(written by Islander)
Helldprod Records has marked April 16th as the release date for the debut album of the Portuguese black metal band Vetus Sanguis, which is the solo work of the creator known as Perversus. The album’s name is Dimensão Horrenda, and it builds upon the music presented in the band’s 2022 demo, Sangue Velho.
As a sign (or rather a warning) of what lies within the new album, today we’re premiering the fascinating track “Trombetas Diabólicas“. Continue reading »
(Our Norway-based contributor Chile returns to NCS with the following review of a just-released album by the Norwegian black metal band Nattverd.)
The change of seasons is upon us, that much is true. Mind’s undying love of wintry landscapes and frozen vistas will be put on hold for the next seven or eight months, while the physical form will be thankful for not needing the concentration and dexterity of an Olympic ice-skater just to get to the local shop so it could diverge resources on other needful things in the body. Also affected by this change are numerous black metal bands across Scandinavia famous for preferring to take their promo pictures in frozen, snowy environments. Soon enough, winter is, well, coming.
Until then, we work with what we have. And what we have is plenty of new metal from Scandinavia coming to these shores in their longboats wielding sharp riffs in our general direction. One such example is the outstanding Norwegian black metal band Nattverd whose releases so far may have passed under the radar of a wider audience, but their new album Tidloes naadesloes should be the one to take them further up the ladder of chaos. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn kicks off a brand new week with a review of fearsome French foursome Areis)
Last week featured an absolute bonanza of new album releases, at least some of which we’ll hopefully be able to catch you up on over the next couple of weeks.
But one name which jumped out at me – although I couldn’t at first put my finger on why – was Areis.
It didn’t take me too long, however, to remember that back in 2021 (which simultaneously feels like just yesterday and a thousand years ago) I stumbled across the band’s self-titled debut album and instantly took a liking to it, despite not knowing much about the band themselves.
And although I didn’t have a chance to give the group a full write up at the time, that’s something I’d like to correct with their second full-length, The Calling.
(written by Islander)
Wyrd is the third album, by the Italian death metal band Crawling Chaos, and it’s set for imminent release by Time To Kill Records on March 28th. As the label explains, “It is an anthology inspired by the role of feminine figures in European mythology and their connection to the concepts of fate and free will.” Crawling Chaos elaborate further:
Wyrd is our third full-length assault and it is a twisted journey through fate, destiny, and everything that lies beyond free will. Inspired by the ancient Northern European concept of wyrd, this record dives headfirst into the dark side of what it means to become.
Each of the ten tracks is a chapter in a mythological fever dream. You’ll meet some of the most powerful, terrifying female figures from mythology, folklore, and history: the Norse Norns, Macbeth’s witches conjuring chaos for Hecate, the relentless Greco-Roman Furies, and those wicked Thessalian necromancers who bend the dead to their will. It’s a damn coven of destruction. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Death Whore‘s band name is a bit of a fist in the face for people who see it. Their music is a much bigger fist, uninterested in pulling its punches. You’ll get the idea again from the name of their forthcoming debut album, Blood Washes Everything Away, and from the name of the album track we’re premiering with a video today, “Infernal Terror Machine“.
Death Whore‘s earlier releases, their 2020 self-titled EP and the Total Teutonic Torso EP two years later, were mauling and murderous hybrids of death metal, hardcore, and crust punk. Wielding punishing percussive hammers prone to jackhammer grooves and stringed instruments tuned to mangling levels of abrasion, and fronted by scraped-raw and savagely rabid vocals and gang howls, they leaned into furious metallic hardcore beatdowns fueled by adrenaline and coated in grit and filth, leavened by monstrously brutalizing stomps as bleak as a sucking chest wound.
Those EPs are well worth catching up to even now, especially if you’re interested in getting big doses of raging and ruinous catharsis that are as viscerally compulsive as they are bone-smashing and corrosive. They build very high expectations for this debut album that we’re about to preview. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
I had grand plans for this column. I had a big pile of picks, enough to mega-size it, just needed to do the writing. And then I did what anyone with any sense does on a Sunday (but not me because sense is always in short supply) — I slept late. I would have slept later except one eye stickily opened and I saw the time on the bedside clock. Yikes!
So the grand plans have fallen apart. Many times in the past when I’ve been in this situation I’ve thought about just stitching together a bunch of song streams and videos without commentary, like some internet-enabled DJ or “influencer”. It would be easy to do that but I’ve always detested the thought. You may wonder why. Here’s the why: Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
As usual, I had an enormous number of things to choose from for today’s collection. As usual, I had no preconceived idea how to do it. I just put one foot in front of the other, stumbling along until I ran out of time.
As I sit here and look at what I chose, I see that I defaulted to some old favorites but also went with debuts from some bands I’d never heard of. (I also siphoned off a few that will make good shades for the usual blackening of the Sabbath tomorrow.) I also added a couple of live-performance videos at the end, one of which is a genuine brain-scrambler. Continue reading »
(In February the French death metal band Horoh released their second album on Crypt of Dr. Gore — reviewed here by our contributor Zoltar — and today we have Comrade Aleks‘ interview with this horror-loving band’s two veteran members.)
French death-metal duo Horoh consists of Sébastien (vocals) and J. (all instruments). Both men live in different parts of France, so I doubt that Horoh will outgrow its status of a studio project. And yet the fresh Horde of Horror is their new album released only two years after the debut Aberration. Crypt of Dr. Gore released this 39-minute-long knot of gore, death, and unspeakable horrors in a form of quite old fashioned death metal.
Sébastien and J. spent many years performing different kinds of metal, so… an old horse doesn’t spoil a furrow… or how do you pronounce that? However, here we have a quite lively and fun conversation with both men. Hi there! Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Let’s address the elephant in the room right quick: Rahvira are NOT a Nazi band, despite the conclusion you might leap to based upon the title of the song we’re premiering. The word aryan has a history and meaning far more ancient than the grotesque appropriation of it that the Nazis made.
The Holocaust was also not the first genocide of the 20th century. That horrid distinction goes to the Ottoman Empire’s near-complete liquidation of the Armenian people during World War I, an event that’s the subject of Rahvira‘s new album and that even the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. devotes attention to. Here is part of what you can find in that Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia:
Sometimes called the first genocide of the twentieth century, the Armenian genocide refers to the physical annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 through autumn 1916. There were approximately 1.5 million Armenians living in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. At least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million died during the genocide, either in massacres and individual killings, or from systematic ill treatment, exposure, and starvation. Indeed, the origin of the term genocide and its codification in international law have their roots in the mass murder of Armenians in 1915–16.
Additional horrific details are available in this article at Wikipedia. Continue reading »
(Daniel Barkasi provided us the following wonderful report on the February 28 Orlando stop of Swallow the Sun‘s recently completed U.S. tour with Harakiri for the Sky, Ghost Bath, and Snakes of Russia, accompanied by the wonderful photos of Brittany Barkasi @Turn off the Thunder.)
Personally, Swallow the Sun is a band that has meant quite a bit over the years, both to myself and many friends – memories that will never fade. A good friend even made merch in the form of necklaces and keychains for this very tour, which are super high quality and wholly unique. For yours truly, ever since having my blackened heart soothed by The Morning Never Came in 2003, these Finns have been a constant in the listening rotation.
I first caught them live in September of 2007 (17-½ years ago – time is damn cruel) on what now has to be described as a dream tour, with Katatonia headlining, and Insomnium, Scar Symmetry, and Swallow the Sun supporting. Hard to imagine that tour was real, but for me and a bunch of others in the old Peabody’s (miss that place) in Cleveland, it was quite an affirming event. Since then, we’ve managed to see them a bunch of times, and when the opportunity arises, it’s one that we can’t turn down.
Adding to the allure of the melodic death/doom legends were Harakiri for the Sky, the post-black stalwarts who have eluded me for quite some time. Add to that the pummeling sounds of Ghost Bath and the dark electronics of Snakes of Russia, and we had a varied collection of fantastic acts to take in.
So off to Orlando we trekked to a usual landing spot in central Florida – the incredible Conduit – for a memorable evening of heart-wrenching musicality. Continue reading »