AN NCS PREMIERE: PLAGUEWIELDER — “SUFFERING FROM SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS”

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Jun 252019
 

 

It’s unlikely that you’re unfamiliar with Plaguewielder if you’ve been a frequent visitor at our putrid site, because we’ve paid a lot of attention to them over the course of a career that now includes two albums, including 2018’s excellent Surrender To the Void (reviewed here). They describe themselves as “a three-piece blackened sludge outfit from a decrepit mill town in Ohio”, an extreme metal power trio “embodying the misery of our times and the determination of Ohio’s forgotten working class”.

The band have a multitude of influences that come through in their viscerally powerful music, and they’ve now completed work on a new EP that both pays tribute to some of them and gives their fans a hard strike of vicious new material. Entitled Suffering From Self-Inflected Wounds, it includes covers of G.G. Allen‘s punk anthem “Bite It You Scum,” as well as working-class blues legend Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, plus three original songs. Today we’re presenting one of those original compositions, and it’s the new EP’s raging title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEMIURGON — “TSANTSAS”

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Jun 252019
 

 

The song you’re about to hear should probably be delivered with a supplemental oxygen supply — just a mask, a tube, and a small canister capable of feeding your lungs long enough to make it through this 2 1/2 minute hurricane of sound without gasping for air. To avoid utter evisceration, it might also be a good idea to borrow some Kevlar body armor.

“Tsantsas” is the name of this breathtaking assault, and it comes blazing at us from the sophomore album of the Italian death metal band Demiurgon. Entitled The Oblivious Lure, it will be released on July 12th by Everlasting Spew Records. It arrives four years after the band’s 2015 full-length debut, Above the Unworthy, whose music we praised repeatedly at this site in the lead-up to its release, and attempted to sum up in this flurry of words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARTHRONE — “CROWN OF THE APOCALYPSE”

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Jun 252019
 

 

On the Fourth of July the Virginia-based symphonic black/death metal duo Warthrone will return with their second album, Crown of the Apocalypse, which follows their 2014 Venomassacre debut full-length. On this new album, Warthrone members Erik Sayenga (ex-Dying Fetus, Witch-Hunt) and Kristel Sayenga (ex-Witch-Hunt, Dark Purity) are joined by an impressive group of guests, including vocalists Nader Sadek, Sarah Jezebel Deva (Cradle of Filth, Hecate Enthroned, Therion), and Kim Dylla (GWAR), and lead guitarist Jim Ross (Cystic Dysentary, Doomzilla).

The album’s opening track, “The Eyes of Kings”, has already been revealed, and today we present the album’s title track, which immediately follows it in the running order. Together they make a powerful one-two punch to launch this new 40-minute record. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: COLLAPSE OF LIGHT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 252019
 

 

(Our Russian friend Comrade Aleks has reappeared at our humble abode, this time with a new interview in which he picks the brain of Carlos D’Agua, vocalist of the part-Portuguese, part-Finnish band Collapse of Light.)

Collapse Of Light is an international atmospheric doom/death project started in 2010 by three ex-members of local doom/death act Before The Rain (Carlos D’Agua (vocals), Carlos Monteiro (guitars), Gonçalo Brito (guitars)) and vocalist Natalie Koskinen (Shape Of Despair and Depressed Mode, amongst others). They weren’t fast, and their debut full-length album Each Failing Step appeared only in 2018.

This impressive material needs some development, which I hope to find on their sophomore album… Being a fan of its soothing depressive vibe I’ve contacted Carlos D’Agua and learnt few things about the band. Continue reading »

MOROKH: “KЛЯТВА”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 242019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of a new album by the Moscow-based metal band Morokh.)

I originally had this album lined up as part of a double-review alongside the latest release from a band who, due to various factors, have ended up becoming this month’s focus of The Synn Report (keep an eye out for that later this week).

But, due to changing circumstances, it’s Russian Blackened Hardcore crew Morokh who are getting top billing today, and will hopefully also garner themselves a few new fans (and sales) from being featured here. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RAGNELL — “DIVINE ERADICATION”

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Jun 242019
 

 

Some melodies are so blatantly hooky that they get stuck in your head immediately, even if you don’t think they deserve the attention and wish they would go away, like bits of fluff that annoyingly get stuck to your clothes. Others adhere to your memory more seductively but in a more lasting fashion, because there is greater emotional substance to them. That’s true of the song we’re about to premiere by the Mexican band Ragnell.

The song is “Divine Eradication“, and it’s one of nine tracks on Rebirth in Darkness, the second album by this band from Toluca and the first release since their full-length debut in 2014. Like that first album, the new one will be released by Satanath Records, joined this time in the release by More Hate Productions and The End Of Time Records. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DAMIM, TABLEAU MORT, SERPENT OV OLD, HVILE I KAOS

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jun 242019
 

 

Here’s the second Part of the SHADES OF BLACK column I started yesterday. I scurried like a hamster on a wheel to get this finished yesterday, but fell off into a pile of sawdust (or whatever people line their hamster cages with).  I think it’s fair to say that the following selections are defined by musical eclecticism — but you be the judge of that.

DAMIM

I’m beginning this second installment with a new discovery (at least for me), a London-based group named Damim, led by vocalist/guitarist Nathanael Underwood (ex-Akercocke). Damim have a new album named A Fine Game of Nil (excellent title) set for release on June 28th by Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings and Czar of Crickets Productions, and what you’ll find below is a track from the album called “Rising of the Light“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): ARS VENEFICIUM, ULVDALIR, UNDOER, PEST, RAAT

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jun 232019
 

 

There’s no hope of catching up. The flood of new metal is unrelenting; the torrent certainly did not pause for me while I spent a week in Iceland and then much of the next week trying to get the rest of my life back in order while paying homage to the Iceland experience (and honoring a bunch of premiere commitments I had made before leaving the country). Although I can’t listen to everything that surfaced during those two weeks, much less what had accumulated in the weeks before those, I’m going to attempt a two-part post today, in an effort to cover more rather than less of what I managed to find over the last 48 hours.

Today’s blackened selections are a mix of advance tracks from forthcoming albums, a couple of complete short releases, and a few excerpts from recently released (or re-released) full-lengths. For both Parts, I decided to end them with performances that diverge from the general wildness of everything else.

ARS VENEFICIUM / ULVDALIR

On June 21st Immortal Frost Productions released In Death’s Cold Embrace, a new 7″ vinyl split by two bands whose previous music we’ve praised at NCS. The split is also deserving of praise — and your close attention. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: GOMORRAH

 WAXING LYRICAL  No Responses »
Jun 222019
 

 

(After being on hiatus for a while, Andy Synn‘s Waxing Lyrical series returns today with answers to Andy’s standard questions by Jeff Bryan of the Canadian band Gomorrah.)

I’ve been an avid follower of Canadian death-dealers Gomorrah ever since I stumbled across their sophomore album, The Haruspex, way back in 2016.

More recently I spent some of my own time waxing lyrical about their third, self-titled, record which – spoiler alert – is very likely going to make an appearance in my personal end of year list at this rate.

Therefore you need to understand that when I reached out the band to take part in this column I did so not just as a highly respected, dare I say beloved, Metal writer… cough… but as an honest to god fan.

So you can imagine how pleased I was when the band’s vocalist Jeff Bryan agreed to provide this short but sweet insight into how the lyrical side of the band has come together over the years. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOOD RED THRONE, BEASTWARS, TOMB MOLD, DARKEND, UNDER THE PLEDGE OF SECRECY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 212019
 

 

Since it’s the summer solstice today, it seemed important to commemorate the event with a selection of new songs. And since festival-binging and assorted other commitments have prevented me from preparing a round-up for the last nine days, it seemed all the more imperative. The array of choices that have surfaced in recent weeks has been extravagant. From my efforts to make a dent in my listening-list last night, I chose these five, with hopefully more to come this weekend.

BLOOD RED THRONE

September seems very far away, but patience will undoubtedly be rewarded because that month will bring us a new album by Blood Red Throne. Their ninth full-length in a career that began in 1998, Fit To Kill will be discharged by Mighty Music on the lucky 13th of September, and includes cover artwork designed by Giannis Nakos.

Struggling with the challenges of patience have been eased somewhat by the appearance earlier this week of a new track named “Skyggemannen” (which premiered at DECIBEL), accompanied by a video clip of the band performing the song for the first time together, at the Grabbenacht festival in Germany. Continue reading »

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