LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY KARINA NOCTUM

 LISTMANIA 2019  3 Responses »
Jan 032020
 

 

(Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum for the first time shares with us her year-end list of metal — 21 albums and EPs in all.)

I have contributed to this page for many years and yet this is the first time I’ve taken the time to make a year-end list.This year has been a really busy one for me when it comes to concerts. I have been lucky enough to have seen most of the bands in this list many times and hear them promoting their new albums, so my memory is filled with that and perhaps it was that what motivated me to do this.

Here I present a list of some excellent bands mainly within Black, Brutal, and Tech Death Metal which is what I listen to the most: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2019  8 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind Montréal’s Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and very eclectic musical tastes, and a way with words, and so for a fourth year in a row we asked him to share a year-end list with us. As in every other year, his list pulls us off our usual beaten paths by highlighting some favorite releases that are way outside the usual metal lists… including a lot of very interesting Not-Metal.)

 

So this year I bring to you a proper top 20 albums list. No ‘Albums you might have missed’ bullshit, just straight up my 20 favorites. Why? Well, I’ve dubbed 2019 ‘The Year Of Good Not Great ©’ as it brought us a lot of more-of-the-same and I-preferred-their-previous-one outings that left me feeling like a jaded musical hipster complaining about every release as he clangs away at his typewriter in a Starbucks, mansplaining to every underage girl he can corner in a house party he doesn’t know anyone at about how he was into every band before they ‘sold out’ and owns an original first pressing copy of their demo on vinyl. Continue reading »

AN NCS TRACK PREMIERE: BÜTCHER — “666 GOATS CARRY MY CHARIOT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

Even before you hear a single note, much of what has been publicly disclosed about Bütcher’s new album displays bone-deep devotion to the ancient deities of evil heavy metal — from Kris Verwimp‘s epic cover art to the album’s name (666 Goats Carry My Chariot), the band’s use of vintage analog gear in the recording of the music, and their stage appearance. But in the music itself, that devotion runs even deeper than you might guess, and crosses a rich soundscape of metal traditions that span decades, far more multifaceted than you might suspect if you’ve only heard of the reputation of these Belgians as a hell-for-leather speed metal band.

As the new album reveals even more vividly (and masterfully) than Bütcher’s previous releases, their music is an ingeniously conceived, carefully crafted, and brazenly executed hybrid. Classic speed metal from Germany and the U.S. shapes the backbone, but the music flourishes through the incorporation of epic heavy metal from the NWOBHM school, blazing black/thrash with roots in both South America and Australia, first-wave black metal, and certain sects of Scandinavian extremity from the ’90s. The results are continuously thrilling — and surprising.

In advance of the new album’s release by Osmose Productions on January 31st, today we’re premiering its title track, which provides an electrifying demonstration of what we’ve just attempted to describe. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

(Here’s Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Steffen Brandes, drummer/vocalist of the German death-doom band Cryptic Brood, whose latest album, Outcome of Obnoxious Science, was released in late November by War Anthem Records.)

Deep-rooted in a bloody and filthy death metal aesthetic, Cryptic Brood of Wolfsburg steadily walk their path remaining true to rules set by their predecessors in the ’90s. It’s one of those death doom bands which keeps the underground spirit of rot filled with disgusting images.

The Graveyard Brood, Wormhead, Brain Eater, Inevitable Death, and Infectious Decay — when you see the titles of Cryptic Brood’s releases you know what will come next. And yes, these Saxons kept their brand with two new releases in 2019, as the full-length Outcome Of Obnoxious Science and the split cassette with their more straight Italian colleagues Ekpyrosis titled In The Grip Of Death won’t disappoint fans of Asphyx or more modern bands like Anatomy, Hooded Menace, and Coffins.

Steffen Brandes (drums, vocals) tells us a few cryptic things in this fresh interview. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

 LISTMANIA 2019  11 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

To the Teeth is the name of a Facebook-based metal blog that began life in May of 2016. The proprietor, Dutch writer Peter van der Ploeg, regularly posts about new extreme metal songs and full releases, and as the year goes along he adds selected music to a growing Spotify playlist. He also has a Reddit thread in which he often goes into greater depth about what appears more briefly at To the Teeth on FB.

Peter has posted his own personal 2019 Top 50 list, which you can see HERE, but he again compiled a “List of Lists”, as he has done in past years. To do that he began by assembling a population of 117 year-end lists from 32 international critics, magazines, blogs, and other publications Those included a lot of “big platform” mainstream publications as well as lists from metal-only outlets such as our own; those 117 also included separate staff lists from some sites (such as our own). This year, these were the lists he included in the aggregation process: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON NEW YEAR’S DAY: GRIMAH, DARKRIFT, PESTIFER, ZMEY GORYNICH, DEATHVOID, STRÅLE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 012020
 

 

HNY!

 

I didn’t make it to the point when the clock ticked over into 2020 last night, not even close.  On the other hand, despite going to bed well before midnight I slept like a dead man for 10 hours, which is an extreme rarity. After all that time in the Land of Nod, I also felt extremely fuzzy-headed this morning, though a bout of drinking last night might have had something to do with that, even though it seemed pretty moderate to me at the time.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I got a very late and slow start today… and then had to focus on finishing up some work on today’s first post. All of that explains why this round-up arrives much later than I had planned. Fortunately, I picked all the music yesterday, or the post would be arriving even later. As usual, it’s a fairly random and stylistically quite divergent selection, united only by the fact that I like the hell out of everything here. (All of it is also very new.)

GRIMAH

The first song I’ve picked, “Thus Spake the Stone“, is off a debut album named Intricacies of Bowed Wisdom by the Spanish black metal band Grimah. The album is set for release on January 3rd, on CD via VERTEBRAE and digitally. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WRECHE — “VESSEL”

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Jan 012020
 

 

Vessel, the film you are about to see, is a journey through a surrealistic dreamscape, a shifting montage of odd characters transforming themselves and moving through light and shade, in isolation and shoulder to shoulder with more “average” citizens who seem to take no notice of the quirky beings in their midst. It is a strange and unsettling vision, and a transfixing one (make sure you have 19 minutes to spare, because once you begin you’re not going anywhere else).

Welcome to Los Angeles. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR: ITERU, INTIG, (DOLCH), NAVALM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 312019
 


Akos Fulop cracks his whip during the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Kecskemet, Hungary, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019 when shepherds, horseherds and story-tellers wave farewell to the year 2019 with singing and whipcracking. (photo by Sandor Ujvari/MTI via AP)

 

Ii won’t say this is becoming a tradition because I can’t remember if I did it before last year at this time and I’m too fuckin’ lazy to find out and who knows if I’ll still be alive this time next year? But anyway, for at least the second annum in a row I’ve decided to end the NCS year with a playlist of music and then roll into the New Year with another one tomorrow.

I feel pretty comfortable that I’ll be able to write the one for New Year’s Day in the morning because, once again, I’m planning a quiet new Year’s Eve at home with my wife. After more than a few decades of severe misbehavior, the idea of a quiet night and a New Year’s Day without a cataclysmic hangover has become very appealing. No more January 1 mornings wondering, “Is the blood on my shirt mine?”, “Whose room is this?”, and “Where did I leave my pants?”

For these SEEN AND HEARD round-ups I usually pick from the songs I’ve added most recently to the list of new music to check out (a list I update nearly every day). But this time I decided to do something different. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A TOP 20 LIST FROM GONZO (PART 2)

 LISTMANIA 2019  13 Responses »
Dec 312019
 

 

(This year we were joined by a Seattle-based writer who goes by the nickname Gonzo. He has contributed both lively concert reviews and equally lively album reviews, and today he brings us Part 2 of a year-end list that sings the praises of 20 albums — the top 10 of them today, and you can read about the first 10 here.)

The top 10 was a tough one this year, but whittling it down to the final product turned out to be a helluva fun time. The theme of the year seemed to be “pushing boundaries,” and I think my #1 choice did that better than any other crazy genre-defying piece of music I heard all year.

While I go smoke the rest of this joint, go read the rest of my list. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 116): DREADNOUGHT

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Dec 312019
 

 

(Here we are, at the end of December and the end of 2019, and just under the wire Andy Synn has turned in his SYNN REPORT for the month, choosing to review all the albums by the Colorado band Dreadnought, including their latest album Emergence, which was released in September by Profound Lore.)

Recommended for fans of: Madder Mortem, Ludicra, (latter-day) Opeth

Having dedicated the last several editions of The Synn Report to the nastier, gnarlier end of the musical spectrum, I felt it would be fun to end the year in something a little bit proggier.

Actually, make that a LOT proggier, as the multi-instrumental marvels of Dreadnought (whose repertoire accentuates the traditional form of bass, guitar, drums, and vocals, with added embellishments from flute, piano, mandolin, and saxophone, to name but  a few) arguably err more towards Folk, Prog, and Jazz – particularly on their earlier albums – than they do Metal.

That’s not to say that the Colorado quartet don’t have their more metallic moments, as they’re entirely capable of deploying a writhing, blackened riff or snarling shot of vocal venom whenever the need calls for it, but these harsher, heavier elements are just one small part of a rich creative tapestry which favours patient, proggy melody and indulgent artistry over instantaneous impact. Continue reading »

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