LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY DGR (PART 5)

 LISTMANIA 2019  4 Responses »
Dec 202019
 

 

(We have reached the end of DGR’s week-long roll-out of his Top 50 year-end list, with this segment devoted to the Top 10. All the preceding installments can be found behind this link.)

The final ten of this year’s year-end list is special to me. That coud be easily stated for every year, but 2019 is one of those years that just went absolutely crazy — in fits and starts of course, there’s a lot of April and September representation here — and it brought on a massive torrent of metal that not only pushed out the boundaries of the genre but also twisted, mutated, and contorted it into all-new forms. You also had fantastic releases from groups who are already working within well-established blueprints and finding ways to keep things interesting.

While I could go on an endless screed about 2019 as a whole, keep in mind that although I have fifty releases on the list that I particularly enjoyed — an admittedly ridiculous number —  I listened to and generally got a kick out of so many more. A lot of those are popping up at NCS, on other writers’ lists and on users’ lists, and even on the occasional big website list when they’re not seeing just how much prose they can dedicate to Blood Incantation or showing off that they’re hip with the kids by nominating every teenager’s favorite new and hip band Tool (and I love Tool). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNHOLD — “BARREN”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 192019
 

 

Although I have many things to be proud of about what we’ve accomplished at NCS in helping spread the word about worthy music, I have many regrets too, one of which is our failure to pay more attention to the immensely accomplished Swiss band Unhold. That failure is all the more shameful because Unhold are now five albums deep into their career. The most recent of those, Here Is the Blood, was released in November 2018 by Czar of Bullets, and represents the pinnacle of their significant achievements so far.

Briefly summarizing the music on that album (or really, on any of its predecessors) is a daunting challenge, as is any effort to provide a pithy genre description. References to post-metal, sludge, doom, and hardcore might be useful, but don’t really give you much guidance about how fascinatingly Unhold have combined those stylistic ingredients (and others) in ways that dynamically create such a wide range of emotionally powerful and often transportive experiences, ranging from mesmerizingly beautiful to crushingly bleak and compulsively body-shaking — and much else besides.

But while we’ve regrettably neglected Here Is the Blood since its release, we do have a chance to make partial amends today by premiering a new single entitled “Barren” which was recorded in the same sessions that produced that album. This new single is not only well worth having in its own right but also should serve as an inducement for people who haven’t heard that album to check it out immediately. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2019: CHERNAA / HYPNO5E / UNDER THE PLEDGE OF SECRECY

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 192019
 


Chernaa

 

(In this post Andy Synn combines reviews of three 2019 albums that we haven’t previously paid attention to with the thoroughness that they deserve.)

No big intro or preamble this time. Just three very cool albums delivering only the best in heart-stopping Post-Black Metal, cinematic Prog Metal, and rampaging Death Metal.

Prep your ears accordingly. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE BASTARD WITHIN — “BETTER DEAD THAN FRIENDS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 192019
 

 

Let’s cut to the chase: For a debut album, it’s astonishing just how good Better Dead Than Friends is. It would also be astonishing even if it were an album released by any top-shelf grindcore band far deeper into their career than the place where The Bastard Within find themselves, close to the beginning of their own. This isn’t completely shocking, given that the members of this group have made names for themselves in other bands already, but still… what they’ve accomplished on this first full-length is a big eye-opener.

Those members, spread around Italy and Switzerland, are vocalist CN Sid, guitarist Gianluca Sulpizio, and bassist Davide Stura, as well as American drummer extraordinaire Kevin Talley. And while all credit goes to them for Better Dead Than Friends, they’ve also augmented their formidable attack with an array of noteworthy guests on various tracks — Jason Netherton (Misery Index, Asphalt Graves), Trevor (Sadist), Juri Bianchi (Addiction, Any Face, Hayma), Mãra Lisenko (Mãra), and Stefania Minervino (Too Late, Cave, Spoiled). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY DGR (PART 4)

 LISTMANIA 2019  No Responses »
Dec 192019
 

 

(We continue a week-long rollout of a 2019 Top 50 list by NCS scribe DGR, counting down in groups of 10 each day. In this fourth installment we’ve got Nos. 20 through 11.)

When you reach the final twenty or so of your year-end list – as ridiculous as it may have gotten *cough* – you start to develop some sort of a mission statement. I can’t really say that I’ve accomplished that this time around, I’ve just continued to notice really small trends within each grouping. Last time I noticed that I wound up bookending the list with black metal and this time I found that the groups at top and bottom were deathgrind bands. In between there was a smattering of all sorts of different genres, including two albums that I can’t quite pin down to any one specific style, other than what could politely be described as “complete madness”.

2019 was an adventure musically, and I think part of that is reflected in some of the longer running times of the albums present on here as well. I discovered I was really open to the idea of exploring a whole bunch of massive soundscapes – which again is hilarious, given that the records at positions 20 and 11 are the punchiest of the no-bullshit style deathgrind bands out there. We’ve also got some of the earliest and some of the latest 2019 releases packed in here, as well as September continuing its hot streak for having been a fantastic month for music.

We’re only one day away now from the super-shiny, absolutely-unfuckwithable, proof that DGR has his finger on the pulse of the world of heavy metal, final ten of the year. So let’s enjoy this latest smattering of bands and see how many of you can still walk after being put through the wringer by this group. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLOSSO — “PESTILENCE”

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Dec 182019
 

 

Visions of the Apocalypse have become one of the thematic staples of Death Metal, and for understandable reasons. For a genre of music that itself bears the name Death, and whose musical ingredients are capable (in the right hands) of creating sensations of destruction on a massive scale, the linkage is a natural one. But not all death metal bands drawn to the imagery of Revelation have explored the themes as thoroughly as Colosso has done on this Portuguese band’s newest release, or have so powerfully translated those horrifying visions into sound.

Entitled Apocalypse, Colosso’s new record consists of four tracks, each named for one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who in the prophecy of Revelation were set loose to ruin the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment. Today we’re premiering the opening track “Pestilence” in advance of the record’s release by Transcending Obscurity Records on February 14, 2020. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HANGING GARDEN

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Dec 182019
 


photo by by Kalle Pyyhtinen

 

(Today Comrade Aleks presents the following interview with Toni Toivonen, vocalist of the Finnish band Hanging Garden, whose name will be well-known to long-term visitors at our site, and whose latest album Into That Good Night was released by Lifeforce Records on November 15th.)

Started fifteen years ago as a melodic death doom band, Hanging Garden from Finland follow their way of metamorphosis from album to album, while keeping a few things inviolable. They have a dominating melancholic mood, through the general melody of their material and their artistic approach to performing their material, and emotional variety based on heavy and cleaner instrumental parts as well as extreme and clean vocals.

Their sixth album Into That Good Night saw the light of day on November 15th through Lifeforce Records, and we can tag it as “melancholic metal” as this term doesn’t imply any strict obligation. But why not try to root out Hanging Garden’s essence with one of its members — here’s the interview with Toni Toivonen (vocals). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY DGR (PART 3)

 LISTMANIA 2019  5 Responses »
Dec 182019
 

 

(We continue a week-long rollout of a 2019 Top 50 list by NCS scribe DGR, counting down in groups of 10 each day. In this third installment we’ve got Nos. 30 through 21.)

Absent for a little while in this collective, what passes for black metal in my realm makes a return in part three of this year-end adventure. I think that I actually bookended this collection with that very thing this time around, because now is when rankings actually start to crystalize a little bit.

It still applies here, but usually when I do these it isn’t until I hit the final fifteen or so that you actually have a meaningful empirical ranking of shit that I’ve enjoyed this year. Everything else tends to be in flux, with some movements more drastic than others. Like the creation of a planetary system, all of these albums acrete around a solid gravitational pull, but the materials knock into each other all the time and either force each other into new orbits or they merge into new beings. Thus, when you reach thirty or so is when you really start coming across the albums that got a shit-ton of play from me this year.

Some were very late-in-the-year entries and others were so constant that they were the subject of the ‘oh shit did that actually come out this year or has it always been with me‘ existential panic that happens every year with this list. At the very least I haven’t revealed any of the 2020 promos we’ve gotten yet, so I’m going to take my small victories where I can get them.

There’s some fun ones in this collection next to the moodier black metal kids, and I think this one also has the start of a small subset of bands that I think contributed to the feeling that heavy metal lost its goddamned mind in 2019. Or it’s always been in the midst of a manic episode and this is the first year when I really noticed. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FLUISTERAARS, MEMBARIS, UNREQVITED, APOCRYFAL, WITHERER

 SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Dec 172019
 

 

Way back on Saturday morning, at the end of a roundup of new music, I mentioned the risk that there would be no SHADES OF BLACK column the next day, due to the likelihood that I would get hammered at a holiday party Saturday night, rendering my Sunday mind a wasteland. I know myself all too well. But now that my head is clearer (always a relative condition) I picked up what I had hoped to do on Sunday, added a couple of songs I’ve discovered since then, and have assembled this collection, which I hope you will enjoy.

FLUISTERAARS

We have enthusiastically covered everything released by this Dutch black metal band from Gelderland, beginning with their 2014 debut album Dromers. We won’t stop now. Their newest release will be a third album entitled Bloem, set for release on February 28th by Eisenwald.

I can imagine the looks of skepticism on some of your grymm visages after having seen those pretty flowers on the album cover, unmarred by words, but don’t turn up your noses until you’ve listened to the first track released from the album (and I’m betting you won’t do that afterward either). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY DGR (PART 2)

 LISTMANIA 2019  No Responses »
Dec 172019
 

 

(We continue a week-long rollout of a 2019 Top 50 list by NCS scribe DGR, counting down in groups of 10 each day, and in this installment we’ve got Nos. 40 through 31.)

By day two it is fun seeing what patterns start to form in these lists. Barring the predictable decay of my writing ability over the course of fifty albums — because seriously, who actually does these at a reasonable pace and doesn’t just procrastinate and do it all at once? — this edition of my year-end archive starts to see the appearances of the hyperblasting death metal crews from Italy, a whole block of tech-death, and even some bands whom I’m normally used to posting much higher by year’s end.

2019 was a wild year for metal. It seemed to move in fits and starts, but each transmission in the heavy metal release schedule seemed to be a massive one. For instance: I started to notice that I have a surprising amount of albums that hit in September on here (this collection includes a small handful of them). Earlier on, there were huge blocks of releases in the last few weeks of January and the opening of February.

On top of all that, I found that this specific subset is also very Europe-oriented. That’s pretty predictable, given Metal’s long-lasting appeal over on that continent, but usually I find they’re spread out more across my list. Maybe it’s because I have two of the death metal blasting crews here? Either way, the rest of these aren’t going to write themselves, and I’m still looking forward to shouting at you about underrated deathgrind discs at some point — as is my custom — so let’s continue this death march through this 2019 collection together. Continue reading »

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