SEEN AND HEARD: DARKTHRONE, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, STELLAR MASTER ELITE, MEMORIAM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 242019
 

 

I didn’t expect to prepare another new-music round-up so soon, since I posted one of these just yesterday, but I found myself with enough free time — just barely enough — to do it. Without further ado:

DARKTHRONE

Yesterday brought us the debut of a track called “The Hardship of the Scots” from the new album by Darkthrone, Old Star. Unsurprisingly, the news of a new Darkthrone song spread like wildfire, and predictably provoked reflexive praise. The thing is, such reflexes have been conditioned by decades of praiseworthy work by this band, and in this instance (more importantly), it really is a hell of a good song — which I have had serious difficulty getting out of my head so I can focus on other things. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CYTTORAK — “COUNCIL OF 13 TRANSMOGRIFICATION CHAMBER”

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Apr 242019
 

 

I should have known. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I did know, but the memories had faded. And so I asked the band: Who or what is Cyttorak?

Do you know? If you are of a certain age, and gleefully immersed yourself in the magical lore created by Stan Lee and his colleagues at Marvel, and have a better memory than I do, you will know. And if you don’t, hold your questions for a couple of paragraphs. For now, just be aware that the Rhode Island band Cyttorak chose their name from that lore, and if you’re a comic book nerd (as I used to be), you’ve got to fucking love ’em for it.

But apart from expressing a love of comics, the three men behind Cytorrak (the band) chose the name for reasons (at least as I infer them) which have something to do with the kind of music they make — which involves excelsior-level pulverization. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HLX1 — “TAAAR JURKHAATH MIYKHT”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Apr 242019
 

 

A couple of things stood out about the e-mail we received inviting us to premiere the song you’re about to hear. First, it was sent by an Intergalactic Negotiation Module, specifically module No. 54, for an entity named HLX1. Second, the request ended with this threat: “Any form of resistance shall lead to immediate extermination.”

Here at NCS we have a firm policy against negotiating with terrorists. However, since the e-mail also informed us that we had been chosen “as one of the most worthy musical taste developing specimens of your kind”, which of course is an undeniable fact, and because the threat was being conveyed in the name of Yullama Rima-Akta VI, supreme emperor of the capital planet Nhakuu-3, I decided to at least take the threat seriously enough to listen to the song that accompanied this imperious missive.

I found the song, the name of which is the incomprehensible “Taaar Jurkhaath Miykht“, to be… hostile… perhaps even terrorizing… enough so that I thought we might make a slight exception to our rule about not negotiating.

Since I have no photo of HLX1 to follow the jump, which is our typical practice, consider this: Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2019: DAY 1

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 232019
 

 

(In what has become an annual tradition, our man from the UK, Andy Synn, attended Inferno Festival on April 18 – 21, 2019, in Oslo. Beginning today we will post his reports on the event, day by day, accompanied by a few of his photos.)

This year’s edition of Inferno Festival was a funny one for me, for a couple of reasons.

For one thing the allure of the headliners simply didn’t seem as great this year (although the undercard definitely provided more than its fair share of gems), with only the highly-anticipated Hypocrisy headline slot on the Friday really standing out to me (which, let me be clear, is no judgement on the festival organisers, or the other bands themselves, and merely a reflection of my own mindset where Dimmu, Bloodbath, and Opeth are concerned).

More importantly, however, this was the first year where I’ve attended the festival and NOT been able to see all the bands I wanted to, as I started to develop a really nasty fever on the Saturday, and ended up spending the next sixteen-or-so hours simultaneously burning up and freezing to death while my body tried desperately to sweat out whatever was poisoning it, and even now I can count the number of hours of sleep I’ve had since then in the single digits.

Still, I can’t complain too much, as I managed to see almost all the bands I really wanted to watch over the course of the weekend, and can only apologise to the ones I missed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TEMPLE KOLUDRA — “THIS DIADEM WILL LAST”

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Apr 232019
 

 

On their debut album, Seven! Sirens! To A Lost Archetype, the blood-freezing Germany mystics in Temple Koludra demonstrate a spine-shivering mastery of a particular kind of night-dark musical art. Inspired by a fascination with Indian spirituality and armed with the implements of black and death metal, they’ve crafted an experience that’s both nightmarish and spellbinding, a throwing-open of portals to dimensions where nothing seems real but everything seems ready to devour you, body and soul.

The song we’re premiering today, “This Diadem Will Last“, is emblematic of the band’s terrifying gifts. It has the quality of a disturbing vision, a hallucinatory revelation of apocalyptic doom, demonic grandeur, and psychotic cruelty. It may cause your skin to crawl, but it’s transfixing, and it’s likely to haunt your memory for perhaps longer than you would like. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAVRADOXA — “NIGHTMARROW”

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Apr 232019
 

 

Roughly two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering a great song (“Across the Nival Grove“) from Lethean Lament, the second album by the New York black metal band Mavradoxa, which followed their full-length debut, a wonderful 2016 album named Sojourners. Today we’re in the fortunate position of bringing you more new music by this talented group from Rochester — the title track off their forthcoming third album, Nightmarrow, which will be released by Hypnotic Dirge Records on May 2nd.

Thematically, the new album is described as “a meditation on the isolation and hopelessness of our age (particularly in the realm of the urban), and the consequences of technology and voracious consumption of resources”. Those themes are evident in the lyrics of the title song, which portray specters (the “nightmarrow”) that “lurk beneath the glow” of labyrinthine corridors of neon and steel. “They kiss our pale blue lips / They bloom in pestilence”, and they are the distillation of humankind’s malevolent qualities — in the band’s description, “the interminable urge to consume, to control, and the chaos that results….” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GAAHLS WYRD, INTOTHECRYPT, SLAEGT, LEVITAS, SIASKEL

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Apr 232019
 

 

I’m torn between the desire to back-track and continue to catch up on new advance songs that I failed to notice over the nearly three weeks when I couldn’t devote time to round-ups, and the steady impulse to focus on things “hot off the presses”. This particular collection reflects that schism: There’s a bit of both in here.

GAAHLS WYRD

The timbre of Gaahl‘s voice dominates the opening of “Carving the Voices“, which Metal Hammer premiered a week ago. Like a prophet who might actually be clairvoyant or an ancient enchanter who has just emerged from a centuries-long imprisonment within a gnarled oak, the deep resonance of his voice conveys the possession of wisdom both profound and full of dread. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VAGRANT — “DARKNESS DURING THE REIGN OF A BLACK SUN”

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Apr 222019
 

 

For their debut album, The Rise of Norn, the German melodic death metal band Vagrant have constructed a conceptual narrative concerning the path of an ancient warrior, a tale that in part also seems to be a metaphor for broader ruminations on the depths of human volatility and despair, and the ultimate fragility of existence.

The first single from the album, “Blood On A Crow’s Beak“, happened to be its closing track, a tragic narrative in which the dying warrior seems to share his final thoughts as his body is returned to the land of his birth. Musically, it’s an irresistible gallop of heroic riffing and glorious leads, of compulsive rhythms and scorching vocals, accented by acoustic strumming and ominous keyboard layers.

Now we have a second offering from the album, the record’s longest and most intricate song. “Darkness During The Reign Of A Black Sun” portrays a young warrior’s sinister visions and dreams, in which he foresees a big war that eventually will be his last — yet the vision leaves a question about whether the prophecy can be trusted. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOL DE SANGRE — “ANTES DE LA CREACIÓN (BEFORE THE CREATION OF TIME)”

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Apr 222019
 

 

Three months ago we had the pleasure of premiering two songs from a split release by the Colombian band Sol De Sangre and the Spanish band Pánico Al Miedo, one track by each group. La Senda De La Muerte is the name of that split, and it includes the two bands’ covers of tracks originally recorded by giants of the death metal pantheon, with Sol De Sangre performing their versions of songs by Entombed and Unleashed, and Pánico Al Miedo extending their talents to the music of Pestilence and Death. For all the songs, the bands reinterpreted the lyrics in Spanish, giving them a new kind of vibe and atmosphere.

In January, the song we premiered from Sol De Sangre (through a lyric video) was “Festín De Carne“ — their cover of Entombed’s “Revel In Flesh” from Left Hand Path. Today we bring you another video premiere, this time for Sol De Sangre‘s second track on La Senda De La Muerte. Entitled “Antes De La Creación“, it’s a cover of “Before the Creation of Time” by Unleashed (from Where No Life Dwells). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ONKOS — “HEPATIC”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Apr 222019
 

 

And now for something completely different.

Let’s begin with the chekeré. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “it is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd…. In performance it is shaken and/or hit against the hands.” That same source explains that the chekeré “is common in West African and Latin American folkloric traditions as well as some of the popular music styles”.

As a result of the musical project Onkos, that last sentence quoted above will now have to be amended to add “and avant-garde death metal“. Continue reading »

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