SEEN AND HEARD: SOLOTHUS, PERDITION TEMPLE, SYMBOLIK

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 042020
 

 

I see that the last time I posted one of these new-music round-ups was on January 18th. After that the series became a casualty of my work on our Most Infectious Song list and our daily schedule of premieres, plus some other distractions. Now that I’ve finished the rollout of that song list I’m hoping to get back to a more regular featuring of newly revealed songs and videos, beginning with this post.

While SEEN AND HEARD was on hiatus, of course, a ton of new stuff surfaced, and catching up isn’t realistic. I haven’t even been very good about watching what has come out, though I did notice new songs from Vader (here), My Dying Bride (here), and The Black Dahlia Murder (here), among the bigger names out there. Please feel free to share your thoughts about those in the Comments, or about anything else I’ve overlooked, but I’m going to re-start this column with a few bands less-heralded than those.

SOLOTHUS

Last December we published an interview by Comrade Aleks with Kari Kankaanpää, vocalist of the Finnish doom-death band Solothus, that occurred just a few weeks after the band had finished their third album, which follows by four years their tremendous 2016 full-length No King Reigns Eternal. In that interview Kari summed up the essence of the band’s sound as “Candlemass meets Bolt Thrower“, and offered some hints about what the new album would present: “What you loved in No King Reigns Eternal is there, but with an even more refined and heavy sound! There is a lot more variation, but yet we keep the same recipe as always. I am very proud of how our upcoming third album sounds — it will be a blast when you hear it!” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OATH OF DAMNATION — “I CURSE THEE, O LORD!”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Feb 042020
 

 

On March 13th the Australian blackened death metal devastators Oath of Damnation will return to the battlefield with their second album, the well-named Fury and Malevolence. Gore House Productions will be the bearer of these seven tracks of unchained ferocity and pitch-black darkness, and we’re in the fortunate position of presenting the first publicly revealed track from the album today through a lyric video.

Entitled “I Curse Thee, O Lord!“, it’s the song that ends the album. As the band tell us, and as you’ll discover through the video, the track delivers “unrelenting savagery paired with a twist on the classical biblical tale of Abraham commanded by his god to sacrifice unto him, his son, Isaac. Unlike in the classic tale, here, no angels come to stay his hand. Press play and destroy!” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEAST OF REVELATION — “LEGIONS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 042020
 

 

Last month I was induced to listen to the title track from the debut album of Beast Of Revelation (entitled The Ancient Ritual of Death) by the names in the line-up:  drummer Bob Bagchus (Hellehond, Infidel Reich, ex-Asphyx, Grand Supreme Blood Court, Soulburn, and more); guitarist/bassist A.J. van Drenth (Temple, Throne, ex-Beyond Belief), and vocalist John McEntee (Incantation).

On that title track McEntee‘s vocals are demented and disorienting, an expression of roaring and wailing wretchedness that raises goosebumps. And the music is absolutely crushing and authentically disturbing, heavy enough to pound your cranium into splinters and weird and woeful enough to fracture your sense of well-being too. Listening to it risks sore-neck syndrome and mental mutilation.

Given the resumes of the band’s members, none of this should come as a shock, even if the music itself creates shockwaves. And we have more of Beast of Revelation‘s merciless and morbid doom-death devastation for you today as we premiere the song “Legions” in advance of the album’s March 6 release by Iron Bonehead Productions. Continue reading »

PSALM ZERO: “SPARTA”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Feb 042020
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the third album by Psalm Zero, which will be released by Last Things Records on February 24th.)

Like many of their NYC brethren, Psalm Zero walk a tightrope of genre-splicing madness, and their latest release Sparta  is another success spurred from that scene. Including such bands as Kayo Dot, Vaura, and Stern, these groups utilize an alchemy which pulls from Metal, ’80s Art Music, Jazz, and Avant Garde among others. While all these groups are excellent at what they do, Psalm Zero might be the most Metal sounding at this point in their career.

Sparta is their third album, their first without guitarist Andrew Hock, and also the first not to appear on Profound Lore. Instead, the record will come out on band leader Charlie Looker’s own Last Things Records. Looker now handles guitar, vocals, synths, and programming and is joined by Ron Varod on bass and the formidable Keith Abrams on drums. With a combined resume that includes work in pretty much all the aforementioned bands and more, Psalm Zero bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to Sparta. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SCHATTENFALL — “TOTENTANZ”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Feb 032020
 

 

Unlike many other metal sites, we didn’t try to assemble a list of “most anticipated” 2020 releases as a way to help turn the clock from the old year to the new. It might have been a good idea (and we’ve done it in the past), but shortness of time and an abundance of other distractions prevented that. However, if we had created such a list, I have no doubt that Schattenfall’s new EP Das Verderben would have been on it.

I first drawn to this Germany-based band’s 2017 debut album Schatten in Schwarz because their line-up included two former members of the fantastic White Ward, and that album turned out to make a stunning impression. Perhaps even more stunning was the band’s second album (which included new vocalist Stefan Traunmüller of Golden Dawn, Rauhnåcht, Selenite, The Negative Bias, and Wallachia). I gave significant attention to the preview tracks as they emerged, and Andy Synn acclaimed the album in his review as one of his favorite black metal albums of the year so far, and home to manifestations of “gloriously melodic misery” that were “second to none”.

No wonder, then, that we have been excited for this new three-track EP — and equally excited to present the first preview track today, in advance of the EP’s co-release on February 28th by Redefining Darkness Records (North America) and Wolfspell Records (Europe). But you had best steel yourself before listening to “Totentanz“, because its emotional intensity is absolutely ravaging. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CARNOSUS — “DECEPTIVE AUTHORITY”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 032020
 

 

The Swedish melodic death/thrash band Carnosus are both young in age and youthful in their career, but their rapid progress has been unusually impressive. Their first EP, 2016’s The Universal Culmination (which they recorded with Tomas Skogsberg at Stockholm’s famed Sunlight Studio) opened a lot of eyes and ears, earning them an accolade from Sweden’s Close-Up Magazine as “the best unsigned band in Sweden” in May 2016. But it’s clear that there was still a lot of untapped potential in this group, because their debut album Dogma of the Deceased is a big step up over the EP, in both its songwriting and its execution

This time Carnosus recorded the album at Studio Fredman with producers Fredrik Nordström and Robert Kukla, and the record features memorable cover art by Vojtěch “Moonroot” Doubek. The album will be co-released on March 13th by Satanath Records (Russia) and Shirley Road Records (U.S.), and today we’re bringing you the lyric video for a powerful new single from the album named “Deceptive Authority“. Continue reading »

SEPULTURA: “QUADRA”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 032020
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Sepultura, which will be released on February 7th by Nuclear Blast.)

People occasionally ask us why it is that NCS focusses mainly on underground and/or lesser-known artists over bigger and more famous groups.

The truth is that, as much as we enjoy a lot of big-name bands, it’s simply much more fun, and much more rewarding, to write about something fresh and new than it is to keep on rehashing the same old talking points about the same established acts, about whom there is often very little new to say.

After all, no-one needs to read yet another fawning article about how the new Tool album is the greatest thing to ever happen to music (even though no-one’s heard it yet) or some bored writer’s attempt to explain why Slipknot’s decision to fill most of their new record with radio-friendly ballads is actually the most extreme and rebellious thing possible. Those pieces have been written a million times already, so what more could we possibly add? Heck, what would we want to add?

But there are certain occasions – maybe we feel like we have a fresh angle to cover, or simply want to provide a more balanced and hype-free assessment than the ones we’ve found elsewhere – when we decide to break this self-imposed embargo and dedicate some space to an album or artist who doesn’t necessarily need it… but definitely deserves it.

Enter Quadra. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  3 Responses »
Feb 032020
 

 

First of all, I want to thank everyone who suggested songs for this list, from the readers who left so many good recommendations in the Comments on this post last November to my NCS comrades who offered some of their own. With more than 450 songs on the final list of candidates compiled from those sources, plus my own ideas (which I assembled as 2019 went along), it’s obvious that what I chose was going to be massively incomplete. For the sake of accuracy I should consider re-naming this “Among the Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of the Year“.

As I’ve made clear already, I forced myself to stop yesterday, not because I was completely satisfied that I’d gone far enough, but because I want to start devoting more time to 2020 music. At the end, I included 60 songs on the 2019 list, compared to a whopping 99 on the 2018 list, 78 from 2017, and 71 from the year before that. Below I’ve listed all the songs I chose, in the order in which I rolled them out, and I’ve hyperlinked them to the original posts where you can listen to the music. (I know it would have been easier on listeners if I had included all the streams right here in one place, but that would have taken more time than you probably realize. HOWEVER, one of our supporters, matt, has created a Spotify playlist that includes almost all the songs, and you can find that here.) Continue reading »

HORROR GOD: “CURSED SEEDS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 032020
 

 

(In this post Vonlughlio gives a strong recommendation for the latest album by the Russian black/death metal band Horror God, released last fall by Lavadome Productions.)

Cursed Seeds, the third album by the Russian band Horror God, was released last September by Lavadome Productions. I should confess that I have been following the label for years and become friends with the owner Jan, conversing about Death Metal, likes and dislikes, not seeing eye to eye, all the good stuff friends talk about.

Having said that, it is the music alone on Cursed Seeds that prompted this write-up. I have enjoyed each second from start to finish, because it is a perfect blend of Death/Black influences put into 7 songs totalling 36 minutes of pure fury, desperation, loss, and hope. My first listen turned into three listens in a row, and I found myself enjoying the overall effort from this group more and more each time. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ROTTEN MONARCH, ÌSINKÚ, ZWIESPALT, VOLLMOND MYSTIKER

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Feb 022020
 

 

Back on January 19th I bit off more than I could chew. I promised a second Part to the SHADES OF BLACK column I started that day, and wasn’t able to deliver, either that day or the day after or the day after that. And now here we are two weeks later. A lot more black metal has surfaced in that time, but I’ve decided to stay with what I had planned for that phantom Part 2 on January 19th.

ROTTEN MONARCH

This is another album in a long list of favorites that I wouldn’t have discovered but for the recommendation of Rennie (starkweather), who continues to enrich my listening and that of everyone else who follows him.

Winds Over Ash is the third release and second album by the American duo Rotten Monarch. When I checked Metal-Archives after listening to an early song from the album, that treasured encyclopedia classified their music as “Metalcore/Death Metal”. I thought to myself, even if that’s accurate as applied to previous releases, it doesn’t work for this new one. I checked M-A again yesterday, and now it says “Metalcore/Death Metal (early); Atmospheric Black Metal (later)”, which was obviously a reaction to Winds Over Ash.

But the newer description still doesn’t completely work. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries