AN NCS PREMIERE: KARLOFF — “BASTARD OF THE NIGHT”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 312020
 

 

In these dark times music lovers have a lot of extra time to spend listening and exploring (at least those of us who don’t work in essential activities). I suppose most of us have devoted that time moving around among genres rather than staying on the same road all the time. Variety can indeed be the spice of life, especially when our moods have turned sour and could really use some spicing-up. Karloff has done that for me, giving me something I didn’t realize I needed, and I hope Karloff will do the same for you.

Karloff’s formulation of raw punk and black metal is undeniably sinister, and it runs like a wild wolf-pack on the hunt (or an angry gang marauding through mean streets), but it has made me feel not just glad to be alive, but kind of rapturous too. Its feral, stripped-down attack and high-voltage energy appeal at a primal level, and the immediately infectious nature of the songs makes them easy to stick with, and to use as a means of lighting a fire to any playlist whenever they pop up.

I overlooked Karloff when the band released its first demo in 2018, or when it released the Raw Nights EP last year. Thankfully, I’ve encountered them now, thanks to the decision of Dying Victims Productions to combine those two releases into a single 20-minute vinyl/digital record, also called Raw Nights, with new cover art. Today, in advance of the record’s release on April 24, we’re presenting one of the eight songs, “Bastard of the Night“, along with a stream of a previously released song. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW (PART 2): DARK FORTRESS (MOREAN)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Mar 312020
 

 

(Yesterday we presented Part One of an extensive interview Karina Noctum conducted with Morean of Dark Fortress, and today we present the conclusion, again with our thanks to Morean for devoting so much time to the discussion.)

This is the second part of the in-depth interview with Morean from Dark Fortress. While the first part was about composition and creation of music, among other topics, this part is solely devoted to the lyrical themes of Spectres from the Old World, the band’s latest album,  which was released back in February of this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RITUAL DICTATES — “GIVE IN TO DESPAIR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 302020
 

 

Sometimes when a band pull from as broad and deep a well of musical inspirations as Ritual Dictates have done on their debut album, the results can be disjointed and chaotically jarring. But when the interweaving of stylistic ingredients is as masterfully and naturally accomplished as it is here, the results can stand out from the pack, and provide a multi-faceted experience that’s an enormous thrill. And that’s the best single word I can think of for Give In To Despair — it’s a thriller, from beginning to end.

The singles released from the album so far have already attracted a lot of excited attention around the web, but for those who might be encountering this band for the first time (and it’s a good time, because we’re streaming the whole album today), it’s a project formed by ex-3 Inches of Blood members Justin Hagberg and Ash Pearson (who’s also the drummer of Revocation), both of whom have also been members of Allfather (Canada) and Angel Grinder, respectively. And for this grand debut, they also enlisted an eye-opening group of guest performers from metal and rock, whose names are worth listing before we go further: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW (PART 1): DARK FORTRESS (MOREAN)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 302020
 

 

(Today we present the first part of an extensive two-part interview that our Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum conducted with Morean of Dark Fortress (and Alkaloid and Noneuclid), and we are grateful to him for devoting so much time and thought in furnishing the answers.)

The latest Dark Fortress album, Spectres from the Old World, released back in February, has gotten good reviews. This is not surprising and it is a natural consequence of the amount of experience the musicians that form part of this band have. Both Ylem and Venereal Dawn are on my playlist of favorite BM albums, and I must say the latest album made it as well, of course. It is not just more of the same though, it has a distinct touch, it stands on its own, and it fulfilled my expectations.

I took the opportunity to interview Morean, who I admire a lot both as a composer and as an excellent, multifaceted metal musician. His musical expertise makes all his bands and contributions truly interesting. In fact one of his orchestrations of the three parts of the Requiem performed by Triptykon and the Dutch Metropole Orkest at Roadburn Festival is coming out soon through Prowling Death Records / Century Media Records. There are many interesting projects and bands surrounding Morean but the focus of the first part of this in-depth interview is going to be Spectres from the Old World, its composition, its music, and other particulars surrounding its release. In the second part of this interview we will deal solely with the lyrical themes, which are complex and very interesting. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE AND REVIEW: CONSUMER (SELF-TITLED EP)

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 302020
 

 

The Italian band Consumer make no pretense at all about what they’ve done on their self-titled debut EP. They confess that it is “ugly music”: “In this record we’ve put not only our musical influences, but the life-related ones as well. Its deformities and its horrors, its disharmonies and its incommunicability. We’re three different people who are united by the fact of being constantly disoriented in this world. We try to contain the problem with almost unplayable breakdowns, feedbacks and screams.”

There’s much more to the music than unplayable breakdowns, feedbacks, and screams, but what it all adds up to is mutilating punishment — maniacally destructive at times, noxious and diseased at others, and completely oppressive and hopeless at still other times. The impact is often electrifying, but just as often it threatens to beat you senseless and choke you lifeless. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BALMOG, IRAE, SØRGELIG, LEBENSSUCHT, SYMBIOTIC GROWTH

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Mar 292020
 

 

After all the listening and writing I’ve done this weekend, honestly I’m out of gas. So let’s just go right to it….

BALMOG

We begin with a track that roams far and wide over its significant length. In the band’s own words, “18 minutes of oppression and mysticism”, but there’s more than that. The music is eerie and crushing, dissonant and disturbed, wailing and delirious, vicious and violent, spectral and sepulchral, swaggering and priapic, bombastic and bruising, grand and glorious — and also home to some head-hooking riffs and spectacular soloing. The vocals are wide-ranging as well, more often than not frighteningly insane, but also spine-tingling when they soar. In its cadences, it stomps, rocks, races, crawls, and drifts away into a rhythm-less ether. Continue reading »

(OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 3 OF 3): RALE, REEK, SICK SAD WORLD, SODOMISERY, SUMMIT, THE DITCH AND THE DELTA, UNMERCIFUL, VENTR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 292020
 

 

At last, I’ve called a halt to my effort to pump so much new music into your ears that your brain drowns in it (though I still have plans for a SHADES OF BLACK column later today, so I guess I’m only pausing rather than stopping). Picking up from Part 2, the alphabetical ordering of bands continues here, R through V.

RALE (U.S.)

We begin with four tracks of roaring, howling, mind-warping death/grind courtesy of these North Carolina marauders. Veering between gargantuan roars and shattering screams, the vocals are truly ferocious; there’s a mountainous bass presence; and the riffing shifts from utterly crazed to sickeningly dismal and apocalyptically calamitous. The band inflict truly brutish, skull-flattening punishment; sometimes the distorted fretwork sounds like a giant excavation machine at work in a quarry; and they are equally adept at igniting conflagrations of ravaging chaos. Explosive and electrifying…. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2 OF 3): ACÂRASH, AVOID HUMANITY, BLEED FROM WITHIN, BOLESNO GRINJE, NAGLFAR, NERO OR THE FALL OF ROME, O, OKKULTOKRATI

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 292020
 

 

I did say in the abbreviated Part 1 of this round-up yesterday that there would be a lot more coming — so much that a Part 3 will be on its way later today. In these two Parts I organized the music in alphabetical order by band name, with Alpha through Omega in this installment and then picking up with letters after O in Part 3.

This is the stuff that stuck out to me as I waded through a big mass of new music and videos yesterday. I had to make myself stop, because this could have been a lot longer. I siphoned off some of the black metal I found, and they will be included in today’s SHADES OF BLACK column. Yeah, this is going to be a big NCS Sunday….

ACÂRASH (Norway)

This hard-rocking track is swaggering and sulphurous. It will rumble your guts and bob your head, and the pulsing energy of the riffs is highly infectious. With scorching black-metal vocals, a spiraling and shrieking solo, and occult lyrical themes, it’s a hellish — and hellishly good — song. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): KREATOR, LIGHT DWELLER, DISROTTER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 282020
 

 

Thanks to the amazing Zoom service, I participated in a couple of virtual happy-hour celebrations last night, woke up woozy as a result of that, and then had to do a work-related Zoom conference for an hour and a half this morning. So I’m getting a very late start on this post.

I thought about just not posting anything this Saturday due to the lateness of the hour and my still-hungover condition, but then remembered this recent comment by a regular reader: “Especially now, when days morph into each other and life has slowed down considerably – and we have time to think about perhaps less pleasant facets to our lives – structure and regularity are important. New music, to me at least, is an important element to this….” I feel the same way. And so I decided to at least make a brief start on another giant collection of new music, and then finish it in a MUCH larger Part 2 of this tomorrow.

KREATOR (Germany)

I was helpless to resist beginning this collection with “666-World Divided“. It’s such a blood-pumping, neck-wrecking blast to listen to, with wonderfully vicious vocals, a glorious chorus (that puts me in mind of Scandinavian melodic death metal), delicious soloing, and a segue into very sinister territory with choral voices. The video for the song is also a blast to watch. Continue reading »

ALTERNATIVE RELEASE DAY ROUND-UP: AUTOMB / CHRONICLE / NOMAD / OMEGA INFINITY / WARP CHAMBER

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Mar 272020
 


Automb

 

(Andy Synn prepared this collection of reviews, all addressing fine albums that are being released today.)

It’s a very busy Friday for releases this week, both big and small. Some of them we’ve covered here already (Aodon, Perdition Temple, The Malice), some of them we’ll probably get to over the next couple of weeks… maybe… and some of them have already received significant coverage elsewhere.

The purpose of today’s column however is to highlight a handful of bands/albums which might not necessarily receive the same amount of attention and/or adoration as some of the bigger or more high-profile releases, beginning with… drum roll please… Continue reading »

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