AN NCS INTERVIEW: DAVID MCGRAW (CATTLE DECAPITATION)

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Apr 072020
 

 

(In this new installment of a series devoted to metal drummers, Karina Noctum talked with David McGraw of Cattle Decapitation, and we join Karina in thanking David him for his time and attention.)

Cattle Decapitation is definitely one band that leads the way when it comes to extreme metal. Their blend of Death, Heavy, Grind, and Black Metal with a complex arrangement of progressive riffs and top-notch technique is something I have always admired. So I had to include David McGraw in my series as he is definitely one of the best drummers in the genre.

Due to the pandemic he is currently home and available for drumming coaching while he should be on tour. He took some time to answer my questions, something I’m pretty grateful for. What’s left for us in Europe is to hope their superb tour together with Disentomb, Internal Bleeding, and Gloom will be re-scheduled, but things look certainly gloomy grim here when it comes to shows in the foreseeable future. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: “VERMINOUS”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 072020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by The Black Dahlia Murder, due for release on April 17th by Metal Blade Records.)

If I were forced to select one word to describe The Black Dahlia Murder’s particular brand of high-stakes, high-adrenaline Death Metal that word would undoubtedly be… anthemic.

After all, one of the band’s defining features has always been their ability to conjure up a seemingly endless series of contagious, crowd-friendly choruses and red-hot hooks to balance out their molten metallic mayhem, with much of this burden often falling to lunatic-larynxed frontman Trevor Strnad, whose distinctive delivery – part predatory preacher, part Death Metal drill sergeant, part crazed carnival barker – is an inimitable part of the group’s sound.

The band’s last album, 2017’s superb Nightbringers, in many ways felt like the apotheosis of this, with songs such as “Kings of the Nightworld” and the titanic title track featuring some of the catchiest, most bombastic material the group have ever written.

The thing is… once you’ve peaked like that, there’s almost nowhere to go but down. So the big question now is whether or not Verminous is going to be a victim of the band’s success, or whether the gang have found a way to escape the curse of diminishing returns… Continue reading »

SYMBOLIK: “EMERGENCE”

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Apr 062020
 

 

(On April 10th The Artisan Era will release the debut album of California’s Symbolik, and today we present DGR’s detailed review.)

Stockton, CA’s Symbolik are a band I’ve been following for a long time. Seeing their logo pop up on a few local show flyers way back in the early 2010s led to me finding the group’s EP Pathogenesis and being so impressed by it that I wound up seeing the band live three times after that. They were one of those groups I had thought was going to really cut a swath through the hyper-speed tech-death scene at the time, long before it had started congealing around a handful of specific record labels that would later unwittingly codify an overall sound. However, things progressed slowly in their camp and barring a single entitled “Diverging Mortal Flesh” that came out in 2015, Symbolik remained fairly silent save for the occasional here-and-there show.

It wasn’t until earlier this year, over eight and a half years after the release of their Pathogenesis EP that we finally heard from the group — now signed to The Artisan Era and ready to release a full-length debut entitled Emergence. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE PROJECTIONIST — “A STARTLING HOUSECALL”

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Apr 062020
 

 

Many fans of black metal, or other other metal genres, have heard descriptive references to music within such genres as “theatrical”, an adjective that may connote a sense of the dramatic, of the elaborate, or perhaps of the grandiose and bombastic. But   Canada’s The Projectionist has elevated their formulation of black metal to a level that literally is theatrical.

The band’s forthcoming fifth album, The Stench of Amalthia, is a full-concept operetta which tells a horrifying story, making use of an array of voices to play the characters in the nightmarish tale the band have crafted, and all of it destined for the kind of full theatrical stage performance for which The Projectionist have already become known.

In advance of the album’s release by Moribund Records on April 17th, today we’re presenting a track that occupies a pivotal place in the record’s fiendishly conceived narrative. You could listen to and appreciate “A Startling Housecall” without knowing anything about the scene it portrays or the album’s narrative as a whole, but this is an instance of music that really requires context. And so let’s begin with a description of the album’s story, and of what happens in this scene in particular. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANCIENT BURIAL — “INTO THE LAND OF DEATH”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 062020
 

 

Little is known about Ancient Burial. The line-up is anonymous, though rumor has it that it may include members of other better-known formations, and their unearthly renderings of raw black metal would draw comparisons to the music of the Portuguese Black Circle (whose bands we’ve paid significant attention to over the years). Perhaps more will be revealed in time, but for now what we have — or rather, will have on May 1st via the Signal Rex label — is Ancient Burial‘s debut album Beyond the Watchtowers.

Below you’ll find streams of the first two tracks revealed from the album, one that has been previously disclosed and one that we’re premiering today. Neither of them will have mass appeal. Both of them are sadistically abrasive and well-calculated to create sensations of terror and devastation, of infernal possession, and of other-dimensional eeriness and mortal threat. They are also perversely enthralling, capable of plunging at least some listeners into the same wicked state of possession and violent trance that seems to have overcome the performers. Other listeners will cower in corners or run for the hills Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 3): PUTRESCINE, PYRRHON, REMINISCENCE, TESTAMENT, TITHE, ULVAND, VADER, PANZRAM, VALDRIN, WAKE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 062020
 


Putrescine

 

Seems like a year ago when I started this latest mega-roundup of new songs and videos but it was only last Friday. The alphabetized list swelled between Part 1 and Part 2 on Saturday, when I made it up to the letter P. And now I just need to finish the alphabet as fast as I can, because a new list has already started to take shape since I began this one. In a few days we’ll be back to the letter A.

I wish I had time to say something more meaningful about all the music you’ll find below, but unfortunately quick notes are all I have time for. But rest assured, the fact that these tracks are here means that I like them all and hope you will too. Be well, and stay safe. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MOLASSES BARGE

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Apr 062020
 

 

(On April 10th Argonauta Records will release the second album by Pittsburgh heavy doom rockers Molasses Barge, and this provided a good occasion for Comrade Aleks to catch up with guitarist Justin Gizzi in this exclusive NCS interview.)

As shit continues to hit the fan, it’s hard to predict what will happen next month or even next week, but a new Molasses Barge release is scheduled on the 10th of April by Argonauta Records, and I hope we’ll all be able to support it…

The band was started as a project in 2008 when a few men from the Pittsburgh heavy underground gathered in the name of the Doom Cult. Initially it was Justin Gizzi on guitars, Brian “Butch” Balich on vocals, and Wayne Massey as drummer. Justin played in bunch of bands before, and Brian is well-known as vocalist of such loud acts as Penance and Argus —  should I say that the project had great potential from the start?

However, Molasses Barge rested at pierce for years, but since 2017 they have shown good activity, recording, releasing, and performing live their hard down-tuned stuff with new members. The band’s up-to-date lineup consists of the original trio plus Amy Bianco (bass) and Barry Mull (guitars). Their new work A Grayer Dawn is damn hard and loud down-tuned doom metal, and I believe it fits well these strange times we live in. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ALASTHOR, BLIGHT, BOREAL, BURIAL, SKOGNATT, SLAGMARK

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Apr 052020
 

 

I nearly called this SHADES OF BLACK-PART 1, because I have a few albums I want to recommend and briefly review, in addition to the individual tracks and EPs I’ve collected here. I’m going to try to do that, but in looking at other things that are already in the works I’m not sure I can push myself to do it quickly. So we’ll see, but in the meantime I hope you’ll enjoy what follows. I believe that each of these six bands are making their first appearance at NCS.

ALASTHOR

The Belgian duo Alasthor claim inspiration from such bands as Marduk, Arkhon infaustus, Dissection, Gorgoroth, Funeral Mist, Nargaroth, and Mgla, and for their lyrical themes they draw upon studies and practices of the Left Hand Path. Their newest release, Mahapralaya, is a four-track offering that was revealed on March 24th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SKARZ — “KIND OF GOD”

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Apr 052020
 

 

For most of us time is no longer like a methodically ticking clock, the days no longer marked by the calendar or the forward motion from one scheduled routine to the next. Instead it’s like a disorienting fog, the days running into each other, each one like the one before and the one after, to the point where it’s easy to forget what day it is, or what the point is — other than to stay away from other people. The calendar says today is a Sunday, but it might as well be a Monday or a Friday. So why not have a premiere today?

The one we have is a skin-shivering track named “Kind of God” from the Greek death metal band Skarz off their debut album What Remains, which is set for release on April 21st by the triumvirate of Satanath Records, More Hate Productions, and Exhumed Records. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): FRONT, JUPITERIAN, MAESKYYRN, OCEAN CHIEF, ORTRO, PANOPTICON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 042020
 


Front

 

I bit off more than I can chew. As you may recall, in Part 1 of this post yesterday I included 12 new songs and videos arranged alphabetically by band name, which took us from A through F. At that point I had 11 more songs and videos in mind for Part 2, with band names from F through W. Of course, Friday has become a “release day”, not only for new albums but also for new “singles”, so by day’s end that original group of 11 swelled in size based on new things I spotted.

Not having started work on Part 2 yesterday, and having spent more than 3 hours last night on a Zoom happy hour with all my day-job co-workers, I find myself on a woozy Saturday morning daunted by the prospect of writing-up the now-expanded Part 2 list of 16. As you can see, I decided to get these first 6 (one of which is an even more last-minute addition) ready to go before the day wears on too much longer. We’re still going in alphabetical order, and this Part 2 takes us up to P.

At this point I don’t know when or if I’ll finish the list with the 10 songs still left, because I need to make time for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK. Stay tuned… but more importantly, be well and stay safe…. Continue reading »

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