LISTMANIA 2018: A TOP 10 LIST FROM JACOBO CÓRDOVA (MAJESTIC DOWNFALL, ZOMBIEFICATION)

 LISTMANIA 2018  3 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

(Mexican maestro Jacobo Córdova has had a busy year, with great new albums released in 2018 by both of his bands Zombiefication and Majestic Downfall — both of which we reviewed, HERE and HERE — but he found time to once again share with us his lists of the year’s best metal releases (and a couple of disappointments)).

Another year, another list, and I want to thank once again No Clean Singing for giving me the opportunity to share my top albums of the year. 2018, for me, was once again a stellar year in Metal releases (will it ever stop!!!). Many highlights and great comebacks took place, but unfortunately I will just pick 10 not to bore you to death (well maybe 15). So with no further introduction, let’s get down to it. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STRANGULIATORIUS — “ROPE, SOAP, TABOURET”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

What, you may ask, is a tabouret? And what does it have to do with rope and soap, or for that matter with death metal? A partial answer can be found at the end of this writing, but much of this fine new album’s title might still remain a mystery. There is, however, no mystery about why the music is so damned good. One listen will prove that, which is what we’re giving you the chance to experience today.

Unlike the words in the album title, Stranguliatorius isn’t one you’ll find in the dictionary, though in its own mouth-mutilating way it’s just as clever and intriguing as the album’s name. The Lithuanian barbarians who chose it as their appellation are damned clever songwriters, too, though it must be said (as their label reports) that they are thirsty for blood and hungry for flesh. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: BANDCAMP DAILY’S “BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  4 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

Our year-end LISTMANIA series usually consists of a mix of lists compiled by cross-genre sites and zines much larger than our own, and year-end favorites assembled by our own staff and guests. This next list, however, doesn’t really fall into either category, but I thought it was well worth including.

Bandcamp, of course, has become a vital platform for the digital release of music of all stripes (and eventually physical merchandise as well) since its founding in 2008. Bandcamp hasn’t yet released its annual compilation of performance statistics for 2018, but their 2017 “Year In Review” reported that 3,500 independent labels were participating on the platform, that more than 600,000 artists had then sold something through the site, and that all-time payments to artists through Bandcamp had reached $270 million. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 HEAVY ALBUMS OF 2018

 LISTMANIA 2018  10 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

(Our year-end LISTMANIA series continues this week, beginning with NCS contributor Wil Cifer‘s Top 20 list.)

Yes, you can re-read the title: It says the top 20 “heavy” albums, not the top 20 “Metal” albums. I prefer for music to be heavy sonically and emotionally, more than I demand that they be metal. I think the more open-minded metal head can certainly appreciate heaviness in many forms, though those represented here are more often metal than not, since I have other platforms on which to rant about post-punk or shoegaze, and albums by Nothing or Marissa Nadler don’t belong in a conversation about heavy music even as good as those albums might be.

In 13 out 20 of these albums, screamed, growled, or otherwise tortured vocalizations are the primary method of delivery. Melody comes in many forms, for me the darker the better. No one sub-genre stole the show here; I think doom and black metal are neck-and-neck; there are also a couple of more hardcore albums, and some with a progressive leaning. The one unifying point is the dark and emotive current that runs through the bulk of these albums, which reflects the fact that I grew up a poor goth child, who was too metal for the clove smokers and too goth for the denim and PBR crowd (however, selling weed in the early ’90s made the most die-hard Cannibal Corpse fans tolerate my Type O Negative). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KALEIKR, 0N0, VITRIOL, EYRTH, MOURNING SIGN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 152018
 

 

Having been immersed in year-end LISTMANIA and other diversions since completing a recent vacation, I have a large backlog of newly released music that I’ve only just begin working my way through over the last couple of days. From what I’ve heard so far, I assembled the following collection — almost all of them advance tracks from forthcoming releases, plus one new bonus track that arrived late last month.

KALEIKR

In extreme metal circles these days, when one thinks of Iceland one thinks of black metal. Draugsól was one of many Icelandic black metal bands who proved their worth, with a fine 2017 debut album named Volaða land (we learned more about the band and that album in a 2017 NCS interview of guitarist M.K. and vocalist A.J.). Now, two of Draugsól’s three members (guitarist/bassist/vocalist Maximilian Klimkoare and drummer Kjartan Harðarson) are forging ahead under a new name — Kaleikr — and their new album Heart of Lead will be released on February 15th by Debemur Morti Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (VICIOUS HEADBANGERS EDITION): LEGION OF THE DAMNED, MISERY INDEX, DESERTED FEAR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

Our focus on LISTMANIA at this time of the year tends to diminish the frequency of round-up posts such as this one; even when I’m not doing the writing myself, the behind-the-scenes work that I do to get year-end features ready for publication (such as Andy Synn‘s impressive week-long series of lists, and DGR’s week-long series of catch-up reviews, both of which concluded today) takes some time. My ability to listen to new music and select songs and videos to recommend has been further restricted by the two-week vacation I took, which ended last weekend, and by way too much holiday-season partying this week.

Our 2018 LISTMANIA orgy isn’t nearly finished, by the way. Next week we’ll begin rolling our year-end lists from other NCS writers and guests, and at some point I’ll start revealing my own contribution to LISTMANIA — a list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. But I still do hope to throw in a new-music round-up every now and then.

The three new songs you’ll find below, all of which come with music videos, barely make a dent in my backlog, but I hope to do a bit more catching up with another SEEN AND HEARD post tomorrow and the usual SHADES OF BLACK column on Sunday. Continue reading »

2018 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP TEN

 LISTMANIA 2018  20 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

(Andy Synn concludes his week-long round-up of metal in 2018 with this list of his ten personal favorites among the year’s great and good albums.)

So, after all the stress and struggle involved in putting together all my various lists which preceded this one, now it’s time to relax and turn my attention to those albums, whether “Great” or “Good”, that make up my personal favourites of 2018.

Once again I decided that I wouldn’t include any “Honourable Mentions” this year, as to do so would essentially mean reproducing a good 60-70% of my previous lists (although, that being said… do try and give Agrypnie, Disassembled, Hundred Year Old Man, The Agony Scene and Void Ritual a listen if you get chance) and instead decided to focus solely on the ten albums which I’ve listened to the most and/or which have made the biggest impact on me this year.

Funnily enough, while the actual process of working out which ten records best represented my listening habits over the last twelve months was as complicated as ever, the write-up was much easier than I expected it to be, as it just so happens that I was responsible for reviewing almost all of them! Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW COLLECTION (PART 8): CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

(Our Sacramento-based colleague DGR concludes a week-long effort to catch up on reviews before immersing himself in year-end LISTMANIA, with one last write-up today.)

Hey, have you heard of this place called Sacramento?

This one won’t be as much a review as previous pieces as it is a simple heads-up and a chance to reminisce a bit. If you had told me that in 2018 I’d be talking about Sacramento “too metal for the core kids, too core for the metal kids” band Conducting From The Grave‘s first album When Legends Become Dust without having to invent some sort of opportunity to do so, I would’ve laughed. But here we are. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CNTMPT — “TOWARDS NEGLECT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 132018
 

 

The German black metal trio CNTMPT made their debut with a self-titled album in 2014, and are now about to return with a new full-length named Towards Neglect, which will be released by Into Endless Chaos Records on December 17th — and today we present a full stream of the record, along with comments about each of its tracks.

The music on Towards Neglect is almost entirely instrumental. Like the music itself, the voices that can be heard, often distantly, seem to be sounds from another world, barely human. And there is indeed a sense in the music that it is crashing into our dimension from a different one where, as the label accurately forecasts, light and fire intersect with darkness and ice. The emotional intensity is devastating — almost overwhelming — and the instrumental performances are equally intense in their explosive athleticism. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IN SHADOWS AND DUST — “REVENGE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 132018
 

 

In 2015 the French one-man band In Shadows and Dust began what has become an annual album-release cycle, each one appearing on the 21st of December, and the cycle will continue this year as Redefining Darkness Records will release the project’s fourth full-length on the winter solstice, the day of least light in the Northern Hemisphere. Its title is Enlightened By Darkness.

The band’s name suggests gloom and decay, and when coupled with the chosen release date and the album’s name itself, you might expect music in which melancholia and doom reign over a sepulchral soundscape of frigid wastelands. What you will find instead, in the lyric video we’re premiering today for the new album track “Revenge“, is an explosively savage shock-and-awe campaign. Continue reading »

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