AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECRATOR — “CONFRONTING CHORONZON”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 252019
 

 

With each new release, I’ve become increasingly transfixed by the music of Sacramento-based Defecrator. That’s saying something, given that I was knocked down pretty hard by their very first recording, the 2015 demo Tales of Defecration (reviewed here). But they’ve moved from strength to further strength, through their 2016 EP Satanic Martydom (reviewed here) to the three songs on their 2017 split with Ritual Genocide (reviewed here).

At last, Defecrator will be releasing a debut album. Entitled Abortion of Humanity, it will be released on March 29th through Drakkar Productions, and the early signs are that Defecrator have continued to advance their sound, moving deeper into dimensions of their music which add a sense of terrifying grandeur to the merciless destructive power of their black/death onslaughts. We have one of those early signs for you today, a new track named “Confronting Choronzon“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLOSON — “USURPER”

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Mar 252019
 

 

In fairly short order the Swedish sludge/post-metal band Gloson have plowed a massive furrow through the landscape of metal — and not the kind of furrow in which pliable earth has been turned, but more like a deep, jagged track carved through granite. We’ve had the pleasure of watching this happen from the beginning, and done our own small part to spread the word, following them from their eye-opening 2014 debut EP Yearwalker through the release of their stunning first album Grimen in 2017. Along the way we hosted premieres, and chose songs from each of those releases for our lists of the years’ Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

It is thus with great pleasure that today we present the premiere of a video for a song from Gloson’s new EP, Mara, which will be released on April 5th by Black Lion Records. With “Usurper“, Gloson have again created something that’s immediately in contention for our Most Infectious Song list, and, at last, have hit upon visual imagery that’s a match for the prodigious power and unsettling, unearthly atmosphere of their music. Continue reading »

WHITECHAPEL: “THE VALLEY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 252019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Whitechapel, which will be released by Metal Blade Records on March 29th.)

While we don’t always cover the so-called “big name” releases here at NCS, on those special occasions when we do we always try write something that actively adds to the conversation, rather than simply rehashing the same old tired tropes and clichés.

Of course that begs the question, is it actually possible to write anything new or insightful about Whitehcapel at this point?

After all, this is a band who have now comfortably reached that “critic-proof” level where a sufficiently large proportion of their fanbase will likely pick up whatever they put out, sight unseen, while their more committed detractors will continue to deride and denigrate the band for their ‘core roots, and nothing I write is likely to massively influence anyone from either side.

However, this presupposes that the only point of a review like this it to rate an album as “good” or “bad”… whereas I’d contend it’s just as, if not even more, important to provide potential readers/listeners with context and perspective so as to help them make their own, educated, decision(s).

Which brings us to The Valley. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENTHRONED, ÁRSTIÐIR LIFSINS, VALE, DAUÞUZ, AKRAL NECROSIS, SUICIDAL MADNESS, CORNIGR

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Mar 242019
 


Cold Black Suns

 

I’m assuming everyone knows that Darkthrone will be releasing a new album named Old Star through Peaceville Records on May 31st. Fenriz says that he and Ted will be continuing in the style of Arctic Thunder — “BLACK OLD HEAVY METAL with slow thrash, classic doom and slow death metal” — which is just fine by me. The album is available for pre-order HERE.

With that piece of news out of the way, I’m devoting the rest of this post to things we can hear right now.

ENTHRONED

Cold Black Suns is the new album by the almighty Enthroned, their 11th full-length in a career that stretches back a quarter-century. Their new label Season of Mist will release it on June 7th. The first song in today’s collection, “Silent Redemption,” comes from that album and premiered a couple days ago at Ghost Cult Magazine. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OCTOBER TIDE, NOCTURNUS AD, MUTILATE, THE CORONA LANTERN, ATARAXIE, EVEN VAST, PLAGUE WEAVER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 242019
 

 

Yes, I know it’s Sunday, but I did listen to all the selections in this round-up on Saturday. I just didn’t get this post finished in time to launch it yesterday.

I listened to a lot of other things yesterday, too. Some of that will find its way into the usual SHADES OF BLACK column later today. Other songs and videos were also interesting, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Drawing lines gives me a headache, especially because I know that Monday will begin another week filled with new songs and videos on top of those from last week that I failed to get to, and another week when my day job (again) probably won’t leave me enough time for round-ups.

Doom plays a role in all of the following songs, which factored into my line-drawing, but the sounds of suffering play quite different roles from song to song.

OCTOBER TIDE

In their 25th year October Tide are releasing a new album, which founding guitarist Fredrik Norrman describes as “a bit more aggressive, a bit more death metal, and with an overall colder feeling than previous records”. His brother, guitarist Mattias, is still in harness, as is vocalist Alexander Högbom, but since the band’s last album they’ve added a new bassist (Johan Jönsegård) and a new drummer (Jonas Sköld), both of whom are also members of Letters From the Colony (who seem to have a lot of Meshuggah in their DNA, at least based on this live video from last summer). Continue reading »

GOMORRAH: “GOMORRAH”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Mar 222019
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the British Columbia death metal band Gomorrah, which is being released today.)

While I definitely could have written about this album long before now (seeing as how the band’s representatives were kind enough to send me an early promo copy on request), I decided to wait until today to publish my review as I wanted everyone reading it to be able to listen to (and, ideally, purchase) the full record straight away.

Because while I can’t guarantee that all our readers are going to fall in love with Gomorrah (the band and/or the album) as much as I have, chances are that the band’s bombastic, blast-tastic brand of high-yield, high-octane Death Metal will appeal to an extremely wide cross-section of our regular audience. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FULL OF HELL, POUND, TOTENGOTT, FROM THE BOGS OF AUGHISKA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 222019
 

 

I guess this week has been like every other week: It brought a flood of new metal. Unfortunately, it was a week when the job that pays the bills left me no time for round-ups. It was a mad scramble just to get everything else done around the NCS compound. Confronted with a list of way too many new songs to write about, most of which I haven’t even heard yet, I made completely impulsive choices from among those I have heard, three of which are videos.

Not sure how much further catching-up with new music I’ll manage in the posts this weekend, but I’m going to try. We’ll see how that goes…

FULL OF HELL

I had to lead off with this new song from Full of Hell because it’s just such a shrieking, roaring horror. One of those things that makes you sit bolt-upright and prevents you from thinking about anything else, which was a blessing, given my scrambled state of mind when I first heard it. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLEEDING UTOPIA — “WHERE THE LIGHT COMES TO DIE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 222019
 

 

There’s an entire generation, and probably more than one, for whom Swedish melodic death metal was a gateway into extreme metal, ushered into a new world of musical experiences by the likes of At the Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquillity. For a stretch of years, a certain golden age, it seemed to rule the underground, and eventually some of the surface world. And then, as always happens with a sound that strikes such widespread sparks among audiences, the genre became saturated with lesser lights and then overtaken by the next new thing, and the next.

It isn’t what it used to be, but as in the case of Mark Twain’s rumored demise in 1897, reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Undeniably, it’s enormously more difficult for a band to succeed with this style in the current age than when the sound was in its infancy, and seemed like a revelation. But as daunting as the task may be now, it’s not impossible, and Bleeding Utopia from Västerås, Sweden, have proved that with their new album Where the Light Comes To Die, which is being released today by Black Lion Records.

They succeed (in spades) in part because they’ve brought some other ingredients into the mix, and in part because they’re just so damned good at what they’re doing — so good, in fact, that one could imagine this album also being a gateway of its own to a new generation, in addition to being a great reminder of this music’s appeal to those of us who were led down the path by those legendary progenitors. Continue reading »

CHILDREN OF BODOM: “HEXED”

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Mar 222019
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of the new album by the Finnish icons Children of Bodom, which was released on March 8th by Nuclear Blast.)

Fathoming what a “return to form” by Children Of Bodom would sound like is an exceedingly difficult task. It seems that every new album from the Bodom crew is referred to as a “return to form”, and yet what “form” the group are returning to is never fully explained.

If anything, for better or worse, Children Of Bodom have been one of those groups who have been the very hallmark of consistency. You could throw on any of the group’s ten main albums (including their latest, the one discussed here) plus a few of their EPs and have a generally good time with the guitar-shred and keyboard-cheese therein. Yet within that consistent discography there have absolutely been different eras of Children Of Bodom songwriting.

You can begin with the thrashier form of Something Wild, then move to the neo-classical hybrid that the band would become in the Hatebreeder/Follow The Reaper/Hatecrew Deathroll era that is a high-point of the group’s career (which one would guess is the “form” people are often saying they’re returning to), to the chunkier and Americanized-groove of Are You Dead Yet? and Blooddrunk, and on to the group’s most recent three, which have been all over the place stylistically. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INFERI — “QUEST FOR THE TRINITY”

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Mar 212019
 

 

Let’s be clear up-front: The End of an Era | Rebirth is not a reissue. A mere reissue of Inferi’s 2009 second album, The End of an Era, would have been welcome for those who relish physical editions of music they feel passionate about, and those are almost impossible to find these days. But as the name suggests, The End of an Era | Rebirth is a great deal more than a re-printing of the original CD.

During 2018, in addition to releasing their latest album, Revenant, and engaging in extensive tours, Inferi also found time to re-record The End of an Era. It thus features not only new performances by the band’s current line-up (which is significantly different from the one that recorded the original album), captured with more robust production techniques, but also presents changes in the bass-guitar and drum contributions to the music. And on top of all that, the revised album includes eye-catching new cover art by Helge C. Balzer.

One track from Rebirth has already surfaced, and today, in advance of the album’s April 12 release by The Artisan Era, we present another one through a lyric video (which is itself loaded with wonderful artwork): “Quest For the Trinity“. Continue reading »

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