AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK BEAST — “NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 042019
 

 

On November 8th Primitive Reaction will release Nocturnal Bloodlust, the debut album of Finland’s Black Beast — which arrives a long 13 years after their last release (a split with Bloodhammer), so long ago that many of you may not be aware of their existence (I was not). But this debut full-length blazes like a meteor in the night sky, and should quickly elevate them from cult obscurity to a more exalted place in the Finnish black metal star-field.

Nocturnal Bloodlust presents a transfixing blend of bestiality, lust, and anthemic grandeur, with great song-craft to go along with the band’s unwavering devotion to rampant flame-spewing demonism. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ARKONA, PUTRASCENSION, KAWIR, REVENANT MARQUIS

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Nov 042019
 

 

This column is a day late, shorter than I’d planned, and written more hurriedly than I would like. Yesterday was full of personal obstacles to working on this, and I’ve got to leave home at an early hour this morning for a one-hour drive to the county courthouse because I’ve been summoned for jury duty. Three cheers for democracy!

It’s unlikely I’ll be put on the jury, but I have a feeling I’ll be stuck in the courthouse all day, which will play havoc with getting anything else done for NCS today other than this post and a premiere/review that I managed to finish last night.

ARKONA

If you’re not a fan of the Polish band Arkona it must be because you’ve never heard their music (even though they’ve been around since ’93) or you just don’t like black metal. I can’t think of a third reason. Their new album (the seventh of their career), Age of Capricorn, is one of my most anticipated releases of this fall/winter. It’s coming out December 13th via Debemur Morti Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: RATTENFÄNGER, SEVENTH CIRCLE, T.O.M.B., LAPSARIAN, BULL ELEPHANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 022019
 

 

Hope the weekend is treating you right so far, and will continue to do so. As quasi-promised yesterday (when it comes to NCS, most of my promises are quasi) I managed to find time to hurl a few more newly forged chunks of metallic extremity at your head, and made an effort to have them come in differing shapes, even though they’re all heavy and jagged.

RATTENFÄNGER

In September I included the first advance track from Rattenfänger’s new album (Geisslerlieder) in another one of these round-ups (here), and now there’s another one out in the world. Continue reading »

SCHAMMASCH: “HEARTS OF NO LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Swiss band Schammasch, which will be released by Prosthetic Records on November 8th.)

I’m sure it hasn’t escaped the attention of our readers that there’s been a lot of discussion recently about what constitutes “art” – what art is, what it “should” be, who should be allowed to call themselves an “artist” – when it comes to cinema.

And, obviously, this is an issue which extends to the music world too.

I know many people are particularly concerned with what role the intended audience should play in the creation of any piece of art.

Should an artist remain totally disconnected from the wider world, focussing on their own thoughts and feelings, to the exclusion of all else, with no thought to who their viewers/listeners will be?

Or should they consider how people will engage with and interpret their work, and aim to play with the perceptions and expectations of their audience as a way of provoking a certain reaction?

One of these approaches treats art as a form of “pure” expression, the other as a form of “deep” communication, and though both have their defenders and detractors, the truth is that they have both led to the production of some great works of art over the ages.

Which brings us, finally, to Hearts of No Light. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WOLFBRIGADE, KING, PNEUMA HAGION, WOUNDVAC, IDLE HANDS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

Well, I had every intention of compiling a round-up of new metal to post on Halloween, with music suitable to the occasion. Unfortunately, life got in the way and left that plan in tatters. Now that I’m a day later, I’ve made a few adjustments in the original plan, although there are a couple of holdovers from what I originally conceived, including the opening song below. As now formulated, this round-up is quite a stylistic smorgasbord.

Be sure to come back to NCS tomorrow and Sunday, because this post doesn’t come close to exhausting all the new music from the last week or two that I’m eager to recommend. Unless life gets in the way again (always a strong possibility) I’ll have another round-up on Saturday and then the usual blackening of Sunday.

WOLFBRIGADE

I still have amazing memories of Wolfbrigade’s explosive show at Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle earlier this year, and of getting to spend time with the members off-stage. It was therefore doubly exciting to see September’s announcement that Southern Lord would be releasing the tenth album by these Swedish Lycanthro Punks — The Enemy: Reality — on November 8th. There’s only going to be one “single” from the album in advance of the release, and it was presented yesterday through a music video directed by MeANkind and edited by Henrik Norsell. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LARVAE — “IMMORTAL CORPSES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

In the spring of this year the Bay Area band Larvae, with a revised line-up, returned after a five-year interlude following the release of their debut album (Grave Descent) with a new EP named Necroptuary. The EP consisted of three tracks that were thematically interlinked, seeming to function as a commentary on the sacrifice and scars, the pain and bodily corruption, that characterize human existence, and of the crossing over from chaos to another plane of existence that comes with death.

Today we’re presenting an evocative lyric video for the new EP’s closing track, “Immortal Corpses“. To introduce it, and to aid in understanding it, we’ll begin with a statement by the band’s founder, vocalist/guitarist Brad Kobylczak (who is joined in Larvae by lead guitarist Dara Santhai, bassist Wyatt Culbertson, and drummer Eric Evert, all of whom shine as integral parts of the music on this EP): Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRATER — “ZWISCHEN DEN WORTEN”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

In mid-September we took the rare step (for us) of sharing the announcement of a new album by the German black metal band Krater even though we didn’t yet have any song streams to present, because their past releases have been so damned good. The opportunity to put Misanthropic-Art‘s creepy creation for the album’s cover at the top of our page was an added inducement. But now we have not one but two songs from the album available to your ears, one of which we’re premiering today.

The new full-length is named Venenare, and it will be released on November 15th by Eisenwald. A 50-minute work, it’s divided into nine tracks. In the flow of the album, the song that’s being revealed today, “Zwischen den Worten” (Between the Words), arrives third in the running order, and it’s immediately followed by “Stellar Sparks“, the other song from the album that’s now streaming (it premiered three weeks ago at DECIBEL). Listening to both of them back-to-back is highly recommended. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: POMBAJIRA — “VITAL LUCIFER”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 312019
 

 

I’ve never actually witnessed a Brazilian black magic ceremony or the sacrifices and possessions that are said to happen in them, though I’ve read that such things do occur in the rites of the Macumba cults. But listening to the music of Pombajira is a voodoo experience in its own right. The name chosen by this devilish trio is itself a sign of their Afro-Brazilian cultural roots, and the music, which creates its own kind of trance, awakens primeval impulses in the most primitive parts of the brain.

Pombajira’s self-titled debut record is a six-song amalgam of influences that range from Black Sabbath and Hellhammer to Venom and Pentagram, with the atmosphere of Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium. It will be released on November 29th by Helldprod Records, and today we’ve got the premiere of a song named “Vital Lucifer” that is indeed electrifyingly vital and definitely demonic. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEDNJA — “LEDENA PALACA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

 

This is kind of an odd premiere. In fact it’s probably a misnomer to call it a premiere at all. But the album on which the song appears is so fantastic that I’ve softened my usual rigid adherence to the literal meaning of the word in an effort to help further expose it to new listeners.

The album, Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas, was first briefly released for public streaming — but not for sale or download — by the Croatian band Bednja early last year. At their request we enthusiastically premiered that full stream of it along with an extensive review, from which I’m including a few excerpts below. Bednja’s plan then was to find one or more labels willing to release the album in a physical edition — and they succeeded. None other than Transcending Obscurity Records (whose label boss knows a good thing when he hears it) signed Bednja and will be releasing Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas on November 29th in a variety of formats.

And now, before we get to some specific comments about the song we’re presenting, “Ledena Palaca“, allow me to repeat a few things I wrote in last year’s review (which you can find here): Continue reading »

CLOAK: “THE BURNING DAWN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Atlanta’s Cloak, which was released by Season of Mist on October 25th and includes cover art by Adam Burke.)

Cloak’s 2017 album To Venomous Depths showed a great deal of potential. I wanted to hear more of who they were than who they aspired to be. The album was dark and melodic enough for me to invest the time in their sophomore album.

This new album finds the band giving me what I originally wanted from their debut. They are still more committed to sounding Swedish than devoting themselves to black metal, and I am fine with this. After all, there are 100 blast-beaters sitting in my emails every morning. I want something fresh, not warmed up, even if it’s warmed in the fires of hell. Continue reading »

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