NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ADVENT OF BEDLAM — “THE EVER WATCHFUL EYE”

May 012018

With two albums behind them, the Costa Rican band Advent of Bedlam are looking ahead to the release of their third full-length, Human Portal Phenomenon, by their new label Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on May 4th. DECIBEL premiered a lyric video for one track (“Olympus Mons”), and another track (“A Human Farm”) is also out in the world. Today we present a third one — “The Ever Watchful Eye“.

The new album comes recommended for fans of Belphegor, Dead Congregation, Hate Eternal, Immolation, Incantation, and Morbid Angel. As those names might suggest, it delivers a brand of death metal that’s ferocious and technically impressive, augmented by progressive instrumental flourishes, flashes of blackened barbarism, and a welcome attention to melody. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ROTTING CHRIST, WOMBBATH, MORTUOUS, DIABOLIC OATH

May 012018

We have a couple of premieres coming later today (what a shock), but I found myself with a little extra time on my hands before we get to those, so I thought I’d package up a few new things that I heard yesterday. The first two come from established bands who are always dependably good. The second two come from new names that should become better known once the songs below get spread around.

ROTTING CHRIST

First up is a pro-shot live video of Rotting Christ performing the title track from their 2013 album Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού. It was filmed on June 30, 2017, during the band’s headlining anniversary concert in Athens. From the looks of this (and of course the sounds), I really wish I’d been able to astrally project myself into that venue. And I think that’s all the introduction this video needs. Enjoy: Continue reading »

THOU: “THE HOUSE PRIMORDIAL”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

May 012018

The powerful Louisiana sludge/doom band Thou dropped a surprise yesterday… the first in a series of releases that the band have planned as a lead-up to their first full-length (entitled Magus) since 2014’s Heathen. The lack of any advance promotion or track streams isn’t that unusual for this band, but it seems to be a phenomenon that’s growing more widespread.

This new album-length EP, The House Primordial, is something of a departure from Thou’s main line of sound. Because you can obviously listen to it now, I don’t have a thorough review for you, just some reactions based on one play-through (which was enough to make me buy it). You could think of it as a preview of what you’ll be getting yourselves into if you choose to listen. Continue reading »

ORDER OV RIVEN CATHEDRALS: “GÖBEKLI TEPE”

Album Reviews 8 Responses »

May 012018

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by the Italian death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals.)

Göbekli Tepe, the recently released full-length follow-up to last year’s Order Ov Riven Cathedrals EP The Discontinuinity’s Interlude, takes absolutely no prisoners from the moment its first real song kicks off. Following a similar format to last year’s EP, Göbekli Tepe basically has an intro for ambience and then spends the rest of its time with you going as fast as feasibly possible — in line with many of their Italian hyperfast blast-heavy death metal kin — and making almost no compromise in favor of breathing room.

The mysterious two-piece behind Order Ov Riven Cathedrals continue their science fiction and mythological bent nearly a year later, this time amplifying just about every aspect of last year’s EP, making it feel like The Discontinuity’s Interlude really was laying out a blueprint for them to follow. Order Ov Riven Cathedrals not only wring just about every ounce of highly accelerated death metal they can out of their time, but also bring along a bevy of familiar movie and media samples (how many albums out there have a sample from Breaking Bad on them these days?). These include metal’s recent obsession with Oppenheimer’s television interview wherein he utters “I am become death, destroyer of worlds”… although the Riven Cathedrals crew mix it up a bit by using it in reverse and closing out with, “A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEGAT THE NEPHILIM — “GRIMOIRE OF CRYPTID”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Apr 302018

From their home base in southern New Hampshire, Begat the Nephilim have been plying their chosen trade since 2012, that trade being a form of blackened melodic death metal that has taken them to stages in support of Napalm Death, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Dillinger Escape Plan, Job For A Cowboy, and Suicide Silence and landed them on the Summer Slaughter tour and the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.

Unholy Anarchy Records will release the band’s debut album, Begat the Nephilim I: The Surreptitious Prophecy / Mother of the Blasphemy, on June 15th, and today we present the album’s eighth track, “Grimoire of Cryptid“. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 96): DISTANCES

THE SYNN REPORT 5 Responses »

Apr 302018

(Andy Synn delivers a SYNN REPORT for the month of April, reviewing the lion’s share of the discography of the New Mexico band Distances.)

Recommended for fans of: Agrimonia, Cult of Luna, The Ocean

Melding Sludge and Post-Metal with touches of Prog and Crust, Distances are one of those bands who you can’t help but think would be much bigger, and much more beloved by the Metal community, if only they were given the attention and exposure they so richly deserve.

Cerebral yet cathartic, heavy in both brooding atmosphere and sheer sonic weight, the Albuquerque quartet make music designed to hit both the head and the heart, and practically guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.

So, without further ado, here’s a run-down of all three of the band’s albums – including their recently released third record, Diableries, but not their 2016 covers album Rip Offs – plus their fantastic 2015 EP Forage & Reproduce. I hope you like what you read/hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MAZE OF SOTHOTH — “THE OUTSIDER”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Apr 302018

Last year Maze Of Sothoth come blasting out of the north of Italy with the release of their debut album Soul Demise, and we happily triggered the detonation through a premiere stream of all 10 songs. As good as the album was, it’s inevitable that some people who would have loved it remained oblivious to its existence despite our own enthusiastic efforts (and the efforts of others) to spread it like the plague. And so it’s a happy occurrence that today we get a new chance to infect you, because Maze of Sothoth have created a video for one of the songs off Soul Demise — “The Outsider” — and we’re hosting its premiere in this very post.

In his review of Soul Demise, our writer TheMadIsraeli praised the album as embracing “the most timeless of death metal’s elements combined with a refinement of its greatest decade”, challenging “modern death metal’s gratuitous excess” by defying its “excessive musical ornamentation”, and confounding expectations by upending “humanity’s innate need to find or maintain order”. In his summation, it was (and still is) “a powerful and vicious death metal record”. Continue reading »

NCS SITE UPDATES YOU MAY NOT CARE ABOUT BUT WE’RE SHARING WITH YOU ANYWAY

Off Topic 23 Responses »

Apr 302018

Like everything your bleary eyes perceive on a desktop computer or a portable device, No Clean Singing resides on a machine. We rent space on said machine from a web host, initially on a server we shared with strangers and eventually on one dedicated exclusively to our own putrid creations. Over time, the database that stored those creations became clogged with digital gunk, the kind of gunk that caused the machine to lose its mind from time to time, resulting in outages until the mind could (temporarily) regain some clarity.

In addition, the theme we’ve used since Day One, i.e., the software residing in our machine home that provides for the “look and feel” of the site, was abandoned by its developer. Even before that, I resisted updates to the theme software due to anxiety over the possibility that the updates would result in unwanted changes to the appearance and functionality of the site, which I had so painstakingly customized. This created a ticking time bomb, destined to go off on an unknown future day when some update to the WordPress software that’s fundamental to the existence of this blog would break the theme into tiny non-functioning pieces. And there were other problems.

Unfortunately, although I’m the guy who created the site and is responsible for its day-to-day care and feeding, I’m self-taught when it comes to its “back end” operation. I know just enough to be a danger to myself and others, and don’t know nearly enough computer science to solve any of the problems identified or alluded to above. So, after eventually getting tired of living anxiously with my fingers crossed, I finally did something smart. I hired an expert. Continue reading »

DEMONICAL: “CHAOS MANIFESTO”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Apr 302018

(We present DGR’s review of the latest album by Demonical, which is out now via Agonia Records.)

Considering the various skulls, demon bones, and other awesome metal ephemera in the album art gracing the front of Demonical’s Chaos Manifesto it is probably a strange situation to open with the idea that, with this album, the comfort-food nature of the Swede-death genre and its effects on your reviewer have been firmly established. There’s something near instantly recognizable in the genre’s chosen pacings and structures that feels immediately familiar and speaks to the lizard segment of one’s brain, so much so that just about any band who embrace the mid-to-high tempo thudding nature of the music are bound to at least put on a decent live show, and, with a genre whose foundations and blueprints are so solidly in place at this point, those who merely follow it with a checklist can at least kick out a decent disc.

Which just makes it all the more difficult for a group to stand out from the pack or, given their aims, to make an album that at least ranks as a “solid good time”. Demonical, a group born from the hiatus of another Swedish purveyor of mid-tempo thudding death metal (Centinex) and now with a lineup that includes a pretty healthy chunk of the newly reactivated version of the aforementioned group — three of whose members were made official in 2017 — have released what could be considered the most straight-shooting Swede-death album of 2018 so far. In Chaos Manifesto there are no pretenses, no real attempts at breaking genre conventions, just a solid eight-track, thirty-six-minute slab of death metal that gives metal fans across the variety of the circle-headbanging genres something to salivate over. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MALTHUSIAN, FUNERARY TORCH, YITH, NOIA, SKYBORNE REVERIES

SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Apr 292018

Welcome to another installment of my Sunday series on metal drawn from a black vein. Some of what’s here are carry-overs from the column I planned for last Sunday but failed to finish in time, and some are discoveries I’ve made since then. I had to make hard choices, as usual, and made them in an effort to put your head through a lot of twists and turns in the ever-expanding landscape of black and “blackened” metal. I hope to find future places for the releases I put to one side in making these choices.

MALTHUSIAN

After two powerful previous releases, the MMXIII demo in 2013 and the stellar 2015 EP Below the Hengiform (which we got the privilege of premiering), the Irish black/death band Malthusian will at last release a full-length this year. Across Deaths is set for release on September 7th by Dark Descent Records and Invictus Productions. I guess it’s unusual to see the appearance of an advance track almost five months before an album release date, but only a churlish bastard would complain about the wait, and I’m not the churlish kind of bastard. Continue reading »

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