VOIDCEREMONY: “ENTROPIC REFLECTIONS CONTINUUM: DIMENSIONS UNRAVEL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 222020
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the first full-length album by California’s VoidCeremony, which was released by 20 Buck Spin on June 26th.)

While some Death Metal bands try to streamline their sound to have hooks and conventional song structures, others seek to create obscure and challenging material that summons images of alien horrors and oddball geometries of terror. VoidCeremony certainly fall into the latter camp. Their debut full-length, Entropic Reflections Continuum:Dimensions Unravel marries progressive technicality with unrelenting brutality to create an incredibly powerful statement.

Consisting of Garrett Johnson on vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, Jon Reider on rhythm guitar, and Charlie Koryn on drums and engineering, VoidCeremony is full of powerhouse musicians. While plenty impressive on their own, they also enlisted the criminally underrated Damon Good (Stargazer, Black Cauldron Ram, Mournful Congregation) on bass for this album as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RUIN — “PLAGUE TRANSMISSIONS: VOL. 2”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 212020
 

 

The California death metal band Ruin released their first demo in 1991, and then nearly a quarter-century later they revived and re-formed. Since 2015 they’ve released two albums (Drown In Blood and Human Annihilation), but a much greater number of short releases, including EPs and splits. They’ve gotten into the habit of periodically releasing compilations that collect these shorter works, and the latest of those is what we’re bringing you today.

Plague Transmissions: Vol. 2, which will be released by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on July 24th, collects Ruin tracks from a 2018 EP (Into Endless Chasms), a 2018 split with Anthropic, a 2019 EP (Death Tomb), a 2020 split with Abysme (Rotting Madness), and a 2020 EP (Infested Death) — 18 tracks at all. And a more vile and ghastly administration of obliterating punishment you could hardly imagine. Continue reading »

BACK IN THE SADDLE: PEER PRESSURE / RADIOACTIVE RATS / SHARPTOOTH

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 212020
 


Sharptooth

 

(After a short break, Andy Synn returns with this trio of new reviews.)

As Islander alluded to in his post on Saturday, last week was a particularly busy one for me in my life outside of the site (yes, I have one). As a result I basically ended up taking a week-long break not just from NCS but from music altogether, in order to focus my thoughts and my energy on other matters.

Thankfully, by the time Friday afternoon rolled around I had basically completely cleared my “to do” list, so I was able to spend the rest of the day – as well as much of Saturday and Sunday – getting myself back up to speed on upcoming albums, relistening to some old favourites, and digging into the plethora of recent releases, in order to select a few hidden gems to highlight this week.

And, wouldn’t you know it, I found myself falling back into my old Hardcore habits (I guess they really do die hard) and, after spending a little bit of time separating the wheat from the chaff, I landed upon the following albums/artists as perfect examples of how much there is still to love in this much loved, often maligned, but undeniably Metal-adjacent genre. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (GUEST EDITION): ORFVS, OCTOBER FALLS, NORRHEM, WARMOON LORD, VULTYRIUM, FLAGG, NOIDVA, SINIRA, ÄKTH GÁNAHËTH, NUÉE ARDENTE, IFERNACH

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jul 212020
 

 

(We failed to post a SHADES OF BLACK column in its usual place on Sunday, and occasional NCS contributor Speelie fills that void with this guest edition.)

NCS readers might be forgiven for thinking I only pay attention to the Black Metal scene in Quebec. In reality, I listen to Black Metal from around the world (Krummholz, anyone?). But Finland has long been one of my favorite countries, for all sorts of Metal.

This year has been full of new releases from the country, including some comebacks by guys who first released music many years ago. One example of this is Ceremony of Darkness, by Orfvs. It’s full of keyboards and atmosphere, but in a way that wouldn’t be out of place 20-plus years ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HATEFUL — “CALDERA”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 202020
 

 

Musical vulcanism, even in extreme metal, takes different forms. Death metal in particular is capable of doing an exceptionally good job in channeling explosive destruction, but it doesn’t always fully capture the transmutation of matter on a micro-level or the massive reconfiguration of mountainous landscapes on an epic scale that happen during and after the earth’s megaton upheavals. The Italian band Hateful, on the other hand, prove themselves capable of doing all those things in the song we’re presenting today.

How they create these sensations is a wondrous (and bewildering) thing to behold. Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release Hateful’s new album, Set Forever On Me, on September 25th, identifies some of the explanations in this way: Hateful’s music “includes elements of the early technical death metal bands like Atheist, Gorguts, Disincarnate and Death, powerful brutal coagulants such as Suffocation and Deeds of Flesh, and even the kinetic, ever-changing properties of bands like Spawn of Possession and Necrophagist.” Continue reading »

FORLORN WORLD: “UMBRA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 202020
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the debut album by Forlorn World, the side project of Bloodshot Dawn‘s Josh McMorran.)

I’m a rabid fan of Bloodshot Dawn and have been since their self-titled debut.  I own all their releases physically, I still listen to all three of their albums to date at least once a month, and I think in general, in a current era where melodic death metal has really fallen off the map, they have somehow managed to inject some needed life into an otherwise dormant sub-genre of extreme metal that was beloved by many.  Mostly this was done through an elevation of the technicality of riff writing combined with an EXTREME emphasis on guitar virtuosity.  Their formula works, and it’s some of the most consistently compelling metal you can listen to right now.

I was therefore quite intrigued when I learned that Bloodshot Dawn founder and frontman Josh McMorran was using this quarantine time to record a solo album as kind of an aside to Bloodshot Dawn, maybe to just hone his musical chops a bit more or to prepare for the fourth Bloodshot Dawn album, but I was curious nonetheless.  This project, the subject of today’s review, is called Forlorn World, and I mean… it’s pretty fucking good. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SIBIREAL — “SYMBOLS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 202020
 

 

As many of you know, we have a year-end list that’s devoted to highly infectious extreme metal songs. The song we’re premiering today from the debut album of Sibireal quickly jumped onto the candidate list — and not just this one, but another song that was the first track excerpted from the album. Today’s song is “Symbols“, and the one that preceded it is “The Way of Ego”.

The title of the album is Blood Color Sky, and it’s set for co-release on August 8th by the Ukrainian label GrimmDistribution (a label partner of Satanath Records) and the Russian label Wings Of Destruction.

Sibireal are themselves based in Russia, in the foothills of the Altai mountains, which The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us is “in the very center of Asia at the junction of the Siberian taiga, the steppes of Kazakhstan and the semi-deserts of Mongolia.” And thus perhaps it’s not surprising that although the musical backbone of Sibireal is thrashing black metal, their music sometimes includes the Altai harp, tambourines, and throat singing. Continue reading »

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

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
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 »

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