NO CLEAN SINGING

CHECKING IN (WITH MUSIC BY THE GLORIOUS DEAD AND SUPRUGA)

Jul 182020

The Glorious Dead

This has been a rough week. Unexpectedly, it’s been the busiest week I’ve had for my day job since the pandemic caused a shutdown here in Washington State back in March. Those job demands carried through into this weekend and consumed a big part of this Saturday. On top of that, four days ago Covid 19 rapidly claimed the life of a man in Texas (where I spent half my life) who has been a father figure to me since my teenage years. He also founded and led the organization I work for, and he was the longest-lasting and most influential mentor I’ve had in my working career. Because of the virus, I couldn’t be with him or his family, and that made an already tragic situation even worse.

I probably could have gotten a break from work because of his death, but I decided that staying busy was probably better for my mental and emotional health. For the same reason, I stuck to the commitments I’d made to premiere music at NCS this past week. But I didn’t have the time or mental clarity to do much of anything else here. I didn’t listen to any new music other than what I had promised to premiere. I’ve neglected NCS emails. And I haven’t kept up very well with the appearance of new songs and videos. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHNOISEFREQUENCY — “HORRID DIRGE”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Jul 172020

Straight out of Saudi Arabia comes Deathnoisefrequency. That’s right, Saudi Arabia, not the easiest platform from which to launch a new musical project, and perhaps especially not one named Deathnoisefrequency. But that’s what the duo of Ghassan Al Fudail and Ahmed Mahmoud have done. Both of them have also been bandmates in a Saudi doom/death metal project named Grieving Age, but here they’ve turned in a different direction, one that’s described as “a limitless musical experiment with an all-encompassing creepy, dark and depressive atmosphere where noise and death metal are smashed together with reckless abandon”.

In 2016 Deathnoisefrequency released a single but have now re-surfaced with a debut, two-track EP named Horrid Dirge — which itself is merely a part of a forthcoming LP projected for release by the end of this year. Today is the EP’s official release date, and to help spread the word we’re premiering a full stream of the sounds. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DYSTOPIA A.D. — “SISYPHEAN EXISTENCE”

Premieres 6 Responses »

Jul 172020

In Greek myth Zeus punished the Corinthian king Sisyphus for his hubris and trickery by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill in the underworld, only for it to roll down every time it neared the top. This consigned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless effort and unending frustration, and his name has been associated with pointless or interminable activities ever since, and with goals maddeningly forever out of reach.

Drawing upon this concept, the New Jersey melodic death metal band Dystopia A.D. have crafted a song called “Sisyphean Existence“, which appears on their forthcoming second album, Rise of the Merciless, and it’s that song we’re presenting today in advance of the record’s July 31 release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORLORN WORLD — “THE SHADOWMANCER”

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Jul 172020

Let’s deal first with the elephant in the room: Forlorn World is the solo project of Josh McMorran, the principle figure behind the enormously successful UK extreme metal band Bloodshot Dawn. That fact alone will form immediate expectations about the music, even though Bloodshot Dawn‘s path has displayed its own twists and turns from album to album, the latest of which was 2018’s Reanimation.

And the connections to Bloodshot Dawn don’t end there — Bloodshot Dawn guitarist Morgan Reid makes a guest appearance on Forlorn World‘s debut album Umbra, and Bloodshot Dawn bassist Giacomo Gastaldi (also Darkend) also handled the bass on Forlorn World‘s debut.

So, why isn’t Umbra a Bloodshot Dawn album? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROSANCTUS INFERI — “HYPNOTIC BLOOD ART”

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Jul 162020

Ohio’s Prosanctus Inferi will release Hypnotic Blood Art, their first album in seven years, on August 15th via Nuclear War Now! Productions. Founder and only constant member Jake Kohn (vocals, guitars) is joined on the record by drummer Jeremy Spears (who proves to be as hellishly good as Kohn himself is). According to the advance press, “Kohn sheds some of the technicality and velocity of his prior performances in favor of a heavier sound, reflecting, in many ways, a return to the band’s foundations”.

Moreover, lyrically and conceptually, Kohn also “harkens back to the band’s earlier days, with a focus on medieval and renaissance conceptions of Hell and damnation — topics that figured prominently on the demo recordings.”

The album’s first advance track, “Dark Scarp of Hell“, made a striking impression, something like a burning spike hurled into the head. And now we’re presenting the new album’s second single, “Hypnotic Blood Art“, which is no less compelling. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THURISAZ — “THE VEIL”

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Jul 162020

If you scan across the discography of the Belgian band Thurisaz, it becomes apparent that they do not hurry their work. Yet the time between their last album, 2015’s The Pulse of Mourning, and their forthcoming fifth album, Re-Incentive, has been significant. Those five years were difficult ones for the band, a time during which a dear friend was coping with severe depression and in which a member of the band and another close friend were experiencing their own emotional turmoils.

These experiences fed into the group’s decision to make this newest record “a concept-like album covering the darkness one feels when dealing with the feelings of depression and heartbreak”. And then, to get it right, they spent significant time writing and re-writing.

But now, at last, Re-Incentive is complete and ready for release on September 1st. The melodically rich music, which braids together elements of doom, death metal, and black metal (among others), does unmistakably sound like a very personal record, one that embodies and conveys heart-felt emotion, and the song we’re presenting today through a lyric video — “The Veil” — is a prime example of its compelling power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARS MAGNA UMBRAE — “OF DIVINE DIVERGENCE”

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Jul 162020

The nightside musical arts of Ars Magna Umbrae leave the mundane world far behind, inspired by interests and ambitions that seek to explore other worlds beyond the sight of banal souls who creep across the earth in their daily trudges. Not for naught does I, Voidhanger Records describe the band’s new album, Apotheosis, as “an occult black metal journey across the shores of plutonian nights, through starless aeons and oneiric fields, to later plunge them into the depths of boundless devotion and joyous madness”.

The label also describes the album’s music as “a fusion of dream and reality”, and the music is indeed the stuff of waking dreams. It inspires the imagination, spawning visions that are simultaneously wondrous and deeply disturbing. “Immersive” may be a trite descriptive phrase, but it’s nonetheless entirely accurate in describing the effect of Apotheosis. Immersed within its sensorium, your mind may take you to unforeseen places, without any conscious direction.

It’s likely that no two people will experience the same visions, or find themselves in the same mental and emotional states. What follows, therefore, is only what this writer imagined in listening to the song we’re premiering today, “Of Divine Divergence“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NEKUS — “DEATH NOVA UPON THE BARREN HARVEST”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Jul 152020

Death Nova Upon the Barren Harvest is an evocative title. The words alone suggest a desolate experience fraught with menace and morbidity, and a portrayal of crushing despair beneath the incandescence of the sweeping scythe that eventually cuts us all down. The words alone provide an inkling of what the music might bring, but the sounds prove to be even more terrifying and soul-crushing, and they also give vivid meaning to the idea of a “death nova”.

That title is the name chosen by the German death-dealers Nekus for their debut EP. Although it’s this band’s first recorded work, it’s no surprise that Blood Harvest Records seized upon it and is giving it a lavish release that includes a full panoply of physical editions — CD, cassette tape, and vinyl. The CD and cassette versions are set for release on July 17th, while the vinyl is set for August 28th. Now you’ll learn for yourselves why the label is backing this so hard. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LIBERATIA — “WHERE THE WRETCHED LIE SLAIN”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Jul 142020

One thing leads to another, even when you don’t see the progression of cause and effect, sometimes with disastrous results, sometimes with happy ones. This is a tale of the latter kind.

In December of last year I happened upon a video I couldn’t turn away from despite its adverse effects on my appetite, in part because I wanted to see where it was going and in part because the song — “The Flayed Man” — was such a death/thrashing powerhouse. That was my introduction to the band Liberatia from Vancouver Island, but it wasn’t my last encounter with them.

In May of this year I latched onto another Liberatia video, quite different from the first one, for a song called “Adaptive Biology“, and wrote about that one too.

And then we were invited to premiere the entire EP that includes those two songs as well as two others — an invitation we greedily accepted. And so now we present the entirety of Where the Wretched Lie Slain in advance of its release on July 17th. But first, a bit of background for newcomers… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VALGRIND — “DIVINATION – MARKED BY THE UNKNOWN”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Jul 142020

Let’s cut right to the chase and then come back and fill in some important details.

Today we’re premiering “Divination – Marked By the Unknown“, a tremendously good and abundantly multi-faceted song off the new album by the fascinating Italian death metal band Valgrind. Its introductory phase is mysterious and mesmerizing, with ringing notes rippling across a shimmer of wondrous ambient sounds. That lasts almost long enough to cast a spell — but its entrancing effects are abruptly cut short by a Vesuvius-like eruption. Continue reading »

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