SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): GOC (GNOSIS OSCURIDAD CAOS), HWWAUOCH, ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE, NYSS

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jul 292019
 

 

Did you miss Part 1 of this post, delayed by one day from its usual spot in our schedule? Go here if you did. There were four advance tracks from forthcoming records in that Part. Part 2 may take you longer to get through, since it includes three complete albums (in addition to one more advance track). I hope you’ll find everything worth your time.

GOC (Gnosis Oscuridad Caos)

The first two selections in Part 2 came my way from Rennie of starkweather. The first of them is a just-released debut album by a Colombian band called GOC, which seems to be an acronym for Gnosis Oscuridad Caos, which is also the title of the new album. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): KEYS OF ORTHANC, HAGZISSA, SLAUGHTBBATH, SERPENT COLUMN

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jul 292019
 

 

I couldn’t get this post finished in time to occupy its usual place on Sunday. So, as promised yesterday, I’m posting it now to make your Monday more miserable.

I divided this into two parts, which gives me more time to finish it and might also make all the music easier to digest. There IS a lot to digest here — taking these two Parts together, you’ll find five advance tracks and three full albums.

KEYS OF ORTHANC

I missed this Quebec black metal band’s 2018 debut album, Dush agh Golnauk. Their second one, A Battle in the Dark Lands of the Eye…, will be coming out via Naturmacht Productions on August 31st. The cover art alone — a creation by Canadian artist Ted Nasmith called “The Shadow of Sauron” — is so fantastic that checking out the music was an irresistible choice. (Nasmith’s cover art for this band’s debut album — here — is also fantastic, but I must not have seen it.)

Ted Nasmith is a noted illustrator of Tolkein’s works, and Keys of Orthanc have similarly based their work on Tolkein’s tales; Orthanc itself, for example, is the name of Saruman’s black tower in The Lord of the Rings. Naturmacht describes their new album as one that’s “all about the war of man and orc, between light and darkness in the gloomy lands of Mordor”. Continue reading »

NO SHADES OF BLACK TODAY

 Uncategorized  3 Responses »
Jul 282019
 

 

For those who have been checking in today, looking for the usual SHADES OF BLACK post, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The hours needed to recover from dissolute behavior on Saturday night, coupled with the hours needed to follow through on non-NCS personal obligations today, left no room for this SOB to make a SOB.

However, there should be time left on this Sunday to create a collection of blackened sounds for posting tomorrow, to make your Monday even more miserable. See you then.

~islander

THE BLACK MORIAH: “ROAD AGENTS OF THE BLAST FURNACE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 272019
 

 

Before finding an interview that confirmed my suspicions about the meaning of this band’s name, I engaged in some internet research. The results of much of my searching directed me to “the black maria“, despite the difference in spelling. “The black maria” was the colloquial name for horse-drawn police wagons, with the term’s origins dating back to the mid-1800s in New York City. It was pronounced in the same way as “the black moriah”. Other searches pointed me to Moriah, the Hebrew name for the mountain where, according to the Book of Genesis, God told Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him. But none of those references is correct.

Searching more thoroughly would lead you to tales of Tombstone, Arizona, a silver-mining boomtown that became emblematic of the lawlessness and violence of the Old West in the 1800s, most famously the site of The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and of the Boothill Graveyard, so named because most of the men buried there had “died with their boots on”. “The Black Moriah” was the name of the horse-drawn hearse that took many of those men to their final resting place on Boothill. The actual hearse is now housed in Tombstone’s Bird Cage Theater Museum, which was itself the site of an infamous brothel in those old lawless days.

And that horse-drawn hearse from Tombstone is in fact the source of the moniker for this North Texas band, who have embraced what old Tombstone came to stand for. Portraying themselves as a “horde of highwaymen”, they create “blackened thrash for a desert funeral”. The title of their latest album, Road Agents of the Blast Furnace, could serve as an alternate name for the band, because they do indeed sound like outlaws riding the wild roads of a sun-blistered land on horses from hell. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VITRIOL, URN, AWAKENING SUN, ERADICYST, FORGE, ABYSMALIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Jul 262019
 

 

Some weeks I have no time for even one round-up. This week I’ve gone overboard with them. Make hay while the sun shines and all that shit.

The hay I’ve made today before we hit the weekend flows like this (yeah, I know, hay doesn’t flow): We begin with an utterly decimating piece of sonic warfare, and then get pretty damned thrashy through the next three  tracks (the kind of songs that will get your motor running fast and hot). After that I’ve gone in a couple of other directions, one of which will bury you beneath mountains of stupendous heaviness and the other of which will then fill your subterranean crypt with horrors, because we don’t want you to spend eternity alone.

VITRIOL

Some metal memories are more vivid than others. I distinctly remember, for example, being left slack-jawed and dumb-struck when I first heard this Portland death metal band’s debut EP Pain Will Define Their Death. Equally vivid was the impression that Vitriol left when I caught their live performance at Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle earlier this year. It was so goddamned ferocious that it sucked the air from my lungs. And then also vivid again was my chance encounter backstage, right after the performance, with vocalist/guitarist Kyle Rasmussen, who could not have been more happy, humble, and engaging.

Put all those vivid impressions together, and they leave me super-eager for Vitriol’s debut album, To Bathe from the Throat of Cowardice, which will be released by no less a label than Century Media Records on September 6th. Continue reading »

BUSHWHACKER: “A FISTFUL OF POISON”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 262019
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by the Vancouver-based metal band Bushwhacker, which was released on July 19th.)

To a certain extent this business – the business of being a music writer/critic/blogger – is built on relationships. Relationships with bands, PR people, labels… and so on… which, if cultivated correctly, help to create a sustainable and mutually-beneficial ecosystem for everyone involved.

There are, of course, potential dark sides to these relationships.

Certain labels have been known to lean on smaller sites/zines by using the threat of removing their access to bump up the review scores or the amount of coverage given to their artists. Certain PR companies have been known to effectively “blacklist” certain writers or publications if they aren’t nice enough to the bands they’re representing. And certain critics have had their reputations questioned when it’s come to light that they’re perhaps a little more friendly with certain musicians than they originally let on.

It’s this last one which vexes me the most these days, and there are a few bands who I simply won’t review any more purely because, even if I trust myself to be as objective and impartial as possible, I don’t want there to be even a hint of impropriety or preferential treatment attached to my work.

But when Bushwhacker contacted us recently asking if we’d be willing to give their new record a listen, I simply couldn’t refuse. Not just because of the way in which they went about it – not directly asking for, or demanding, a review, but simply letting us know the music was out there if we were interested – but because it really is a damn fine album! Continue reading »

COPENHELL 2019: DAY FOUR

 Concert Reviews  3 Responses »
Jul 262019
 

 

(A Seattle-based writer who we’ll call Gonzo ventured to Denmark for the 2019 edition of the Copenhell festival, which ran from June 19th through June 22nd. Today’s post covers performances on the fourth and final day of the fest. To read about Gonzo‘s experiences during the first three days, go here, here, and here.)

According to a poll on Copenhell’s Instagram story as of 10:21 a.m. Saturday morning, 64% of festival goers are tired as fuck. I counted myself among them. With a good night’s rest and wearing enough sunscreen to make myself flame retardant, though, we set a course on the 666 express to Refshaleøen once again. If we weren’t tired by this point, we’d be the exception.

Today was the final day of Copenhell 2019. The executive decision to eat something healthy for breakfast, I think, ended up being a wise choice. More fried food was wolfed down at lunch, just as While She Sleeps were getting ready to rock the Pandemonium stage. When we walked in, we could hear Candlebox closing out their set with the unmistakable chorus of “You,” but that would be all we’d get of our hometown grunge rockers. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SARCASM, THE GREAT OLD ONES, WHITE WARD, SIGHT OF EMPTINESS, WĘDROWCY-TUŁACZE-ZBIEGI

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 252019
 

 

You wanna know how many new songs I added to my listening list over just the 48 hours since I posted the last round-up of new music? Of course you don’t, but the number was 45. Don’t even bother trying to guess how many were already on the list from preceding days. There is a reason why the category tag on these posts is “Random Fucking Music”, because there’s not much rhyme or reason to making these selections from such a large universe of choices.

Of course, I haven’t listened to all 45 of those new songs I was curious to check out. Of the ones I did hear, I picked these five, going with my gut, and of course my highly refined sense of good taste. With luck, I’ll collect some more for tomorrow, to bring the week to an end with a BANG.

SARCASM

From their formative years in the early ’90s through today, the Swedish death metal band Sarcasm have had their fair share of obstacles, including personal tragedies, line-up changes, and the other vicissitudes of life that have often led bands of this vintage to sink beneath the waves, never to surface again. But Sarcasm have survived, although their sound has evolved since the earliest years.

Their first album (Burial Dimensions) didn’t surface until 2016, but they followed that quickly with 2017’s Within the Sphere of Ethereal Minds, and now their third album is headed our way via Chaos Records. Entitled Esoteric Tales Of The Unserene, it will be released on October 14th. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: SCATMOTHER AND CHAOS CASCADE — “SACRIFICIAL RITES OF DEVOTION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 252019
 

 

Conceivably, I am not the best person to present this split release. I am largely unfamiliar with the two German projects who participated in the split — Scatmother and Chaos Cascade. I also have only a passing acquaintance with harsh power electronics, which is their principal stock in trade. These impediments hinder my ability to introduce our premiere stream of the split in a way that places it within the context of what these people have done before, or the field in general.

On the other hand, maybe there’s something to be said for barging into an unfamiliar din of iniquity (see what I did there?) and simply reacting to the experience. And, to be fair, it’s not as if this is my first encounter with abrasive and unsettling sounds (as most of you well know), even though my own tastes run more to the assaults of extreme metal rather than power electronics or harsh noise. Besides, many of you may be virgins in this territory yourselves (though unlikely virgins in any other way).

But whether it be for better or for worse, here we are, and here we go… with impressions and a full stream of Sacrificial Rites of Devotion, which has just been released by Dunkelheit Produktionen. Continue reading »

COPENHELL 2019: DAY THREE

 Concert Reviews  3 Responses »
Jul 252019
 


BAEST – photo by Bransholm Photography

 

(A Seattle-based writer who we’ll call Gonzo ventured to Denmark for the 2019 edition of the Copenhell festival, which ran from June 19th through June 22nd. Today’s post covers performances at the third day of the fest. To read about Gonzo‘s experiences during the first two days, go here and here. The wrap-up comes tomorrow.)

After a rough start to the morning due to the sun’s fiendishly bright rays at a truly ungodly hour, coffee began replacing the hope of getting any more sleep. A risky endeavor, especially since the day would be pretty warm, and I am not built for the heat. My hope was that it would be cooler by the harbor at Refshaleøen, but we’d soon find out. Once more into the breach.

The unmistakable smell of barbecued meat and fried food on our way into the festival welcomed us once again. If I wasn’t busy watching bands today, I’d be rolling down the hill after eating my way through this place. Today would be the day I would eat several of whatever these “flying pancakes from hell” were. I didn’t know what made them special, but what I did know was that I didn’t want to have any other type of pancake ever again. Continue reading »

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