OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9): THE GREAT OLD ONES AND POPIÓŁ

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  2 Responses »
Jan 162020
 

 

Welcome to the 9th installment of this list. I paired these two songs together because both of them are multi-faceted and musically elaborate, and because they’re both kind of frightening. And of course because I think they’re quite infectious.

THE GREAT OLD ONES

Lovers of Loftcraftian metal were rewarded for their devotion last fall by the arrival of Cosmicism, a new album from the great The Great Old Ones (that was not a typo). The album’s title refers to Lovecraft’s literary philosophy, summed up (in a press release we received) as the notion that “humans are godless creatures who are totally insignificant in the grand scheme of our cosmic universe”. The same press release also included this encouraging quote from the great man himself:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SONS OF A WANTED MAN — “ABSENT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 162020
 

 

Roughly five years into their existence, the Belgian metal band Sons Of A Wanted Man have sought to blaze a musical path that reflects the varying interests of its members and to find the right combination of genre elements to express the feelings and convictions that inspire them. Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions, the label that will release the band’s debut album Kenoma on February 7th, describes their hybrid of sounds as one that “incorporates the melancholic atmosphere of post-metal, the rhythmic intensity of black metal, the layered approach of shoegaze and the ethics of hardcore punk”.

The results of the band’s efforts, as revealed through Kenoma, is multi-faceted music of great emotional and immersive power, and the lyrical content of the songs is equally engrossing. The song we’re presenting today, “Absent“, is a vivid example of these qualities. The track is a meticulously embroidered tapestry of emotional change, although you could also think of it as a panorama of a pilgrim’s travel through the heart of darkness, through kingdoms of desolation and death. Continue reading »

SHRIEKING: “LET THE GALAXY BURN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 162020
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by San Diego, California’s SHRIEKING, which was released on January 8th.)

The Metal scene is, or at least it can be, a very nerdy place indeed.

And that’s fine! I’m basically a massive geek myself, and so are a lot (probably most) of the people I know who are into Metal.

Whoever it is behind solo Black/Death Metal act SHRIEKING is very clearly a nerd of the highest order too (and I mean that as a compliment), as their new album, Let the Galaxy Burn, is an unabashed tribute to the wicked world of Warhammer 40K, in all its ridiculously grimdark glory. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019 WRAP-UP

 LISTMANIA 2019  1 Response »
Jan 162020
 

 

Next week I’ll be posting the fifth installment of a list by Thy Darkened Shade’s Semjaza, but his list is less a 2019 YE list than it is a big group of recommendations that spans more years than just 2019. And so, unless I’m forgetting something (always a possibility) it’s time to wrap up our 2019 LISTMANIA series.

As in years past we posted an extensive series of lists. As usual, some of them were re-postings of lists that appeared at “big platform” web sites and print magazines, and others were prepared by our own stable of race-horse writers. But once again we had a large group of lists from invited band members and assorted other guests. Plus, we’ve again received valuable, extensive lists in reader comments on THIS POST (new lists can still be added there).

In this article I’m setting forth links to all of the 2019 year-end lists that we published, divided into categories and listed within each category in the order of their appearance. For people who are looking for the best metal that 2019 had to offer, these lists and our readers’ lists provide a tremendous resource, as they have in past years. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 8): ABIGAIL WILLIAMS AND WHITE WARD

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  6 Responses »
Jan 152020
 

 

As mentioned earlier today in the last installment of this growing list, I’m making an effort to catch up after a couple of missed days, and so we have two Parts today instead of one. For this one I’ve chosen tracks from two stand-out 2019 releases. To catch up yourselves on the choices that preceded these, follow this link.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

I recognize that this first choice might be controversial, not because it’s a song from the latest Abigail Williams album, which rightly received plenty of acclaim in our own year-end lists as well as others, but because many of the people who embraced the album may have other favorite tracks that I didn’t choose.That’s the “problem” with an album like Walk Beyond the Dark. It’s so accomplished and so memorable that it makes the job of picking just one track, even for a list defined principally by “infectiousness”, a tough one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INNARDS — “ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH HATE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jan 152020
 

 

Victor Costa‘s cover art for the debut EP of the Portuguese death metal band Innards is a perfect accompaniment for the ghoulish delights the EP holds in store. The music, like the art, is an eruption of cemetery horrors coming right for your throat. In other words, this isn’t lurching, cadaverous death metal, even though it’s decidedly gruesome and rotten to the core. No, Innards (true to their name) are coming for your guts with unhinged relish. The EP’s title is thus similarly appropriate: Back From The Grave, Straight In Your Face.

There are only three songs on the EP, but they make for an explosive first strike. Two of those songs have previously debuted, and today we’ve got the premiere of the third one, an absolutely crazed onslaught wonderfully named “Enlightenment Through Hate“, which features none other than guest vocals by Kam Lee of Massacre and a guitar solo by none other than Frank Blackfire from Sodom. And with all three tracks now out in the world, you have a fully informed basis for picking up the record well in advance of its February 21st release by Transcending Obscurity Records. Continue reading »

GNAW: “BARKING ORDERS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 152020
 

 

(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of the new EP by Gnaw, which is set for release on January 31st via Sleeping Giant Glossolalia.)

New York-based Gnaw produce the kind of brutalizing listening experience that just can’t be achieved without coloring outside the lines of genre rules. They’ve been producing their Metal/Industrial/Noise mash-up since 2009, and their latest EP, Barking Orders, shows they definitely have not lost their edge.

For most Metal bands, the music comes first and the vocals often seem to default to the style that best matches what the instruments are doing. This isn’t the case with Gnaw, who are fronted by scene veteran Alan Dubin, whose unique vocal style has been at the forefront of such acts as O.L.D. and Khanate. “Unsettling” doesn’t even begin to describe the brutal screeches, yells, and bellows emanating from him. Perhaps the most notable part of his style, though, is the clarity with which he delivers the lyrics, despite the means he uses to deliver them. With Gnaw, the band seem to construct their sounds to complrment his powerful and unique style, utilizing whatever sort of cacophony best accompanies his voice and the harrowing lyrics it conveys. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: YEAR-END LISTS FROM THEMADISRAELI

 LISTMANIA 2019  2 Responses »
Jan 152020
 

 

(We’ve held the door open for one more year-end list before closing our LISTMANIA 2019 series, and that final list comes from long-standing NCS writer TheMadIsraeli.)

I feel like metal in 2019 reached an all-time high for expressiveness and creativity in the 2010s. Some of the absolute best collections of music I’ve heard have been 2019 releases, and while I don’t know where such albums would rank in a Top 100 of the decade list, this decade ended VERY strong.

We’re seeing an interesting renaissance that kind of hit its peak last year, in that almost everything seems to be black metal to one degree or another. With the clear exception of thrash, just about every sub-genre of metal was feeling the grim melodies, layered chord-driven guitar work, and more bestial and more “human” approaches to metal that black metal is known for. It’s interesting, and I’m all about it. This wasn’t the case for everybody of course. Certain bands stuck to their guns and unleashed strong follow-ups, very promising debuts, or just stayed the course of their legacy to excellent effect.

I’ve got six categories today, of six albums each. I’ll be doing a little blurb about each list. I used this format back in 2017, and I think this will be my year-end format for the rest of my time writing for this site. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 7): MORDBRAND AND RATTENFÄNGER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  No Responses »
Jan 152020
 

 

I’ve fallen behind in the rollout of this list, having failed to post installments on the first two days of this week. Rather than spend time detailing the excuses, I’ll use the time instead to catch up. Instead of posting one installment today, I’ll be posting two of them. That won’t completely make up for the lost two days, but I’ll figure out a way to make up for the other lost day.

Death Metal is the order of the day, at least for this Part 7, with two heavyweight songs that became addictions for me in 2019. (In case you’re new to this list, you can discover the preceding six installments here.)

MORDBRAND

Last May the Swedish band Mordbrand (whose music I’ve been trumpeting for a lot of years) released a fantastic two-track EP named Döden / Efter Doden. The lyrics of each song were taken from poems by Gustaf Fröding, who died in 1911, and is considered “one of the greatest poets of verse that Sweden has ever produced”. In his own life he struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, and according to the same source just quoted, “His poetry combines formal virtuosity with a sympathy for the ordinary, the neglected and the down-trodden, sometimes written with his own dialect. It is highly musical and lends itself to musical setting….” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MEDICO PESTE, TOD HUETET UEBEL, OSSAERT, BEAST OF REVELATION, STARVING FOR DEATH, FUNESTUS

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jan 142020
 

 

Apologies for not posting a SHADES OF BLACK on Sunday, where it belongs. For reasons related to my day job I had to go to Texas for a long weekend, and spent a big part Sunday getting back to Seattle. While in Texas I had time to pick what I wanted to write about, but not enough time to do the writing. And then Sunday night my home lost power and internet access due to a snowfall, with the problems lasting well into mid-day on Monday, so that trashed my plans to post this yesterday.

In the meantime, of course, a lot more black metal has surfaced, and I decided to include just one of those new songs along with the ones I originally picked for Sunday.

MEDICO PESTE

“God Knows Why” is the one new song I decided to add. It debuted today along with a fascinating but NSFW video. The song is off the new album by the Polish black metal band Medico Peste, whose music is also fascinating and not safe for work, or for just about anyplace else. Continue reading »

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