OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 13): KRATER, HATE, RAPTVRE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  1 Response »
Jan 222020
 

 

Three years ago I vowed that I would begin forcing myself to end these lists before the beginning of February, not because I would really be finished by then but because continuing it past that point had become embarrassing. I renewed the vow this year, and it hit me this morning that January 31st is only nine days away! Shit! Nine days away, and I’m not even close to naming all the songs I want to name.

Well, this means it’s time to expand the daily installments from two songs to three (or more). And I’m going to have to post installments on Saturday and Sunday too, if I can manage that. The three I’ve chosen today have a certain über-dark atmospheric kinship, as I hear them, in addition to being addictive. To catch up with the songs that preceded them on this list, go here.

KRATER

I was very happy to see that Andy Synn decided to devote his November 2019 edition of THE SYNN REPORT to these frightening Germans, putting in one place streams of all their albums and allowing for a clear view of the ways in which their sound has evolved since 2006, culminating (for now) in 2019’s stunning Venenare, which Andy rightly acclaimed as “without a doubt, one of the most intense and impressive Black Metal albums of 2019”. Continue reading »

SALLOW MOTH: “THE LARVAL HOPE”

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Jan 222020
 

 

(The Texas-based death metal band Sallow Moth has followed its Deathspore EP with a continuation of the tale begun there. The band’s debut album was released on January 15th, and Andy Synn reviews it here.)

The existence of so many great one-man-bands (the multi-instrumentalist recording-project types, not the “banjo-bass-drum-harmonica” types) has always been a perplexing puzzle to me.

As someone who enjoys, and craves, the stimulation (and frustration) of collaboration when making music I just can’t quite get my head around what it must take to be willing, and able, to go it alone.

Heck, one of the reasons I’ve never gotten my own still-as-yet-unrealised Black Metal project off the ground is that I’ve never found the right collaborators/co-conspirators to work with!

But I remain immensely fascinated, and impressed, whenever I stumble across an album whose high quality can only be attributed to the efforts of a single individual, especially in cases like this one, which is giving off some major Blood Incantation/Mithras/Slugdge vibes. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 12): ROTTING CHRIST AND AMON AMARTH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  1 Response »
Jan 212020
 

 

For tomorrow’s installment of this list I’m diving deep into the underground again, but for this 12th Part I decided to include music from a couple of the biggest names in extreme metal. Both bands also seem to have arrived at a place where they’ve become… institutions (for want of a better word)… with a sound of their own that isn’t subject to significant change but is still usually appealing.

ROTTING CHRIST

DGR began his extensive NCS review of The Heretics in this way: “To say that they’ve found a sound would be putting it politely; Rotting Christ not only found a sound, but they also basically defined it and then later let it define them. Especially in more recent years they have basically shifted from being a fire-fueled black metal nightmare into an almost Hollywood-esque war-drums-and-all hybrid of martial rhythms, ’70s prog guitar influences, and the straightforward guitar stomp and lead work that has made them so insanely catchy over the years. The group’s latest disc, The Heretics, is a giant block of that specific sound.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): JORDABLOD — “THE CABINET OF NUMINOUS SONG”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 212020
 

 

Perhaps because I often confuse “numinous” with “luminous“, I resorted to a dictionary to be sure about the meaning of the former before listening to the Jordablod album we’re premiering today. And in doing that I saw this explanation:

“Numinous is from the Latin word numen, meaning ‘divine will’ or ‘nod’ (it suggests a figurative nodding, of assent or of command, of the divine head). English speakers have been using numen for centuries with the meaning ‘a spiritual force or influence.’ We began using numinous in the mid-1600s, subsequently endowing it with several senses: ‘supernatural’ or ‘mysterious’ (as in “possessed of a numinous energy force”), ‘holy’ (as in ‘the numinous atmosphere of the catacombs’), and ‘appealing to the aesthetic sense’ (as in ‘the numinous nuances of her art’).”

I also found a quote by CS Lewis about the meaning of numinous that I also think is worth sharing — but not until after we’ve considered The Cabinet of Numinous Song, which you’ll be able to stream now, just a few days before its January 24 release by Iron Bonehead Productions. Continue reading »

SEMJAZA FOR NO CLEAN SINGING (PART 5)

 Listmania, LISTMANIA 2019  3 Responses »
Jan 212020
 


photo by Vamperess Imperium

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Beginning with 2014, Semjaza, the main creative force behind the Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade, shared with us his year-end lists of favorite metal and non-metal releases. We did not have a 2018 year-end list from him because at that time he had embarked on a much more extensive project that would not be limited to releases from that year, but would encompass recommended music across the significant span of his listening (a significant span both in years and in genres).

This extensive list was completed many months ago, and so although it includes 2019 releases, it doesn’t include all of them that might have been on it. The delays in beginning to post the list were our own, not Semjaza’s. And there have been further delays in continuing with the lists, again our fault. Now we reach the end of the project… so far… because Semjaza plans to write more.

Part 1 included an introduction to this entire series, lists of favored split releases and full-length releases, and a special focus on French black metal. You can find all of that here. Part 2 (here) was devoted to more recent releases that Semjaza listens to most nowadays, and Part 3 was a continuation of that list (here), which focused on releases by Invictus Productions. Part 4 (here) was a further continuation, focusing on releases by Iron Bonehead and World Terror Committee. And this Part 5 again focuses on favored releases from the last two years. Continue reading »

CHROME GHOST: “THE DIVING BELL”

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Jan 212020
 

 

(Andy Synn pauses in his consideration of forthcoming records to look back at an album released last November by Chrome Ghost from Sacramento, California.)

To quote a very famous tv show… “time’s arrow neither stays still or reverses, it merely marches forward.”

This particular truism has felt particularly relevant to me in recent years, as it really does feel as though if I don’t stay on top of all the various new releases, week by week, that I’m going to end up missing out and falling behind in a way that I’ll never be able to recover from.

In fact, this is exactly what happens every year. There comes a point when my “to do” list reaches critical mass and has to be jettisoned so that I can start afresh. It’s unfortunate and it means some artists/albums inevitably lose out, but that’s just the way it is.

There are occasional moments, however, where it seems like time’s arrow does at least slow down a bit, allowing me to take stock and, if I’m very lucky, to look back and catch up with things that went over my head (or under my radar).

And sometimes, if I’m really, really lucky, I’m able to discover something really special in the process. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 11): CATTLE DECAPITATION AND HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  1 Response »
Jan 202020
 

 

Welcome to Part 11 of our Most Infectious Song list. If you’re just joining us, you can see the preceding installments by following this link. The themes of today’s two selections are rage and violence. Given that, it might be an overstatement to call them “catchy”, but they’re both addictive as well as cathartic.

CATTLE DECAPITATION

Things seem to have calmed down since Andy Synn‘s review of Cattle Decap‘s latest album stirred up an on-line hornet’s nest among the band’s fanatically devoted followers, or at least among those who didn’t bother to read the full review (or maybe any of it). Some people apparently overlooked such sentiments as these: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZİFİR — “DEMONIAC ETHICS”

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Jan 202020
 

 

Rage and disgust fuel the music on Zifir‘s new album Demoniac Ethics, most of it directed at the calculated lies of religious institutions and the submissive delusions of their followers. Of course, within the realms of extreme metal such inspirations aren’t unique to this Turkish black metal trio. But how they have translated their intense convictions into sound is very much out of the ordinary, as you shall witness for yourselves.

Today we present a full stream of this new album, just days before its release by Duplicate Records, preceded by further impressions of the remarkable music. Continue reading »

CAVED: “THE PETRIFYING VACUUM”

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Jan 202020
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the second full-length by the New Zealand project Caved, released on January 3rd.)

2020 is already off to an interesting start.  Anyone who has followed me since I started writing for NCS back in 2011 will probably hear this album after reading the review and be instantly like, “yeah this is TheMadIsraeli’s taste in metal”.

Caved is a New Zealand one man progressive technical death metal/thrash outfit that is VERY directly comparable to Martyr.  The vocal approach is even very similar, so if you’ve missed that frantic hyper-technical manic style of death metal with thrash vocals and attitude that Martyr brought to the table, Caved is the first time when I can say you can finally stop listening to “Feeding The Abscess” and hear something new in that vein.  The Petrifying Vacuum is the sophomore album of Caved and my first exposure to the project. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ROTTENDAWN

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 202020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us this interview with Make Mäkinen, one of the guitarists and songwriters of the Finnish band Rottendawn. whose debut album is out now on the Saturnal Records label.)

Even though Rottendawn was lit in 2010, their first album Occult saw the light of day in September 2019 on Helsinki-based Saturnal Records. This death-doom band’s lineup is highly remarkable, but I have an impression that they don’t care about promotion too much. So you should know what Rottendawn is a brainchild of Pasi Äijö from Unholy (bass, vocals), Mikael “Arkki” Arnkil of Impaled Nazarene (drums), Sinisthra’s Make Mäkinen (guitars), and Joni Halmetoja (guitars) from… from… I don’t know where he came from. Why not find it out? I

welcome all fans of things heavy, distorted, and slow to join us in this compact and informative interview with Make Mäkinen. Continue reading »

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