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”

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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”

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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”

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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 »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVESLAVE — “FATAL PUSH”

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Mar 092020
 

 

We know a thing or two about the music of Graveslave and we’ve seen a thing or two about their taste in videos. And no, we’re not selling property and casualty insurance — it’s death metal we’re peddling today, accompanied by a video that will bring smiles to many hardened faces.

Yes indeed, this isn’t the first time we’ve helped spread the music of this Minneapolis band to the soon-to-be-bruised masses. In 2017 we premiered their aptly titled debut album Sick/Nasty, which we summed up as a dynamic, body-mangling, brain-twisting thrill-ride — “an utterly wild, technically pyrotechnic, stunningly brutal fireworks display” that combined “thuggish skull-cleaving with eye-popping explosiveness, slow, sinuous sensuality and gruesome morbidity, and solos that will make you drool”.

And now Graveslave have just released a hellacious new EP named Devotion, the first of two brutal deathgrind EPs the band plan to release this year. Today we’re presenting a music video for a track from this first one named “Fatal Push” — a video that presents… well… a sharp contrast between what you see and what you hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MONUMENTUM DAMNATI — “INFERNAL SUN”

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Mar 092020
 

 

We are told that Monumentum Damnati is an international project whose leaders are based in Eastern Europe, with attachments to better-known projects. Here, they have chosen to conceal their countenances in grotesque masks and their names with pseudonyms, allowing their dark, genre-bending music to speak for itself. Their first presentation is In The Tomb Of A Forgotten King, a full-length album that will be co-released on March 30th by the triumvirate of GrimmDistribution, The End Of Time Records, and More Hate Productions.

As mentioned, the music on this debut album is difficult to classify in genre terms, drawing as it does from traditions of melodic death metal, doom, and the amorphous category of music that has come to be known as “dark metal”, accompanied by accents of orchestration. A further hint about the band’s disinterest in being tied to a particular defined genre comes from reference points that are provided, which include such disparate names as Crematory, Trail Of Tears, Ajattara, The Vision Bleak, Dark the Suns, Morgul, and Enshine.

It’s probably not the case that any one song on the album can be held up as a representation of the album as a whole, but we do have a track to share today, presented through a mysterious music video. Its name is “Infernal Sun“, and  the tale it tells is emblematic of the band’s occult and mythic inspirations. Continue reading »

DEADSPACE: “A PORTRAIT OF SACRIFICIAL SCARS”

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Mar 092020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the final album by the Australian black metal band Deadspace, released on March 2nd.)

It’s always sad when a band you love announces that they’re calling it a day, especially when the band in question are currently producing the best work of their career.

Such is the case with Australian Black Metal crew Deadspace, who recently declared that, due to a variety of reasons, this year would be their last as an active band.

Before their final dissolution, however, they’ve thrown themselves into a flurry of activity, including multiple national and international tour dates (they recently performed their last ever show in their home country and are set to begin an EU tour alongside Lebenssucht at the end of this month) as well as the release of their sonic swansong, A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars, just last week.

And, let me tell you, if the band truly does have to come to an end this year, then they couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring down the curtain. Continue reading »

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