OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): GHERZEN AND UROBOROS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  1 Response »
Jan 052020
 

 

Well, my fine feathered fiends, here we go again: For the 11th straight year we present our list of the preceding year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Sunday might seem an odd time to begin the list, but I did say I was going to start the list this week, and the week is ending today, so here we are. There’s something else that’s odd about this Part 1, but I’ll get to that eventually.

I’m going to dispense with repeating the operative definition of what I think makes a song “infectious”; if you’re encountering this series for the first time, go here to see that. But I will remind you what I do to compile the list, and why I currently have no idea how long it will be or precisely when the rollout will end.

The universe of songs I’ve considered includes a list of candidates that I began at the start of 2019 and continued expanding as the year progressed. It also includes every suggestion made by our readers in response to my invitation, in the comments to this post. It may also includes recommendations from my colleague DGR; he’s the only staff writer who makes suggestions each year, but he hasn’t done that yet (though I believe he eventually will). When you add up my own ideas and those of readers, the universe of candidates includes 452 songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VAEOK — “VAEOK”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 032020
 

 

“W.T.C. Productions is proud to present Vaeok‘s striking self-titled debut EP. A duo whose members currently hail from such highly regarded hordes as Sargeist, Kult ov Azazel, Nightbringer, Adaestuo, and Demoncy among others, Vaeok nevertheless emits its own nightsky majesty and mysticism.”

That was an announcement we and others in the metal press received last year, alerting us to the January 7 release of this debut EP. The mention of those other names with which the Vaeok duo of M.S. and VJS have been associated was enough to generate intense intrigue in these quarters about what they had achieved through this new collaboration (which we’re told actually had its genesis in the distant past). We eventually had our answer, and now you will have it too, through our complete stream of the EP’s four ravishing tracks. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KVAEN

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 032020
 

 

(Our Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum brings us the following Q&A she had with Jakob Björnfot, the man behind the Swedish black metal band Kvaen, whose debut album is set for release on February 28th by Black Lion Records.)

The Funeral Pyre, the debut album from Swedish melodic pagan black metal unit Kvaen, is slated to drop on February 28, 2020, through Black Lion Records. No Clean Singing hosted (here) the premiere stream of the album’s title track. Clocking in at nearly 7 minutes of relentless exhilaration, the track features a guest guitar solo by Sebastian Ramstedt (Necrophobic, Nominon) and drums by Freddy Ortscheid (Black Lily, Omnicide).

Adds Jakob Björnfot, the sole mastermind behind Kvaen: “’The Funeral Pyre’ was one of the first songs that I composed for this album. I lived in a big house on a huge mountain in the VERY north of Sweden. I had nature around me everyday. It was very inspiring, to say the least. One day, I was messing around on my computer, trying out ideas. I remember that I had the fireplace burning and it was snowing outside. I wanted to write a song where I could feel the connection of spirits in Tornevalley and I have to say: I succeeded. The atmosphere, Sebastian’s solo, and the lyrics became something truly unique.”

I put more questions to Jakob: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY KARINA NOCTUM

 LISTMANIA 2019  3 Responses »
Jan 032020
 

 

(Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum for the first time shares with us her year-end list of metal — 21 albums and EPs in all.)

I have contributed to this page for many years and yet this is the first time I’ve taken the time to make a year-end list.This year has been a really busy one for me when it comes to concerts. I have been lucky enough to have seen most of the bands in this list many times and hear them promoting their new albums, so my memory is filled with that and perhaps it was that what motivated me to do this.

Here I present a list of some excellent bands mainly within Black, Brutal, and Tech Death Metal which is what I listen to the most: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2019  8 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind Montréal’s Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and very eclectic musical tastes, and a way with words, and so for a fourth year in a row we asked him to share a year-end list with us. As in every other year, his list pulls us off our usual beaten paths by highlighting some favorite releases that are way outside the usual metal lists… including a lot of very interesting Not-Metal.)

 

So this year I bring to you a proper top 20 albums list. No ‘Albums you might have missed’ bullshit, just straight up my 20 favorites. Why? Well, I’ve dubbed 2019 ‘The Year Of Good Not Great ©’ as it brought us a lot of more-of-the-same and I-preferred-their-previous-one outings that left me feeling like a jaded musical hipster complaining about every release as he clangs away at his typewriter in a Starbucks, mansplaining to every underage girl he can corner in a house party he doesn’t know anyone at about how he was into every band before they ‘sold out’ and owns an original first pressing copy of their demo on vinyl. Continue reading »

AN NCS TRACK PREMIERE: BÜTCHER — “666 GOATS CARRY MY CHARIOT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

Even before you hear a single note, much of what has been publicly disclosed about Bütcher’s new album displays bone-deep devotion to the ancient deities of evil heavy metal — from Kris Verwimp‘s epic cover art to the album’s name (666 Goats Carry My Chariot), the band’s use of vintage analog gear in the recording of the music, and their stage appearance. But in the music itself, that devotion runs even deeper than you might guess, and crosses a rich soundscape of metal traditions that span decades, far more multifaceted than you might suspect if you’ve only heard of the reputation of these Belgians as a hell-for-leather speed metal band.

As the new album reveals even more vividly (and masterfully) than Bütcher’s previous releases, their music is an ingeniously conceived, carefully crafted, and brazenly executed hybrid. Classic speed metal from Germany and the U.S. shapes the backbone, but the music flourishes through the incorporation of epic heavy metal from the NWOBHM school, blazing black/thrash with roots in both South America and Australia, first-wave black metal, and certain sects of Scandinavian extremity from the ’90s. The results are continuously thrilling — and surprising.

In advance of the new album’s release by Osmose Productions on January 31st, today we’re premiering its title track, which provides an electrifying demonstration of what we’ve just attempted to describe. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

(Here’s Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Steffen Brandes, drummer/vocalist of the German death-doom band Cryptic Brood, whose latest album, Outcome of Obnoxious Science, was released in late November by War Anthem Records.)

Deep-rooted in a bloody and filthy death metal aesthetic, Cryptic Brood of Wolfsburg steadily walk their path remaining true to rules set by their predecessors in the ’90s. It’s one of those death doom bands which keeps the underground spirit of rot filled with disgusting images.

The Graveyard Brood, Wormhead, Brain Eater, Inevitable Death, and Infectious Decay — when you see the titles of Cryptic Brood’s releases you know what will come next. And yes, these Saxons kept their brand with two new releases in 2019, as the full-length Outcome Of Obnoxious Science and the split cassette with their more straight Italian colleagues Ekpyrosis titled In The Grip Of Death won’t disappoint fans of Asphyx or more modern bands like Anatomy, Hooded Menace, and Coffins.

Steffen Brandes (drums, vocals) tells us a few cryptic things in this fresh interview. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

 LISTMANIA 2019  11 Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

To the Teeth is the name of a Facebook-based metal blog that began life in May of 2016. The proprietor, Dutch writer Peter van der Ploeg, regularly posts about new extreme metal songs and full releases, and as the year goes along he adds selected music to a growing Spotify playlist. He also has a Reddit thread in which he often goes into greater depth about what appears more briefly at To the Teeth on FB.

Peter has posted his own personal 2019 Top 50 list, which you can see HERE, but he again compiled a “List of Lists”, as he has done in past years. To do that he began by assembling a population of 117 year-end lists from 32 international critics, magazines, blogs, and other publications Those included a lot of “big platform” mainstream publications as well as lists from metal-only outlets such as our own; those 117 also included separate staff lists from some sites (such as our own). This year, these were the lists he included in the aggregation process: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON NEW YEAR’S DAY: GRIMAH, DARKRIFT, PESTIFER, ZMEY GORYNICH, DEATHVOID, STRÅLE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 012020
 

 

HNY!

 

I didn’t make it to the point when the clock ticked over into 2020 last night, not even close.  On the other hand, despite going to bed well before midnight I slept like a dead man for 10 hours, which is an extreme rarity. After all that time in the Land of Nod, I also felt extremely fuzzy-headed this morning, though a bout of drinking last night might have had something to do with that, even though it seemed pretty moderate to me at the time.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I got a very late and slow start today… and then had to focus on finishing up some work on today’s first post. All of that explains why this round-up arrives much later than I had planned. Fortunately, I picked all the music yesterday, or the post would be arriving even later. As usual, it’s a fairly random and stylistically quite divergent selection, united only by the fact that I like the hell out of everything here. (All of it is also very new.)

GRIMAH

The first song I’ve picked, “Thus Spake the Stone“, is off a debut album named Intricacies of Bowed Wisdom by the Spanish black metal band Grimah. The album is set for release on January 3rd, on CD via VERTEBRAE and digitally. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WRECHE — “VESSEL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 012020
 

 

Vessel, the film you are about to see, is a journey through a surrealistic dreamscape, a shifting montage of odd characters transforming themselves and moving through light and shade, in isolation and shoulder to shoulder with more “average” citizens who seem to take no notice of the quirky beings in their midst. It is a strange and unsettling vision, and a transfixing one (make sure you have 19 minutes to spare, because once you begin you’re not going anywhere else).

Welcome to Los Angeles. Continue reading »

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