AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DOWNCROSS — “MYSTERIES OF LEFT PATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 202019
 

 

Sometimes the opportunities presented to us for premiering new music leads to the discovery of enormously good surprises — to become captivated by music we might never have otherwise found. And this is one of those startling instances.

Downcross are a duo from Belarus — vocalist/drummer Ldzmr and guitarist Dzmtr — and what we’re presenting today (only one day away from its release by Saturn Sector Rex) is their debut album Mysteries Of Left Path. The only description of the music we had before exploring it was “anticosmic”, plus whatever might be inferred from their ominous masked and torch-bearing visages on the album’s cover. This led to a few guesses about the music — which turned out to be largely incorrect. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 30): SOUL DISSOLUTION, FREDAG DEN 13:E, VARGRAV

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  No Responses »
Feb 202019
 

 

This is another one of those days when I’m leaning into black metal for the latest additions to this list, with a pair of songs that present different shades of black, very different formulations of music that incorporates black metal traditions, but all of them big head-movers in the moment and quite memorable in the aftermath. And in between them I’ve placed some Motörcharged scandicrust that’s equally head-moving and highly addictive.

I should mention that we’re drawing very close to the end of this series. Last year’s series ended with Part 20, and here we’re already up to Part 30. So as to give myself time this coming weekend to agonize over the final picks, I’m not going to stop this week — but at some point next week (probably early in the week), we’ll bring this 2018 list to an end. To check out everything that has preceded today’s installment, you’ll find them behind this link.

SOUL DISSOLUTION

I can’t think of a better word than “magnificent” for “Far Above the Boiling Sea of Life“. That’s the word that leaped to mind when I first heard it in advance of premiering the track in February of last year, and it’s the word that I’m left with every time I hear it — which has been often. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WASTE OF SPACE ORCHESTRA, LASTER, HEBOSAGIL, HYBRID NIGHTMARES, MORO MORO LAND, LOKUST, SECOND TO SUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 202019
 

 

I probably should have dug deeper into my ever-expanding list of recent music to check out, but instead spent my latest listening time focused only on what I added to that list over the last 48 hours. With so much new stuff coming out every day, sometimes music that’s even a week old becomes a casualty, rudely shoved aside by newer interlopers. That’s what happened here.

Unfortunately, because I happen to be hurrying at the moment, I won’t have quite as much to say as I usually do about what you’ll be hearing — but you really should listen to all these tracks anyway, even without detailed impressions from me!

WASTE OF SPACE ORCHESTRA

If you haven’t heard of Waste of Space Orchestra, perhaps you’ve heard of Oranssi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising. If you haven’t heard of them either, checking out their music should be on you to-do list just above “see a doctor about that gangrenous toe”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHSWARM — “SHADOWLANDS OF DARKNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 192019
 

 

Musicians who are passionate about the ravaging sounds of gruesome old school death metal face a constant challenge when they try to create such sounds themselves: How do you wade into such familiar territory, well-guarded by devoted fans of those traditions, and emerge with something that’s still really worth hearing? If we think we’ve heard it all before, what’s required to give us a fresh jolt of electricity, rather than just another formulaic emulation?

The Swedish band Deathswarm have compelling answers to those questions. To surmount the challenges requires (first and foremost) top-shelf song-writing, plus veteran performance skill matched with authentic spirit, and a grasp of tone and production technique that makes the music sound truly monstrous. And those are the answers that Deathswarm deliver through their fantastic debut album, Shadowlands of Darkness, which will be released on February 25th by Chaos Records — and which you can hear in its entirety below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VESPERINE — “NOUS, SI PHOTOSENSIBLES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 192019
 

 

Torment, turmoil, and tumult flow through the music of Vesperine, a sense of defiance and desperation, and glimpses of hope that are too often revealed as phantom dreams.

Vesperine have located themselves within a long lineage of French storytellers and poets, fueled by the spirit of such imposing national figures as Hugo, Lamartine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, taking up “the eternal mantra of France and its passions”: “to hope, to sink”.

Musically, the sounds can be located within the darker spheres of post-hardcore and post-metal, with progressive and noise elements in the mix. References might be made to the likes of Amenra, Cult of Luna, Impure Wilhelmina, Neurosis, and Rosetta — but better than references, we have the music itself, one excerpt from their debut album Espérer Sombrer in advance of its March 22nd release through Apathia Records. The song we present today is “Nous, si photosensibles“. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 29): WITCHING HOUR, IN THE WOODS…, AORLHAC

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Feb 192019
 

 

If you’ve been visiting us every weekday since January 8th, hungering for new installments of this list like famished wolves waiting to be fed, you undoubtedly noticed that the wolf-keeper had no flesh for you yesterday. Various events conspired to prevent me from finishing and posting the latest installment before my blog time ran out. In a small effort to make up for that, I’m beginning today’s posts with this new trio of entries instead of making it the last post of the day, which is what usually happens.

WITCHING HOUR

The first minute-and-a-half of this song was all it took to ensure its place on this list. I was convinced the first time I heard those opening 90 seconds. The rest of the song just reinforced the conviction, though it’s often very different from the solo guitar instrumental that comes first. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LEATHER GLOVE — “REFLECTIONS OF DESPAIR”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 182019
 

 

Expectations for Perpetual Animation, the debut album by Leather Glove (which will be released on March 8 by Sentient Ruin and Dawnbreed Records), have run very high in these quarters, based on nothing more than the descriptions of the people involved in its creation, and of the musical conceptions manifested through its eight tracks.

As for the people, Leather Glove is principally the musical vehicle of Greg Wilkinson, owner of the famed Earhammer Studios in Oakland, CA, known for his engineering work with such bands as Noothgrush, Necrot, Autopsy, Vastum, Acephalix, Mortuous, Undergang, and many, many others; a member of Brainoil, and Deathgrave; and a former member of Laudanum and Graves at Sea.

For this new album, he was aided aided by drummers Chad Gailey (Necrot, Vastum, Mortuous, Atrament, etc) and Dustin Ferris (Apraxic, Pleasure Cross, Engorged, etc), with guest guitar solos performed by Sean McGrath (Ghoul, Impaled), Shelby Lermo (Vastum, Ulthar, Extremity), Eric Cutler (Autopsy), and Danny Corrales (Autopsy, Abcess). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSIC — “HIGH THE MEMORY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 182019
 

 

At almost 80 minutes in length, Abyssic’s new album High the Memory is a demanding experience. And the demands it places on listeners go beyond the magnitude of the minutes. It is emotionally devastating — and uplifting — in ways that less intensely powerful music, and music less intensely devoted to darkness in its varying dimensions, can’t achieve.

In these complex and richly textured compositions, which draw upon ingredients of funeral death/doom, black metal, and prog, augmented by classical orchestration (and the use of Mellotron, Minimoog, and upright bass), Abyssic create combinations of crushing power and mystical evanescence, of oppressive gloom and fragile, gleaming beauty. Dread and devastation stalk this vast musical landscape, furrowing the earth with great troughs of misery and despair, while brilliant stars wink overhead, blazing comets streak the night sky, and the borealis shimmers in unearthly brilliance. The effect of these juxtapositions is harrowing and hypnotic, magisterial and monstrous. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED / DYSCARNATE / BÆST – LIVE IN SHEFFIELD 16/02/19

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 182019
 

 

(Andy Synn has hit a marvelous run of shows in quick succession over the last few weeks, and this is his summation of the most recent one, with his videos of the performances.)

Being in a band myself I know what it’s like to have your set cut short due to technical difficulties and/or time constraints. It’s never a good thing, but it’s just something you have to deal with as best you can.

Which is why my heart went out to Bloodshot Dawn last night when, just as it seemed they were about to start their set, which had been delayed due to unavoidable technical issues, they were instead forced to cut their entire show from the line-up. We’ve had to cut songs, or had shows cancelled on us before, but never after we’d already set up our gear, and I honestly can’t imagine how utterly gutting that must have been. I can only hope that the rest of the shows (and the previous ones) somehow make up for it.

Still, all disappointments and dissatisfaction regarding that situation aside, that still left three other bands to get the evening going, beginning with… Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SARASTUS, AIHOS, VUKARI, VIELIKAN

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Feb 172019
 

 

I think I was overly ambitious about what I thought I could accomplish today. I did enjoy spending time with, and writing about, the music I collected in today’s first post, but that exercise wound up leaving me with too little time to write about all the black metal I’d chosen for today’s SHADES OF BLACK column. Originally conceived as either one giant post or a two-part collection, I’ve had to cut it back: The music of four bands is featured here, instead of eight.

Maybe I’ll find the time to write about the other four in time to do a second SOB post tomorrow before the turbulence of the work week and the resumed flood of more new music inundates me, but that’s tough to predict at this moment. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these four selections as much as I have (two of the bands old favorites, and two are recent discoveries).

SARASTUS

Having spent time with Enter the Necropolis, released on February 8th by the Finnish black metal band Sarastus, I’m feeling foolish for failing to explore the previous releases of this duo (composer and multi-instrumentalist Vardøger and vocalist/lyricist Revenant) — which include a debut demo (I) from 2015 and a debut album (II-Toinen Tuleminen) released in 2016 — because this new album is a real thrill. Continue reading »

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