AN NCS PREMIERE: MARBLEBOG — “THE OBSCURED MIRROR OF INFINITY”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jan 312020
 

 

Marblebog was born as a solo project from the mind of Hungarian musician Gábor Varga in 1998. It began with a focus on black metal and ambient music composed under the inspirations of nature, and the results were three full-length albums and a significant number of splits leading up to 2010, when Marblebog was laid to rest. Ten years passed after the last Marblebog release, a recording of the band’s only live show, on June 5th 2009 at Matchitehew Assembly in Chicago, but now Varga has resurrected the project and created a new album named Kietlen.

This new album was first released by Dread Records on December 21, 2019, in a very limited run of cassette tapes, but on February 15th it will be given a more extensive release, on CD and digitally, by Cyclopean Eye Productions. Today we present the album’s fifth track, “The Obscured Mirror Of Infinity“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BOB MALMSTRÖM — “SÄLJ ÅLAND”

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Jan 312020
 

 

Nu Metal. Love it? Hate it?

Hold that thought.

This year the Finnish “borgarcore” band Bob Malmström are celebrating their tenth anniversary, and in addition to popping champagne and blowing out candles they’ve chosen to commemorate the occasion by releasing a series of three split 7″ vinyl records. The first of those, Sälj Åland, is with the long-running Finnish melodic hardcore band The Enchained (whose history extends back to 1997). Bob Malmström‘s side of the split includes two tracks, and today we’re spreading the word about the band’s video for the title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DJEVEL

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Jan 312020
 

 

(This is Karina Noctum‘s interview of T. Ciekals, the principal creative force behind Djevel and NettleCarrier. The focus of the discussion is Djevel, whose most recent album was released last October by Aftermath Records, but the conversation includes news about both bands, as well as a third one, Ritual Death.)

On the occasion of Djevel’s release concert for their latest album called Ormer Til Armer, Maane Til Hode in Oslo, I got to talk to its mastermind T. Ciekals about the particulars behind his musical creations. I think pretty few bands now evoke the Black Metal ambience of the old days in a convincing and natural way like Djevel do. This is one of the reasons I had to include Ormer Til Armer, Maane Til Hode in my year-end list. In this interview there is also some good news not only of Djevel, but of NettleCarrier as well, which is another one of T. Ciekals‘ creations that I consider to be excellent and absolutely recommend to all of you who thirst for dark music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOLOKEN — “UNVEILANCE OF DARK MATTER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 302020
 

 

Twelve years into their career, the Swedish genre-benders in Moloken, who hail from the cold climes of Umeå in the north, have completed their fourth album, Unveilance of Dark Matter. It represents the band’s most adventurous, most thrilling, and quite possibly their most unnerving, work yet. Attempting to pin down the style of the music is like trying to pin mercury to a wall. It constantly escapes any such futile efforts, and is all the better for it.

One might try to make a list of the ingredients — which range from modern hardcore to progressive rock, from sludge to post-metal, from doom and death to black metal (and funk) — but a mere list isn’t very elucidating as to how the band have interwoven such disparate traditions. You really have to just hear the album, and to marvel at all the surprising twists and turns, as long as you understand that Moloken are going to constantly challenge you, and to dismember any sense of comfort and self-satisfaction you might be feeling before you begin.

Wiser minds might just stop there and let you experience the full stream of the album we’re presenting on the eve of its release by The Sign Records, but of course no one will ever accuse us of being very wise, and so we’ll yield to the near-irresistible temptation to comment, in detail, on how these 11 ambitious tracks strike us. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARDAEMONIC — “SUFFERANCE”

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Jan 302020
 

 

Wardaemonic’s new album Acts of Repentance unfolds in five Acts, and together they create an ambitious black metal pageant that’s grand in its scope, multi-faceted and technically extravagant in its presentation, and relentlessly electrifying. It creates emotionally powerful sensations of mystery and magic, of fearsome peril and rocketing frenzy, of wonder and wild abandon.

So far, Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release the album on March 20th, has made two of those Acts public, and today we’re presenting a third one, whose name is “Sufferance“. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 19): SORCERY, WARCRAB, TO DUST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  5 Responses »
Jan 302020
 

 

Well, those of you who’ve been following this list know that I fucked up and didn’t post the next installment yesterday. I had some unforeseen and immediate obligations to deal with in my personal life. It was all I could do to write the premieres I had promised for yesterday. So now (if you’ve been counting), I have two missed days to make up. It’s looking more and more likely that I won’t finish by the end of January after all.

Excuses aside, today’s episode is another one in which I didn’t try to group songs that shared strong stylistic similarities and instead just wanted to make sure that I put these songs on the list before time ran out. Still, I do think they make a great playlist.

SORCERY

I gave a hint not long ago that there would be a Sorcery song on this list, and so there is, just as there was in the 2013 and 2016 editions of this list. Basically, with every album these Swedes have put out since their resurrection after a long dormancy, I’ve become so addicted to their songs that I’ve felt compelled to honor them in this way. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ENCOFFINATION

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 302020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks decided to embalm himself in the fluids of true death, interviewing Ghoat of Encoffination, whose latest monstrous album was released last year by Selfmadegod Records.)

Encoffination have provided their post-mortem practices between locations in Atlanta and San Diego for about 12 years. Ghoat (guitars, bass, vocals) and Elektrokutioner (drums) were involved in a crazy number of extreme metal band, and even their approach to death-doom reflects a brutal, macabre, and uncompromising approach.

I appreciate the album titles they have used — Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh (2010), O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres (2011), III – Hear Me, O’ Death (Sing Thou Wretched Choirs) (2014), and now We Proclaim Your Death, O’ Lord (2019). Everything and more was released by Selfmadegod Records… Here’s a fleeting glimpse into the sepulchral world of Encoffination, with Ghoat. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 117): MINUALA

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
Jan 292020
 

 

(In this SYNN REPORT for January 2020, Andy reviews the combined discography of the Russian band Minuala.)

Recommended for fans of: Martyrdöd, King Apathy, Downfall of Gaia

Despite not being much of a social butterfly, one thing I appreciate about the Metal scene is the sense of community it can foster between different people from different places and different backgrounds.

Sure, I might be a little cynical about it now and then (often with good reason), but I only have to glance at my own little “community” (which really isn’t all that “little” at all these days) to see all the ties which bind me to the people within it – from my band-mates and my old friendship circle back home, to my brothers at NCS (and our extended family), the various comrades and compatriots from other sites/zines who’ve become part of our crew, and the multitude of musicians I’ve come to know over the years.

The group featured in this month’s edition of The Synn Report was recommended to me by one of my oldest and dearest friends, who himself received it from one of his coworkers (who happens to be the ex-bassist from Fall of Efrafa). So you know who to thank if you find yourself with a new favourite band.

The band in question are Minuala, from Russia, and their music is a fantastic blend of dark, subtly blackened Hardcore, riff-driven metallic muscle, and riveting Crust/Post-Metal touches, that should appeal to fans of bands like Martyrdöd, King Apathy, Dödsrit, Downfall of Gaia, and, yes, Fall of Efrafa. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GLOOSH — “GROZA”

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Jan 292020
 

 

We are told that the name Gloosh is a transliteration of the Russian word “Глушь”, which means “Wilderness”. It was chosen by the band’s sole creator George “Foltath” Gabrielyan (Eoront, Frozenwoods) as a connection to the inspiration for the music, which expresses a reverence for nature and its phenomena. He tells us:

“The music of Gloosh is black metal of a classical form with interweaving of atmospheric roots. This is closer to the natural themes: it is nature in true guise, it is the order of things (change of seasons), it is a primeval admiration for the winds, clouds and thunderstorms; the absorption and destruction by nature of everything that man has ever created. This is a deep mossy forest. Gloosh invests in music ideas of animism and attitude to nature contrary to monotheism. There is a belief that there are innumerable non-anthropomorphic deities and creatures everywhere.”

Timewheel is the debut full-length of this Siberian band. It will be independently released on February 29th. One song from the album was revealed at the end of last year, and today we present a second one, the name of which is “Groza“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AINSOPH — “Ω – V”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Jan 292020
 

 

Coincidentally, while thinking about how to introduce our premiere of Ainsoph‘s debut album (which will be released by Wolves Of Hades on February 2nd), I paused to finish an essay I had been reading about the great American songwriter Cole Porter. It ended with this paragraph:

“All art aspires to the condition of music, Walter Pater wrote; within music itself, all music dreams of becoming another kind of music. Art songs dream of becoming pop songs and pop songs dream of becoming folk songs, too familiar to need an author. We hear Porter now without knowing that it’s Porter we’re hearing. Like Stephen Foster, he sublimated his suffering into his songs, until the songs are all we have, thereby achieving every artist’s dream, to cease to be a suffering self and become just one of those things we share.”

What does this have to do with Ainsoph and their album Ω – V? I don’t want to push the connections too strongly, but some of the phrases in what I just quoted seemed relevant to what I was thinking about this album.

Ideas about the emptiness of human existence, about the endless void that will consume us all, and perhaps abut the search for meaning, or at least the embrace of endlessness, seem to have played a role in inspiring the album. In its own way, it seems a sublimation of suffering into music, both expressing it and transcending it. And in its own way, it’s also music that seems to dream of becoming another kind of music. Continue reading »

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