LISTMANIA 2019: BANDCAMP DAILY’S “THE BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2019”

 LISTMANIA 2019  7 Responses »
Dec 172019
 

 

Our year-end LISTMANIA series usually consists of a mix of lists compiled by cross-genre sites and zines much larger than our own, and year-end favorites assembled by our own staff and guests. This next list, however, doesn’t really fall into either category, but I thought it was worth including last year, and I’m doing it again this year.

Bandcamp, of course, has become a vital platform for the digital release of music of all stripes (and physical merchandise as well) since its founding in 2007. Bandcamp used to release an annual compilation of performance statistics, but I haven’t found a similar report since the one they released for 2017. However, the main Bandcamp page today reports that “[f]ans have paid artists $441 million using Bandcamp, and $9.2 million in the last 30 days alone.”

In the summer of 2016, the company launched Bandcamp Daily, “an online music publication which expanded its editorial content and offers articles about artists on the platform” (to quote The Font of All Human Knowledge). Bandcamp Daily regularly publishes articles of relevance to metalheads, though metal is of course only one of hundreds of music genres represented on Bandcamp. Yesterday Bandcamp Daily published its list of “The Best Metal Albums of 2019“. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NEFARIOUS SPIRIT AND VOID PRAYER

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 162019
 

 

Sometimes split releases consist of songs re-purposed from other releases, or by bands whose music doesn’t seem to complement each other very well, even if they’re good enough standing alone. But neither of those deficiencies is in evidence on the new black metal split by Nefarious Spirit and Void Prayer that we’re premiering today in its entirety. All six songs on this split (three from each band) are exclusive to this record, and although one band is a newcomer and the other a more well-established force, their music fits together hand-in-glove, sharing a similar sorcerous spirit and a common fiery intensity. The result is an album-length union that makes a striking and memorable impact.

The split will be released by Goatowarex on the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (December 21st), a momentous occasion going back to ancient times, and a fitting occasion for the advent of this album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOCTURNAL CONVOCATION — “CAPITULUM IV”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 162019
 

 

Following on the heels of a debut EP (Ritual I) released this past May, the Italian musical monstrosity that is Nocturnal Convocation is crawling forth from whatever lightless catacombs it calls home to deliver a debut album on the winter solstice. Entitled Mors Omnia Solvit (which could be interpreted as “death puts an end to all things”), the album will be released by the Irish label Cursed Monk Records.

It has become commonplace to claim that certain extreme metal bands “show no mercy” in channeling their inspirations into sound, but in the case of this band, truer words could not be spoken.”Mercy” simply must not be included in their vocabulary. Their brand of necrotizing doom is so pulverizing, so diseased, so relentlessly dedicated to creating an atmosphere of soul-consuming oppression and nightmarish horror, that it offers no reprieve. It makes perfect sense that the album will be released at the point on the calendar when night will be at its longest. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SUN OF THE DYING

 Interviews  No Responses »
Dec 162019
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has had a very busy fall, and as a consequence we have many of his interviews lined up to appear between now and the end of 2019, including this discussion with members of the Spanish doom/death band Sun of the Dying.)\

Here we have Madrid-based Sun Of The Dying, a band that has developed shortly from a quite depressive yet melodic doom death metal of their debut album The Roar Of The Furious Sea (2017) to the richer melancholic and atmospheric themes of their brand new album. The Earth Is Silent saw the light of day on the 29th of November through Art Of Propaganda, and the band sounds really updated, and that’s not only because of a new vocalist on board.

It’s something rare, but almost the whole band took part in this interview. Let me introduce you to – Daniel Fernández Casuso (guitars), Eduardo Guilló (vocals), David Muñoz (keyboards), Jose Yuste (bass), and  Roberto Rayo (guitars). I don’t know why Sun Of The Dying’s drummer  didn’t take part into this — I hope he’s fine there. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: A YEAR-END LIST BY DGR (PART 1)

 LISTMANIA 2019  2 Responses »
Dec 162019
 

 

(Today we begin a week-long rollout of a 2019 Top 50 list by NCS scribe DGR, counting down in groups of 10 each day this week — or at least that’s the plan.)

These year-end archives — I’ve ceased any pretense of them being a list other than by the most basic description until the final ’10’ — are always a blast to write. They provide me an opportunity to be my most verbose while also touching base with everyhting that I enjoyed this year, including the many others I wound up bubbling out in my quest to finally have a ‘neat’ top 50 without a bunch of qualifiers.

This year was especially difficult on a personal front — which I’ve made small mention of, but there’s no need to have me dump that upon you in detail — and it resulted in a about a three-month period this year during which I wound up having to check out of heavy metal entirely. Turns out a musical genre that prides itself on being a sort of explosive catharsis isn’t exactly what one might need when going through massive life changes. So, part of 2019 has been me playing a very fucked-up and bizarre form of catch-up while also keeping in mind that I was going to do one of these before the year wrapped up and desperately wanted to dance around any sort of recency bias. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: CARCASS, GODTHRYMM, THE HU, PSYCHOTIC WALTZ, BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE, KËKHT ARÄKH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Dec 142019
 

 

Friday nights are usually perilous for yours truly, and tend to portend ugly Saturday mornings. Last night, however, I was a good lad. After only a moderate amount of drinking to celebrate the end of the work week I made it home at a reasonable hour, only to discover that my spouse had already conked out. With her solidly in the Land of Nod after what had been an exhausting week for herself, I spent a couple of hours listening to new music before conking out myself.

From that experience I picked the following new stuff — a smattering of bigger and lesser-known names, and kind of a weird scattering of sounds and styles that nevertheless made sense to me as a playlist. Whether it will make sense to you is of course a different question.

CARCASS

What do you think of the new Carcass single? Surely you’ve already heard it. As the first new song in six years from one of metal’s most revered names, it escaped the attention of only those who live under rocks. If you’re only now peering from beneath your own rocks, I’d suggest you give it a whirl. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “BALANCE”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Dec 132019
 

 

When we first encountered Of Wolves in 2013, through their album Evolve, we wrote: “These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, ‘Life has been rough, the music is therapy.’ Apparently, the therapy consists of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity.”

And now here we are, many years later. The world around us hasn’t gotten any better, only more fractured, delusional, hate-filled, and desperate. Needless to say, Of Wolves haven’t become any more sanguine about the direction of politics, culture, or life in general. They’ve had their own ups and downs as well. They started teasing a new album entitled Balance more than two years ago, projected for release by Cimmerian Shade, but the label owner’s illness ultimately doomed those plans. And so the band are looking again for a label, though they’re not going to allow that search to delay the album release for much longer (more on that later), and in the meantime are working on new music with plans to record it in the first quarter of 2020.

In January of this year the band released a three-part track from Balance (available here), after having rolled out each of those three parts individually, and now we’re presenting the title song, accompanied by footage of the band’s performance filmed by Mok Films at the Doomed & Stoned Festival. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLIGHTED — “REQUIEM BEREFT”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 132019
 

 

Many years ago, in 2012 to be precise, we discovered a hellacious Tennessee death/grind outfit named Manic Scum, and showered praise not only on the EP released that year (Better Left Undead) but also a subsequent EP (Carbonized) that was released in 2017. We haven’t seen any new Manic Scum depredations since that last EP, but we have learned that members of the band have joined forces with other friends in a new group named Blighted, whose interests focus on old-school melodic death metal (with some blackening in the mix) that’s influenced by bands like Dissection, At The Gates, Dismember, Emperor, and Necrophobic.

Blighted’s debut EP will be released on January 4, 2020, and today we’re premiering the second track from it revealed so far, a sonic tapestry or turmoil and torment named “Requiem Bereft“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MORBID STENCH

 Interviews  No Responses »
Dec 132019
 

 

(You may have noticed that during much of 2019 Comrade Aleks has turned his interests in doom in, shall we say, nastier and more deathly directions, and continues that pattern with this interview of The Master Butcher, vocalist of the Central American band Morbid Stench, whose potent debut album was released just a few months ago by Putrid Cult.)

Morbid Stench… Do you feel that taste on the tip of your tongue? A stench of death, doom, and Central American swamps? It’s an international project, as the Morbid Stench members live in both El Salvador and Costa Rica, and are members of such death bands as Conceived By Hate and Insepulto, which names are probably better-known to the NCS audience.

This band is relatively new – it was founded in 2014 and the full-length Doom & Putrefaction, released on September 30th by Putrid Cult, appears to be their first big work. Why not learn more about its rough, straight, and really morbid aesthetic with their vocalist The Master Butcher? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LESATH — “SACRED ASHES”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 122019
 

 

On January 6, 2020, the label alliance of Casus Belli Musica and Beverina will release the debut album of a mysterious atmospheric black metal band named Lesath, whose location and membership remain undisclosed. The album’s name is Sacred Ashes. It consists of six tracks, but really four songs, because two of those four are divided into two parts in the track list.

In September of this year, Lesath (and subsequently the two labels) released one of those two-part songs, “Like the Wind“, which we reviewed here. In November we presented the second half of the other two-part song, “A New Life“, which like the first single was presented with its own artwork. And today we add to these musical revelations with the premiere of the album’s title track, “Sacred Ashes“. Continue reading »

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