AN NCS INTERVIEW: LYING FIGURES

 Interviews  No Responses »
Feb 192020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us another interview, and this time he amicably interrogates two members of the French death-doom band Lying Figures, whose debut album arrived in 2017 and who are now working on a successor to that one.)

Lying Figures from the French city of Nancy isn’t the most active band in the world. They started to forge their death doom metal slowly in 2008, and their EPs From Nowhere To Nothing and A World Of My Own appeared in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Their full-length work The Abstract Escape saw the light of day three years after, and this Katatonia-inspired material drew the attention of Brave Murder Day fans easily.

Well, Lying Figures didn’t turn int0 a cult band the very day this album was born, but they’re interesting enough to approach them and learn more about the band’s current status. Matthieu Burgaud (guitars) and Frédéric Simon (bass) eagerly helped me with that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NAWAHARJAN — “LOKABRENNA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 182020
 

 

Today we premiere the entirety of Lokabrenna, the hour-long debut album by Nawaharjan, the Berlin-based black metal band whose name reportedly was built from the proto-Germanic word for “Nawaz” (corpse) and “Harjaz/Harjan” (army). The album will be released by Amor Fati Productions on the 20th of February. While we have (as usual) impressions of the music to share with you, in this case it’s worthwhile to first share what has been disclosed about the album’s conceptual underpinnings, because that gives further depth to the abundant array of sensations provided by the songs. To quote from the press materials:

“Lokabrenna is a conceptual work based around the Thursian Brandawegiz system, which is built upon the nine locks of Sinmara’s chest within the dark, liberating side of Germanic mythology. Each of the songs on the album symbolizes one of these locks and acts as a devotional hymn to Loki and a way to unlock his potential within oneself. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ABORTED, MEDICO PESTE, NECK OF THE WOODS, CÉNOTAPHE, GRAFSTROEM, IDOLOS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Feb 182020
 

 

I’m scurrying this morning, so I’ll dispense with introductory comments and get right to the music I’ve chosen for this round-up — but did you see Mitchell Nolte‘s fantabulous artwork on the cover of Aborted’s new three-track EP? Of course you did — how could you miss it? The EP is called La Grande Mascarade [sic], with a release date of April 17th.

MEDICO PESTE

I’ve previously spilled some demented words here about the truly demented first song and video (“God Knows Why“) presented in advance of the release of Medico Peste‘s new album, ב :The Black Bile. Now I can’t resist crowing again about this Polish black metal band because another song from the album has escaped out into the world. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARONIOUS — “AN ASSEMBLED REALITY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 172020
 

 

Having made quite a strong impression within the realms of technical death metal with their 2014 EP, Truth In Perception, the Wisconsin-based quintet Aronious are now poised to release their debut album, Perspicacity, which is set for release on March 13th via The Artisan Era. In the works for many year, and meticulously composed and recorded, this first full-length is a concept album — and a musically ambitious one that doesn’t follow all the standard tech-death tropes that you’ve become accustomed to by now.

So far, The Artisan Era has released three tracks from the album as signs of those ambitions and powerful accomplishments, and today we’re presenting the fourth and final advance track (among a total of 13 on the full album) before the record’s release next month. The song’s name is “An Assembled Reality“. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE MASSACRE: “FEARMONGER”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 172020
 

 

(Here we present Andy Synn‘s review of the long-awaited new album by Beneath the Massacre from Montreal, Quebec.)

Sometimes it’s hard to put into words exactly why certain bands “click” with you and others don’t.

And, before anyone chimes in with “but Andy, isn’t your whole job here putting things like that into words?” let me say… shut up, I’m not finished.

It’s particularly difficult at the more Brutal/Extreme/Technical end of the spectrum, where the “everything turned up to 11” approach of the bands means that the differences between them are, more often than not, more of a matter of gradient and nuance.

Can I tell you exactly why I find Wormed so ridiculously fun to listen to, while I find Brain Drill to be just ridiculous? Can I explain exactly why I can listen to Hideous Divinity over and over, but repeated exposure to Origin often just leaves me cold? Not easily, no.

But I can tell you just why I love Beneath the Massacre, and their new album, Fearmonger, so much. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PYRE OF DESCENT — “PEAKS OF ETERNAL LIGHT”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 172020
 

 

Crystalline notes echo across incorporeal spheres, soulful arpeggios ring out and reverberate, back-beats rock from the kit as a vibrant bass punches the pulse, the melody soars like an anthem, dour vocals present a gothic haunting gloom and turn to scarred howls, and spiraling guitar solos scintillate the senses. “Fyre” is a compulsive rocker, irresistible in its rhythms, but in its ethereal, chiming melodies it seems like a musical spell woven with threads made of light.

“Fyre” is the first song presented on the debut EP of the Berlin-based band, Pyre of Descent, and it makes for an enthralling introduction to Peaks Of Eternal Light, which will be released on February 24th by the Italian label Terror From Hell Records. But as compelling as that song is, the remaining three tracks are equally seductive, and equally aimed at transcendental goals — as you shall discover through our stream of the entire EP today.

Not for naught does TFH Records describe it as “31 minutes of enigmatic grace paired with sorrowful tension”, and not for naught do Pyre of Descent introduce their creations in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HANNES GROSSMANN

 Interviews  1 Response »
Feb 172020
 

 

(We present Karina Noctum‘s recent interview with Hannes Grossmann, the German drummer, composer, and producer who made his name drumming with such bands as Necrophagist, Blotted Science, Obscura, Alkaloid, and Hate Eternal. His most recent solo album Apophenia was released last year, and he is now recording a new solo album.)

 

As a drummer you have played various styles of metal throughout the last years. You’re also a successful composer and producer/sound engineer. Which task and what style do you find the most challenging?

To me it is very important to have an even work balance between writing, producing and drumming. I wouldn’t be satisfied if I just played drums for various bands. My first professional band was Necrophagist and it was extremely difficult to play their music. But it wasn’t the technicality I was interested in in the first place, it was the fact that the music was something unique, something new.

Of course technical stuff like Blotted Science and Necrophagist was the hardest to play on the drums, mainly because it’s fast and complicated. There isn’t any room left for improvisation, unlike in Obscura or Alkaloid. In those bands, being a main songwriter, I have much more freedom to express myself on the drum kit. But then writing and producing is really tough. Especially the last Alkaloid album Liquid Anatomy was difficult. Overall it is probably the hardest record I’ve done, but also the most rewarding. So it really depends. I can say that with every difficult task I have grown as a musician. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BLACK FLUX, KANNUSTAA, SVARTKONST, ULVDALIR, MIMORIUM, MALAÖUN

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Feb 162020
 

 

6-6-6. With more NCS time available to me over the last few days than usual, I’ve managed to feature the new music of six bands on each of the last three days. Surely some hellish reward will soon arrive at my door.

For this column I’m beginning and ending with complete streams of recently released debut albums. In between you’ll find advance tracks from forthcoming records, two of them from old favorites of mine and two from new discoveries. I’m very high on everything included here, and have already added tracks from all six bands to my list of candidates for 2020’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

BLACK FLUX

The Russian band Black Flux made a wise choice in setting the third track on their debut album, Black Stream, to play first at the album’s Bandcamp page. That track, “Пепельные Кубки (Ashen Goblets)“, lofts grand waves of slow-moving melody and glimmering ethereal tonalities over hurtling drums and truly vicious vocals. In addition, the band erupt in flurries of savage, electrifying riffage, while transforming the mood of those grand, cascading symphonic melodies into an increasingly tormented sensation that seems to writhe in agony. Through it all, vibrant bass lines rise and fall. The power of the sound is tremendous, as is the music’s emotional impact, which is wrenching. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEART ON A SATURDAY: BENEATH THE MASSACRE, AHNA, THOKKIAN VORTEX, MEGATHERIUM, THE OUTSIDER, DAMIAN MASTER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 152020
 

 

Six songs and videos yesterday, tracks from six more bands today. If I can manage six more tomorrow, we’ll have a sequence that marks that bestial number so near and dear to the hearts of metal fans. It’s good to have goals.

BENEATH THE MASSACRE

My, my, has it really been eight years since the last Beneath the Massacre album? Such a lot has happened in the world at large and in the narrower world of extreme metal in all those years. What has this Montréal band been up to in the meantime, and more importantly, what has happened to their musical proclivities? We are learning the answers now, as the clock ticks down to the release of their new album Fearmonger on February 28th, almost exactly eight years after Incongruous. Continue reading »

A VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE: PERCHTA, HELFRÓ, ULVER, PHOBOS MONOLITH, ISHVARA, VMTHANAACHTH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 142020
 

 

On Valentine’s Day 2011 (here) I provided a 600-word history of the holiday going back to the Roman celebration of Lupercalia, interspersed with efforts to explain why Valentine’s Day is metal. Re-reading it this morning, I nearly passed out from the tedium.

On Valentine’s Day 2012 (here) I posted an NCS “lonely hearts” column in which I answered a variety of e-mails from women offering to video-chat with me (soapy and fresh out of the shower), people trying to sell me products that would give me “robust bone-ons”, others who wanted to have my children (I proposed to send ampules of love juice and suggested names for the kiddos), and a few broken-hearted people looking for help (I told them to just go ahead and kill themselves). The Comments were funnier than what I wrote. I’m more grown-up than that now (yeah, right).

As far as I can tell, I haven’t made an effort since then to organize any kind of holiday-related theme for the music I’ve posted on Valentine’s Day, though I’ve usually make some kind of (usually snarky) comment about the day, typically related to how commercialized the holiday is. In case you were wondering, this year the National Retail Federation reports that those celebrating Valentine’s Day in the U.S. plan to spend a record average of $196.31, up 21 percent over last year’s previous record of $161.96, and that total spending is expected to total $27.4 billion, up 32 percent from last year’s record of $20.7 billion.

Isn’t that heart-warming? Continue reading »

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