AN NCS PREMIERE: DEITUS — “VIA DOLOROSA”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 232018
 

 

Deitus proclaim that “it is through suffering that the fruits of salvation shall be found”, and they have named their new album Via Dolorosa — Latin for “the Way of Suffering” or “the Way of Sorrow”. The words may be best known (at least in certain communities) as the name of the road in the Old City of Jerusalem that Jesus walked in agony toward the place of his crucifixion, but it could equally be considered the path of human life in general. As envisioned in the music of Deitus, pain is inevitable, and yet it can lead to illumination.

The song we present today, which is the new album’s title track, is, in a word, stunning. True to this UK band’s statement of principle, it is a powerful expression of suffering, heart-ache, and transcendence. Continue reading »

BLOODBATH: “THE ARROW OF SATAN IS DRAWN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 232018
 

 

(Here are DGR’s thoughts about the new album by Bloodbath, which was released on October 26th by Peaceville Records.)

There’s always going to be a certain amount of charm in being self-aware about how “dumb” your music can get sometimes, and glorying in it. There’s an attractive confidence in that when it seems like many bands have to play up how serious they are about how brutal their branch of death metal is, how heavy and violent their noise-unleashing can be. However, when you’re Bloodbath and are a long-established throwback act you can find joy in just how “ridiculous” all of this can be at face value. Continue reading »

A GOD OR AN OTHER: “CHAOTIC SYMBIOSIS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Nov 222018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the new second album by A God or an Other, released on November 15th and available now through Bandcamp.)

Continuing along the dark road that this week has driven me down we come to the second album by Olympia, Washington’s own Black Metal mystics A God or an Other, which offers up six tracks of riveting atmosphere and ravenous aggression under the pitiless banner of Chaotic Symbiosis. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NAG — “NAGGED TO DEATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 222018
 

 

NAG don’t forgive and forget. They hold grudges. They bundle up their misery and rage, and then let it all out in eruptions of sound that are both enlivening and life-threatening. Their new album, Nagged To Death, is a raw musical catharsis that’s bleak, black-eyed, bruising, and bombastic — and a hell of an electrifying thrill-ride from start to finish.

This trio, who’ve taken the names Arnfinn Nag, Espen Nag, and Ørjan Nag, hail and howl from the west coast of Norway, and we’re told that “to find inspiration for the riffs and lyrics of their new album, NAG formed a pact with none other than the Sea Goblin, known for its furious hatred towards all things human”. It seems that the Sea Goblin can take various forms, and it’s one of those guises that’s represented in the illustration by Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914) that appears on the cover of this new album. Like that imagining of the creature, the music is both vile and full of fangs. Continue reading »

A THANKSGIVING BLOOD-LETTING: BLOOD RED THRONE, ALTARAGE, MASTIFF, GLORIOUS DEPRAVITY, DEAD TONGUE, ECHOES OF DEATH, ROTTEN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 222018
 

A few other countries besides the United States have a Thanksgiving holiday, but not many, and none of them except the U.S. celebrates it today. So I guess in the vast majority of the world it’s just another day — and so it is at NCS. We do take a certain amount of pride in refusing to take time off for holidays. I mean, we mention them, and some of us partake of them in our non-blog lives, but at NCS they’re all just days, like all the other days, that give us a chance to give thanks for metal.

The following seven new songs flowed together very well in my head last night. Together they make one head-wrecking playlist of slaughtering sound. And Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

BLOOD RED THRONE

The Norwegian wrecking crew Blood Red Throne, whose latest album (Union of Flesh and Machine) our Andy Synn called “yet another top-tier terminator of crushing, grooving, blasting belligerence and cold, calculated aggression”, recently discharged a lyric video for a new song from their next album, Fit To Kill, and that’s how we’ll begin today’s blood-letting. Continue reading »

FEEDING THE DARKNESS (ÆVANGELIST)

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 212018
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn provides reviews of the two albums released this year by the duo known as Ævangelist.)

For various reasons, some personal, some professional, this week has so far been one headache-inducing shitshow that’s left my mood blacker, and bleaker, than a witches’ frozen teat.

And while some people might respond to this by trying to put on a happy face or jamming their most uplifting musical anthems… sometimes that simply doesn’t work.

Sometimes you just have to feed the beast, fuel the fire, and embrace the darkness… which is why, for the last couple of days I’ve been immersing myself in the dissonant, abstract horrorscapes of Ascaris and Matron Thorn, aka Ævangelist. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BAST — “NANOÅNGSTRÖM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 212018
 

 

The UK trio who Bast popped lots of eyes wide open with their 2014 debut album Spectres, but they’ve outdone themselves with their second full-length, Nanoångström, and we have the great good fortune of presenting a full stream of the record on the verge of its release by Black Bow Records.

That trio — vocalist/guitarist Craig Bryant, drummer/vocalist Jon Lee, and bassist Gavin Thomas — have created a ceaselessly fascinating and immensely powerful experience through an alloy of sludge, doom, black metal, and progressive metal. In the band’s words, “Nanoångström continues our trajectory into narrative-driven arrangements and experimental compositions; set against a bleak science fiction backdrop, it explores the human conditions of loss, isolation, and change in the wake of time’s passage.” Continue reading »

HAPPY NINTH BIRTHDAY TO US!

 Birthday Posts, Metal News  63 Responses »
Nov 212018
 

 

Measured within the span of a human life, nine years old is still childhood. In metal blog years it’s more like middle age. A few others out there are older than NCS, but not many, and a lot of our former peers have died and turned to dust. Mere stubborn survival continues to be some kind of triumph, and so once again I’m celebrating another milestone: We’re nine years old today, having posted our first article on November 21, 2009.

I continue to be amazed and thankful that we’re still here, that so many good friends are still devoting themselves to writing for NCS on a purely volunteer basis, and that so many readers are still willing to pay attention to what we’re saying and streaming. As usual at this time of year, I want to begin by thanking some of those friends who have been here the longest, keeping the grinding gears of our gruesome machine in motion. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: ANTICHRIST MAGAZINE — “A TRIBUTE TO BURZUM”

 Metal News, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 202018
 

 

Antichrist Magazine is a Ukraine-based publication devoted to metal and rock that was founded in 2003 by Oleksandr Maksymov. Originally a print publication it was converted to an on-line-only presence in 2014. On November 21st (tomorrow), Antichrist will officially release a stream-only musical compilation entitled A Tribute To Burzum, and to help spread the word we’re presenting all the music today.

While Burzum’s alter ego Varg Vikernes has become a controversial figure (to say the least), the music of Burzum undeniably has had a major impact on the evolution of black metal, and is thus a worthy subject for a tribute such as this one — for which Antichrist Magazine recruited 16 bands, as well as the Germany-based solo artist Katarina Gubanova, whose performance closes the compilation. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DANIEL WARREN JOHNSON

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 202018
 

 

(KevinP returns to NCS after a long absence with the following interview — and the main subject of the interview is a metal comic book named MURDER FALCON.)

Here is my interview with Daniel Warren Johnson — comic book writer and artist, metal enthusiast, and unfortunately a stinking Red Sox fan.

 

K: So is this the first interview you are doing for a “metal” site, as opposed to the endless parade of comic-only related ones and conventions?

D: Yes! All my interviews so far have only been for comic book sites. I think there’s quite a bit of overlap between the worlds of metal and comics, but I don’t see it brought up a lot. So as a lover of both, I thought that MURDER FALCON might do well at bringing the two camps together. Glad to be here! Continue reading »

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