AN NCS PREMIERE: AKURION — “BEDSORES TO THE BONE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 122020
 

 

(We welcome back our old friend and former NCS writer Austin Weber, who introduces our premiere of a song from the forthcoming debut album by the formidable death metal band Akurion, as well as a bass-and-guitar playthrough video for the track featuring performances by Rob Milley and Oli Pinard.)

After many years in development, the upcoming debut album Come Forth to Me by Montreal-based death metal supergroup Akurion is finally nearing its release. The album will officially drop on Friday, April 10th, via Redefining Darkness Records.

Although I’ve already helped with a premiere for Akurion — “Year of the Long Pig” at Metal Injection — once it came to my attention that certain premiere partners fell through for today’s item, I felt a need to step in and make the official launch of “Bedsores to the Bone” happen on time.

Akurion has an immediate appeal to me as an uber death metal nerd due to its member’s multi-decade lineage spent playing in Cryptopsy, Cattle Decapitation, Neuraxis, Coma Cluster Void, and many more. That in and of itself is impressive, but honestly wouldn’t mean a lot if the current project we’re highlighting didn’t rule, but Akurion does indeed kick a tremendous amount of ass. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FETID ZOMBIE — “BLOODLUST CONSECRATION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 122020
 

 

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 (if you haven’t checked that one out, get your ass over here and do it). 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.

Two days ago we began the roll-out of one track from the split by each of these four bands — one per day from then through the end of this week. If you haven’t checked out the Nucleus track we brought you on Tuesday or the Ectoplasma song we revealed yesterday, do that here and here. And then come right back to this page to experience today’s premiere, a riveting combination of mayhem and morbidity by Fetid Zombie that goes under the name “Bloodlust Consecration“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEVENSINS — “IN A GROVE OF DANCING BIRCHES”

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Mar 122020
 

 

 

This marks the second appearance of the Kazakh band SevenSins at our putrid humble site. The first occasion was an enthusiastic review by our long lost friend Gorger of their second album, 2016’s Due Diaboli et Apocalypse. That record revealed a shift in the band’s musical style to a sound that Gorger described as “gentle, melodic, and grandiose symphonic extreme metal, with local seasoning,” integrating metal and symphony in ways that drew “inspiration from classical music, film score, and folk music,” and fluctuated “between waltz and epic drama, with elements of, amongst others, gothic, primitive, and occult undertones”.

With changes in their recording line-up, SevenSins are now returning with a third full-length, to be released on April 19th by Satanath Records (Russia) and Murdher Records (Italy). Its name is Legends Of Kazakhstan, and once again SevenSins have made significant changes in their sound. As one clue, the releasing labels recommend it for fans of Dark Funeral and Watain. As another clue, today we’re introducing a song from the album called “In A Grove of Dancing Birches“, accompanied by a lyric video that creatively displays the words in the band’s native tongue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ECTOPLASMA — “INFESTATION OF THE EXTRANEOUS ONES”

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Mar 112020
 

 

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 (if you haven’t checked that one out, get your ass over here and do it). 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 metal.

Yesterday we began the roll-out of one track from the split by each of these four bands — one per day from now through the end of this week. If you haven’t checked out the Nucleus track we brought you yesterday, what the hell are you waiting for? Do that here. And then scurry right back to this page to take in the mutilating marvels of the song we’re presenting today — “Infestation of the Extraneous Ones” by the Greek death metal band Ectoplasma. Continue reading »

HEAVEN SHALL BURN: “OF TRUTH & SACRIFICE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 112020
 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by German’s Heaven Shall Burn. It’s set for release on March 20th by Century Media and features cover art by Eliran Kantor.)

Heaven Shall Burn are, undeniably, one of my favourite bands,, and it sometimes seems like their instantly recognisable, and instinctively appealing, brand of “Death Metal-core” – equal parts Bolt Thrower, Earth Crisis, and Kreator – was tailor-made just for me.

Of course I’m far from alone in my love for the band, whose crossover potential means that they could just as easily hit the stage alongside Cannibal Corpse as Code Orange, Unleashed or Unearth, Darkest Hour or Dismember, and comfortably hold their own, and sometimes it seems like the only thing preventing them from a major, mainstream breakout is their stubborn refusal to compromise their ethics, or dilute their heaviness, to suit the demands or expectations of others.

Still, I have to admit that when the band announced that their next record was going to be a double-album I was a little bit sceptical. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SUNKEN STATE — “THIS IS THE END”

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Mar 102020
 

 

Rage powers great swaths of extreme metal, almost all of it directed toward scum-ridden sectors of humanity, and in some cases to humanity as a whole. Given how royally screwed up the world is, fury is an endless source of fuel — mostly carbon-neutral fuel, except when it reaches the point of wanting to burn everything to the ground and start over.

High-octane rage overflows in the new single by South Africa’s Sunken State that we’re premiering today through a lyric video, and although the murderous impulses channeled through the song seem to be limited to pulling out eyes and leaving the scum to rot and decay, the music is highly combustible. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BENIGHTED, GREEN CARNATION, KHÔRA, GOLDEN BLOOD, EMBODIMENT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 102020
 

 

Hurrying as usual, but managed to have enough time to do some listening over the last 24 hours and to pick out five tracks from forthcoming records to recommend on this Tuesday. Hopefully you’ll agree with me that variety is the spice of life, because there’s quite a bit of that in what follows. Enjoy the spices.

BENIGHTED

I thought the best way to begin today’s collection was with a really disgusting music video about a malformed child taking revenge on his truly awful family (or at least vividly imagining it). Don’t bother watching at work, but hey, in the days of the coronavirus who’s at work? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NUCLEUS — “REPLICANT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 102020
 

 

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 (if you haven’t checked that one out, get your ass over here and do it). 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 metal.

Today we’re beginning the roll-out of one track from the split by each of these four bands — one per day from now through the end of this week. By then we fully expect you’ll be salivating over this release, though honestly, it shouldn’t take more than today’s song from Nucleus to get the slobber flowing. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CURSE UPON A PRAYER — “HARAM”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 102020
 

 

In his review of Curse Upon A Prayer‘s last release, the 2018 EP The Three Woes, our writer Wil Cifer asserted that “hatred and darkness are two crucial components of black metal” and gave credit to this band for putting “every ounce of their hateful hearts” into that release, with an execution that was “razor-sharp and in a similar sonic zip code as Marduk and 1349“. Yet he also expressed the hope that they would take the opportunity on their next album “to explore a wider scale of dynamics”.

Now we will discover whether that wish has come to pass, because Curse Upon A Prayer have completed their third album, Infidel, which will be released by Saturnal Records on April 10th. Some things have not changed. As before, the band continue to direct the major force of their venom against Islam rather than the more commonplace target of Christianity (and really, why should any institutionalized religion be immune from the assault of blaspheming black metal?). As before, they show themselves capable of discharging music of gripping intensity with a balance of surgical precision and wild hostility. But have they chosen, to a greater degree, to leaven their breathtaking ferocity with other sensations this time?

The answer is yes, as you’ll discover through our premiere of a song from the album named “Haram“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CLOUDS — “EMPTY HEARTS”

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Mar 102020
 

 

Daniel Neagoe, the alter ego of Clouds, has explained that after the release of the 2018 album Dor he felt that the band had reached its inevitable consummation, and that nothing remained for him to say through Clouds. It was time to let it rest. And then one of life’s tragedies disrupted those plans.

In particular, Neagoe lost a parent to cancer, after first bearing witness to months of continuous torment. As he has written, seeing the fear, the panic, the pain, the delusions, and the helplessness of a parent, and the shame that comes to a loved one unable to take care of their most personal and private needs, is itself a terrible experience, made all the more frightening by the “the constant fear that one day they will close their eyes forever”. And of course, after struggling to be as much a comfort as possible, that fear became a reality for him.

This wrenching experience led to the rebirth of Clouds, and to the new album Durere, which was released on March 1st. It represents, in Neagoe’s words, “a part of a soul going out to another soul”. And that is what it sounds like, though the souls who may now receive and benefit from it still breathe. Continue reading »

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