AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ESKHATON — “BLASPHEMARTYR”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 272018
 

 

The video that we’re about to present boils with nightmarish, mind-mutilating imagery, both lyrically and visually. The words refer to maelstroms of death and poisonous blood, to churning trances and dark forces of infinite devourment, to the sacrifice of human flesh in a black goat apocalypse — and the skin-shivering artwork is no less malignant and macabre. It all suits the music very well, which is itself a ravaging maelstrom of death designed to put the listener into a terrifying spell of possession by ancient evil.

The song in question is “Blasphemartyr“, and it comes from Omegalitheos, the third album by the Australian marauders in Eskhaton, which was released this past June by Lavadome Productions. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: A YEAR-END LIST FROM NEILL JAMESON

 LISTMANIA 2018  6 Responses »
Dec 272018
 

 

(For the fifth year in a row, we’re grateful that Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) accepted our invitation to share with us and you a list releases from the past year that made an impact on him. His lists always provide welcome discoveries, and this year is no different.)

I have to be honest, this year I really didn’t listen to a lot of new records. I guess there’s a bunch of reasons why, each one more boring than the last. Sort of like most of the year-end lists I’ve seen on social media the last six weeks. Am I just getting too old and burned out to enjoy some of this shit? I mean that seems like a solid enough reason rather than just coming out and saying a lot of “popular” (I guess) metal this year felt disposable, and while a lot of you will rise up to tell me I’m a fucking moron I’d be willing to put a solid six or seven dollars down that you won’t be listening to the majority of your year-end list in two years.

Last year I had a massive list and I still stand by the bulk of it. 2017 was a great year for new music. 2018? I dunno, I’ve been distracted. I haven’t even listened to the new Drudkh yet. I’m sure it’s great. I’m sure a lot of great stuff happened this year and I’m sure a lot of it is under my radar and possibly yours too. I don’t want anyone to have the impression I feel like I have superior tastes to you when I do these lists; I don’t. And neither do you. We all should listen to what we enjoy without having to worry about what some asshole a few seats over is going to think. Continue reading »

CRITICAL DEFIANCE: “MISCONCEPTION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 272018
 

 

(We present TheMadIsraeli’s review of the debut album by the Chilean band Critical Defiance, which will be released on February 9th by Unspeakable Axe Records.)

I think when dissecting the issue of why most throwback modern thrash bands end up writing boring stale material, it really boils down to the fact that, from my personal interactions with that niche scene, talking to people in it as well as looking at the way a lot of these bands market themselves, the bands don’t care so much about the music as they do the image, the culture around the scene, etc.

A few bands have managed to show that they were more than enthusiasts, and became maestros in their own right.  With Havok, Evile, Crisix, and Vektor as examples, a lot of the bands in this movement who are beloved are those who aren’t stuck in the time when their genre was conceived.  They bring modern song-writing skills, or they write compelling, diverse albums that borrow from every era of the style’s golden days. from the mid-’80s all the way to the early ’90s. Continue reading »

DEATH FORTRESS: “REIGN OF THE UNENDING”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Dec 262018
 

 

(Fallen Empire Records chose this day for the label’s final batch of releases, one of which is the hotly anticipated new album by New Jersey’s Death Fortress — and to coincide with its release we present Andy Synn‘s review.)

One of the things I love most about Metal – about listening to it, creating it, writing about it – is how unpredictable it can be. Every year is different, and you can’t necessarily guess in advance what albums are going to raise the bar, and what artists are going to shit the bed (sometimes spectacularly) over the course of the next twelve months.

But some artists are definitely more reliable than others, which is why I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of the new album by New Jersey Black Metal marauders Death Fortress ever since it was announced. Continue reading »

SHEOL BLANC: “SOLITAIRE DÉPRAVÉ”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 262018
 

 

I found myself with some time alone during the afternoon of Christmas Day, time enough to give myself a gift and watch the official video of Emperor’s live performance at Roadburn 2018, which I’d set aside for just such an occasion. It was tremendous… and while taking a break to re-fill a glass of something amber, I noticed a message from a valued acquaintance with a holiday gift of his own, and it proved to be one I will treasure.

It was a link to an album by a French one-man blackened-death machine named Sheol Blanc that was released in February of this year, with the title Solitaire Dépravé. With some personal time still left to me after Emperor’s set concluded, I moved right into it, and was completely floored by what I heard, so much so that I impulsively started pecking these words before the feeling dimmed at all. Continue reading »

CONCERT REVIEW: RIDERS OF THE APOCALYPSE (1349, SVART LOTUS, SUPERLYNX)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 262018
 

 

(Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum prepared this review of the Riders of the Apocalypse show that took place in Oslo on December 19th.)

I usually publish reviews of concerts in Oslo just for a Norwegian audience, but I think this concert review can be of interest for the international NCS audience. The NCS statistics for 2018 were really cool. I must say I was impressed with the amount of visits (more than 1.7 million) and I’m pretty glad we have readers from more than 100 countries all over this small planet. I would like to thank everyone who supports NCS and all those who read my occasional contributions. It is my wish for 2019 to be able to contribute even more!

The first thing that caught my attention when I saw the line-up for the concert that took place the 19th this month was Svart Lotus. I had heard about the band before and knew it was 1349‘s bassist who was behind the project. But as to what the other band playing Riders of the Apocalypse could be exactly I wasn’t sure at first. The other band scheduled to play was going to be Superlynx, and I had heard from some rock-knowledgeable friends that they were good, but I hadn’t really checked the band for myself as I tend to have just enough time for metal. So I figured I would go based mainly on the 1349 connection. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOHAN HULDTGREN (OBITUS)

 LISTMANIA 2018  7 Responses »
Dec 262018
 

 

(For the eighth year in a row (!), our friend Johan Huldtgren of the Swedish black metal band Obitus — whose 2017 album Slaves of the Vast Machine (reviewed and premiered here) is their latest release — has again allowed us to share with you his year-end list, which originally appeared on Johan’s own blog.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: ROTTING CHRIST, SWALLOW THE SUN, ÖRNATORPET, DEATHCHANT, MORTAL SCEPTER (AND A LOT MORE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 252018
 

 

If today is a holiday for you, we hope you’re enjoying it, regardless of whether it has any ecclesiastical meaning to you. If it’s not a holiday for you, we hope it will be a good day for you, too.

We don’t observe any holidays at NCS, not because we’re against them, but because from our first year the goal was to post something every day of the year, a goal we’ve kept with very rare exceptions. I can’t exactly remember why I set that goal (come on, it was 9 years ago!), but probably because I thought our best chance of getting readers was to be out there on days when there was no competition. Now, we keep doing it out of sheer stubbornness.

Since it is Christmas Day, I thought about exclusively going with metal that has some kind of holiday theme, but with a trio of exceptions at the end of this giant new-music round-up, I tossed that idea out the window, unless you count the introductory music from Rotting Christ. And why wouldn’t you?

ROTTING CHRIST

My NCS colleagues and I seem to be having a disagreement about RC‘s new album The Heretics. One of us, who shall remain unnamed, thinks it’s repetitive and boring, a distillation of the sound of the last three or four albums but lacking in dynamic peaks and troughs. A couple of us (including me) acknowledge that it’s basically Rotting Christ firmly in their established groove, but is nonetheless a whole lot of fun. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 3): HELFRÓ, HUSK, HAIDUK, HOWLING WASTE

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Dec 242018
 

 

I need my head examined, but what else is new? Here we are on Christmas Eve, when fewer people than usual browse metal sites such as ours, but even after already raining a heavy deluge of blackened metal upon your heads in Part 1 and Part 2 of this column, I’m still not content to finish. It is undoubtedly an obsessive-compulsive disorder, but undoubtedly untreatable. So here we are.

As mentioned in Part 2, my plan was to use the third part of this column to round up a few more full releases from late 2018 that I wanted to recommend before the year ends. The four I’ve focused on here in these brief reviews don’t exhaust everything I’d like to mention, but perhaps you can figure out why I decided to combine these four (hint: today’s the 8th day before the year ends). Maybe I’ll get to more later — after all, we do have 7 more days before 2018 expires.

HELFRÓ

Of the four records in this post two of them come from bands I’ve written about before and two are newcomers, including this first one, a new Icelandic black/death metal project organized by members of Ophidian I. Their self-titled album, released on December 21st, was recorded in part by Studio Emissary’s Stephen Lockhart and was mixed and mastered by him, and that’s why I paid attention to it. Glad I did. Continue reading »

MASS: “MISERERE MEI”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 242018
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the British duo MASS, which is set for an official release on December 25th by An Out Recordings.)

It’s always flattering when a band submits a promo to our website with a specific request that I be the one to review it.

Of course, just submitting your promo and making this request doesn’t necessarily guarantee that:

  1. I’m going to actually cover it, or
  2. I’m going to actually like it

But, since you’re reading this right now, you know that at least that first condition has been satisfied, so let’s see about the second one, shall we? Continue reading »

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