SHORT BUT SWEET: BOG WRAITH / MÆRE / PHALANX / SUTRAH / SVENGAHLI

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 162020
 

 

(Andy Synn has decided to collect in one place reviews of five recently released EPs that have provoked very enthusiastic responses. Lots of very good stuff here.)

After spending a significant amount of time last week covering some massive (some might say excessive) double-albums, I thought it might be nice to kick things off this week with a bunch of shorter releases, all of which sit somewhere along the ever-widening spectrum of Death Metal.

So whether you’re looking for something brutal and breakdown-heavy, something crusty and crushing, or something teched-out and transcendent, there should be something for everyone here. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SHATTER BRAIN — “TALK IN FEAR”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 162020
 

 

Is it possible on this day after the Ides of March for me to introduce a premiere without mentioning the coronavirus? Theoretically, I suppose so. In practice, no way, especially when the band’s name is Shatter Brain and their song is “Talk In Fear“.

My brain is feeling pretty shattered at the moment, and there sure as hell is a lot of fearful talk going on. Social activity is shutting down at an increasingly accelerating rate, bars and restaurants are being closed down by government order or because the customers have vanished, service employees are being pitched out of work right and left, hoarders are looting market shelves, health care is teetering on the brink… it’s a shitty situation all the way around.

And that’s why this song is such a welcome tonic — virally infectious, head-busting music for viral, brain-shattering times. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ENEPSIGOS

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Mar 162020
 

 

(On March 27th Osmose Productions will release Wrath of Wraths, the new album by the formidable black metal band Enepsigos, and in this new interview our Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum spoke with V.I.T.H.R (aka Doedsadmiral), who created this new album together with drummer Thorns and new guitarist/bassist Rituul.)

Enepsigos has unique qualities and is innovative in the context of the Norwegian scene. This interview was conducted with one of its founders V.I.T.H.R (Doedsvangr, Nordjevel, Svartelder); the band also includes Thorns (Blut Aus Nord, Darvaza, Fides Inversa) and Rituul as well.

Their latest album Wrath of Wraths is excellent and has a fresh approach to song structure. It has a riff-structure oddness that is something you would have come to expect more from bands coming from Australia or the US rather than from Norway.  It is entertaining to the ear and complex. Nevertheless it has a typical Norwegian-ness to it surfacing here and there, something that adds a lot of groove and feeling combined with a French-like darkness and atmosphere. The dark ambience has been enriched by an eerie atmosphere a la Mercyful Fate, which is awesome. It’s a mix of really good qualities that will for sure put this album in the best-of-the-year lists in the Black Metal genre. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WITCHTHRONE, ALKYMIST, IMPERIAL SAVAGERY, SCOLOPENDRA, PONTE DEL DIAVOLO, DEKIRA

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Mar 152020
 

 

I think I overdid it yesterday. Putting together those two Overflowing Streams posts mentally wore me out. So I didn’t get a head start on this SOB post yesterday, and wound up figuring out what to do with it this morning. One consequence of the delay is that I decided to avoid writing about complete new releases, which is more demanding (even though it might not seem that way when you read my ramblings). Instead, I picked eight new individual tracks (some of them with videos) from six bands.

I’ll forewarn you that I veered a bit off course for this column and included songs that aren’t strictly black metal, but to my ears are close cousins. If you want stuff that’s more in the main line, you’ll find some in those Overflowing Streams columns.

WITCHTHRONE

The first item I selected is a new video for a new song by the Hungarian band Witchthrone, whose music has both post-metal and black-metal elements. Entitled “Shallow“, the song is one of four on their self-titled debut EP, which is set for release on March 20th. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): MASS WORSHIP, KHEMMIS, NITE, ORANSSI PAZUZU, ORPHANS OF DOOM, PANZERFAUST, REVULSION, SECRETS OF THE MOON, SICARIUS, TEMPLE OF VOID, WEREWOLVES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 142020
 

 

Many of us here in the U.S., as elsewhere, are essentially stuck at home. We’re supposed to stay away from our fellow human beings, and there’s not much to do away from home anyway. Fortunately, the virus hasn’t infected the internet so I can still eject new songs and videos at your head, which I’ve been doing at great volume today — a dozen of them in Part 1 of this post (here), and almost another dozen in this one. I mean, what the hell else do you have to do?

Once again, everything is organized in alphabetical order by band name, picking up from the items in Part 1, and I’ve again truncated my usual commentary.

MASS WORSHIP (Sweden)

Get seduced by the dual-guitar intro, stay for the jackhammering of your neck and the vocal scorching of your face… a bitter and battering experience. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): AVERSIONS CROWN, BLACK CROWN INITIATE, CEMETERY FILTH, COMMON WAR, COSMIC PUTREFACTION, CRYPTEX, CRYPTIC SHIFT, CURSE, DESTROYERS OF ALL, EX DEO, FUNERAL LEECH, FUNERALOPOLIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 142020
 

 

Yesterday was crazy. And no, I’m not talking about the latest coronavirus developments (though those were depressingly crazy too). I’m talking about the ridiculous flood of new songs and videos that were discharged into the electronic ether. Nowadays there are always a lot of new releases on Fridays, but yesterday was a Friday the 13th, and that always triggers a rabid Pavlovian response among bands and labels.

Rather than try to winnow down everything I thought was appealing into a five-or-six song SEEN AND HEARD column, which would have over-stressed my feeble brain, I decided to throw up my hands and resort to the Overflowing Streams format — just shove all these new songs and videos at you with only brief commentary by me.

The thing is, there’s SO DAMNED MUCH STUFF HERE, particularly because I also included a few things that surfaced in the few days preceding Friday the 13th, that I decided to cut it into two parts to make it a little more digestible. Everything is arranged in alphabetical order by band name. If I don’t get the second half ready to go today, you’ll find it here tomorrow along with our usual SHADES OF BLACK column.

AVERSIONS CROWN (Australia)

I was inclined to include this first video simply so I would have an excuse to put Eliran Kantor’s cover art at the top of this page, but wound up digging the song too. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: VASTUM

 WAXING LYRICAL  1 Response »
Mar 142020
 

 

(For this new edition of a column devoted to lyrics in metal Andy Synn was fortunate to obtain insights from the two lyricists and co-vocalists of the Bay Area death metal band Vastum, whose latest album Orificial Purge was released last fall by 20 Buck Spin.)

We’ve written about Californian Death Metal crew Vastum several times before here at NCS (and just take a look here if you don’t believe me) but this is, if I’m not mistaken, our first time talking to them directly.

This piece was also meant as a precursor to the band’s upcoming dates in the Pacific Northwest region but – for reasons I’m sure no-one will be surprised by – those have now been put on hold.

Still, any opportunity to learn more about the group’s work, their drives and methods and inspirations, is one well worth taking, so I encourage you all to take some time and enjoy the following edition of Waxing Lyrical, which features responses not just from Vastum’s lead singer Daniel Butler but also his co-vocalist/co-lyricist (and half of the band’s guitar tag-team) Leila Abdul-Rauf, who have together gone above and beyond to provide us with a double-scoop of lyrical insight this time around. Continue reading »

SPECTRAL LORE / MARE COGNITUM – “WANDERERS: ASTROLOGY OF THE NINE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 132020
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the ambitious new double album created by Mare Cognitum (California) and Spectral Lore (Greece), which is being released today by I, Voidhanger Records and features cover art by Elijah Tamu.)

Call me a glutton for punishment, but not only is this the second double-album I’m reviewing this week, but it’s actually even longer than the first one!

What makes it different (very different, in fact) is that rather than being the product of just one band’s vision, Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine (and that’s the last time I’m going to be typing that in full) is a split-release from two artists, Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum, each of whom contributes a full album’s worth of blistering blackened riffage and eerie, extraterrestrial atmosphere.

But wait, there’s more! Not only is the album arranged very differently to a traditional split – instead of grouping the songs by band they’re arranged (mostly) in an alternating pattern, loosely following the order of the planets in our solar system – but the final two tracks are in fact the result of a collaborative effort designed to fuse the best parts of both artists into one collective whole.

Of course, the problem with shooting for the stars is that there’s a lot that can go wrong out there in the formless void… so the question is, have Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum found a way to boldly go where no band has gone before, or is this one giant leap too far? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOROTH — “SHADOW, MY PATRIARCH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 132020
 

 

For decades Seattle has been a spawning ground for a broad array of extreme metal bands who have left their mark on every sub-genre. And now it has given birth to a true monstrosity, a mutilating beast mid-wifed in a sepulchral charnel pit by the muses of death and doom. This mysterious three-headed entity is known as Noroth, and none other than Caligari Records is poised to release their horrifying debut album, It Dwells Amongst Us, on April 10th.

We had a chance to sample some of Noroth’s music and reached out to offer our own putrid catacombs as a home for a track premiere, and it is with fiendish pleasure that we do that now, presenting the album’s opening song, “Shadow, My Patriarch“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TEMPLE OF VOID — “CEREMORPHOSIS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 132020
 

 

As we’ve been reminding you for the last three days in a row, on March 16th Unspeakable Axe Records will deliver a spectacular split release that harnesses the talents of four hellaciously good death metal bands. The last time Unspeakable Axe did something like this was in 2016, when 4 Doors To Death brought together tracks by Cemetery Filth, Ectovoid, Sabbatory, and TrenchRot (check that one out over here if you haven’t already). This time, under the title 4 Doors To Death vol. II, the label is presenting a combination of 12 original new tracks by Nucleus, Ectoplasma, Fetid Zombie, and Temple of Void, amounting to a solid hour of ferocious and frightful metal.

Three days ago we began the roll-out of one track from the split by each of these four bands — one per day. If you haven’t checked out the Nucleus track we brought you on Tuesday, the Ectoplasma song we revealed on Wednesday, or the Fetid Zombie song we premiered yesterday, do that here, here, and here.

And now the time has come to wrap up this series with a song by the fourth band on this split, the Detroit doom-death titans Temple of Void. Continue reading »

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