to Part 1 was long enough.

LORD ALMIGHTY

Adam O’Day‘s cover art for Lord Almighty‘s forthcoming second album seized my attention before the music did, but man, the first advance track from that album turned out to be even more attention-seizing.

I didn’t know what to expect, in part because I hadn’t paid attention to this Boston group’s 2015 debut album, Paths, and in part because I hadn’t yet read anything about their new full-length, Wither. Later, I read that their base inclination is rooted in black metal, past and present, but that they bring into their music “a love for NWOBHM, sludge, hardcore, blues rock, and more” — all of which is borne out by “Cry of the Earth“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): NECROPHOBIC, ISOLERT, LAMP OF MURMUUR, WHOREDOM RIFE, OCCULT BURIAL

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 302020
 


Necrophobic

 

I used to joke around here that I made my living as a drug mule, or as a secret adviser to world leaders who were flummoxed about how to solve shattering problems, or as a caretaker for a loris horde that would threaten human survival if I didn’t keep a close watch on their compound near the NCS headquarters. The truth is much more mundane (though I still suspect that covid was hatched in the loris lab). Not that I’m going to advertise the truth, because I still don’t think what I do here would be healthy for me in the world where I collect my paychecks.

Even a few months ago I thought my day job had settled into a long-lasting somnolence, leaving me an abundance of time to spend at NCS. But it has come roaring back. Not a completely shocking development, because the job has always varied among shifting states of intensity, but still a surprise. Last week was particularly demanding, and I fell way behind in paying attention to new metal. Thankfully, I was able to ignore it all day yesterday and spent the hours immersed in music.

Having surfed the tides of metal from near sun-up to sundown, I created the beginnings of half a dozen NCS posts, with four of them devoted to black and “blackened” metal. Most of those will probably remain little more than mind games once the new work week begins, but at least I’ve completed this two-part SHADES OF BLACK, which I hope you’ll enjoy. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: FATES WARNING, HINAYANA, FIRES IN THE DISTANCE, IHSAHN

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 292020
 


Fates Warning

 

(Because your humble NCS editor has done a shit job compiling new-music round-ups in recent weeks, our contributor Gonzo stepped up and offered to begin doing that himself on Fridays, and this is the first edition. It actually would have been posted yesterday, on Friday, except your humble editor fucked that up too.)

Suffice to say, it’s been a fucking weird year.

Weirder, perhaps, is the fact that so much new music keeps rolling out from all corners of the earth; weirder still is that most of it is quality material instead of half-assed live albums, comps, EPs, singles and cover albums.

Most of it.

(I’m looking at you, In Flames.)

Before I start spiraling into a tirade about my odious thoughts on the Clayman reboot, allow me to get right to it: Yesterday, August 28, marked another Friday in this endlessly bizarre, dystopian and occasionally terrifying timeline we all just call “2020,” and it marked another day of new metal coming to assault our eardrums.

This one’s a glorious mix of old and new, and some stuff I’ve been anxiously awaiting for a while. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASTRINGENCY — “OF VACANT PLANES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 282020
 

 

Today we’re helping spread the word about the release of the second album by the West Texas melodic death metal band Astringency, which follows their 2017 full-length debut, Sanguinarium. Entitled Of Vacant Planes, the album is an extravagant 11-track work that’s packed to the brim with intricate, technically adventurous, and tempo-dynamic performances, while incorporating evocative melodies that cross a wide emotional range.

Stylistically, the music draws from many wells, incorporating Scandinavian melodeath gallops, bursts of full-throttle thrashing, episodes of blackened malignancy and gloom, and a lot more. It’s definitely a “modern” take on the music of this old genre, and thus continues to breathe new life into it. As a further sign of that, Astringency call out the music of such bands as The Black Dahlia Murder, Fallujah, and Allegaeon as influences, in addition to the likes of Obscura, Deicide, and Cannibal Corpse. Continue reading »

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