AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DRUG HONKEY — “THE OBLIVION OF AN OPIATE NOD”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 062018
 

 

Of all the intensely disturbing tracks on Drug Honkey‘s latest album, Cloak of Skies, “The Oblivion of an Opiate Nod“, is not only the longest but probably the most brutally obliterating. The album as a whole is a hopeless and often hellish soundscape, but this one is a weapon of destruction that becomes devastating on multiple levels. It’s a bone-crusher, but it also triggers nightmarish visions that don’t soon go away. No wonder the band chose the song as the subject of their new video, which we’re presenting today.

The hallucinatory effect of the music is likely to spawn different blood-freezing dreams for different people, because we all bring parts of ourselves to the experience of listening to music such as this. It becomes an interactive process, in ways that just don’t happen with a lot of music. In the case of this video, Drug Honkey‘s Paul Gillis (aka Honkey Head) brought his own tortured imaginings into play (beyond what’s expressed by his harrowing vocals and frightening synths), because he made the video himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOEBEGONE OBSCURED

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 062018
 

 

(Comrade Aleks rejoins us with this interview of Danny Woe from the Danish band Woebegone Obscured, whose most recent album was released this summer.)

Danny Woe is one of the two founding members of Woebegone Obscured (Denmark), alongside K.Woe. Danny performs vocals, drums, and keyboards in the band, and occasionally guitars. Previously he played in the black metal bands Tronraner and Rimfrost and also the death metal outfit Skinned Beyond Recognition. However, none of these projects went further than demo records, but the experience helped him to create Woebegone Obscured from pieces of his black, death, and doom metal influences.

Growing from album to album, the band released their most mature record The Forestroamer through Aesthetic Death in July 2018. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOAT SPERM — “VOICE IN THE WOMB”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Sep 052018
 

 

Let’s first deal with the elephant in the room: this band’s name. To some of you it might signify primitive, ear-raping, bestial black metal. For others it might lead to scoffing — derisive presumptions that there will be nothing to take seriously here. Both guesses might be understandable, but both would be wrong.

Having heard, and thoroughly enjoyed, Goat Sperm‘s persistently surprising debut EP, Voice In the Womb, it does occur to me (without any inside knowledge) that there was a streak of perversity at work in this Ukrainian band’s choice of name, and not just for the most obvious reason. I can imagine them chuckling behind their hands, or maybe cackling with devilish glee, over that decision, because of the head-fake that it represents. And part of the reason I make that guess is because the music itself is such a twisted but ingenious experience. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORNE — “TO THE NIGHT UNKNOWN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 052018
 

 

There’s a lyrical passage in one of the songs on Morne’s new album that comes across like a challenge:

Show your fear
Show the way you bleed inside
Wear your wounds like I wear mine

When you listen to the music on this shattering album, those words seem to be more than a possible challenge to listeners. They could just as easily be understood as an expression of the challenge that these Boston doom insurgents set for themselves when they made this record, one they threw themselves into meeting, body and soul. Continue reading »

DGR REVIEW COLLECTION: SECTIONED, BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD, PSYCHOTIC PULSE, CLANDESTINE REVELATION, THE BREATHING PROCESS, DEPTHS OF HATRED

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 052018
 


Sectioned

 

(DGR prepared this large collection of reviews and streams, addressing some older and some newer music, and some things that haven’t yet arrived in full.)

This poor review collection saw more permutations than I’d be willing to admit, with so many different groups being added and removed for fear that I hadn’t spent enough time with a disc and so wouldn’t be able to speak about it properly, that the body count has to be in the double digits by this point. What this thing did move into was something of a themed archive of releases — bookended by earlier albums but with two that are much more recent, and with preview songs from two upcoming releases in the middle to help transition over the two.

What I found I was listening to recently was the real heavy and destructive forces of powerviolence, death metal, and grind, and on the other side of the spectrum, some real caveman level prefix-core styled music as well, just ones with a taste for the symphonic and speed on top of it. It was fortuitous then that on top of that I had a small collection of singles for upcoming (maybe? in one case) releases that I wanted to talk about that felt like suitable bridges between the two, so that our esteemed editor would’ve have to cleave this poor baby in twain; it kind of felt like a perfect thematic walk along the admittedly arbitrary spectrum brought before you.

Much like my much larger review nightmare collections, this one includes four albums but with somewhat shortened reviews, and all come highly recommended. Fingers crossed, maybe you’ll find something to enjoy as well, once you’re able to scrape your face off of the wall behind you. Continue reading »

THREE FACES OF DARKNESS: MARE / NACHTLIEDER / OUTRÉ

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 042018
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn presents reviews of three of the best black metal albums released so far in 2018.)

You could perhaps consider this article something of a rebuttal to my “Three Faces of Death” piece which was published last week, wherein I stated that 2018 seems to have been a very Death Metal heavy year so far, and that the Black Metal scene has (arguably) been lagging a little bit behind so far.

After all, while this statement is still generally true, some of this year’s blackest highlights – Funeral Mist, Ordinul Negru, Slidhr, Gaerea, Aklash, Ascension– have been more than capable of going toe-to-toe with whatever their deathly brethren have brought to the table.

It’s really just a numbers game at this point, and while I don’t see this torrent of dominating Death Metal ebbing any time soon, I’m pleased to be able to redress the balance somewhat by featuring the following three albums of blackened brilliance. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SEVENTH GENOCIDE — “SLEEPLESS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 042018
 

 

“Sleepless” is the name of the new song by the Roman band Seventh Genocide that we’re presenting today. Simply experiencing the changing moods and sensations of the music induces an interpretation of that title, which may or may not be supported by the lyrics. These changing and sharply contrasting sounds seem to capture not mundane insomnia, but a kind of severe sleep deprivation that leads to unbidden reveries, feverish paranoia, hallucinatory visions, and sudden discoveries of untapped energy whose reservoirs somehow haven’t yet been exhausted.

To come at the song in a different way, it is by turns hypnotic and jolting, dreamlike and savage, haunting and explosive. It’s quite an eye-opening trip, and a very enticing attraction for Seventh Genocide‘s new EP, SVNTH, which will be jointly released by Third I Rex and Toten Schwan Records on October 28th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PSYCHOTOMY — “WITNESS OF VOID”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 042018
 

 

Roughly 18 months ago we premiered a video for a track called “Evidence of Tyranny” by the Italian death metal band Psychotomy, which was a precursor to a new album that was expected later that year. The album didn’t arrive quite as soon as we had hoped, given how good that first teaser was, but now it is nearly upon us: It will be released on September 28th by Everlasting Spew Records. The album includes “Evidence of Tyranny” in “a brand new and fully improved guise”, along with eight other ravaging tracks, one of which we have for you today.

“Witness of Void” is a masterful achievement, a song whose immediately strong impression becomes even more impressive with further listening. And the song both induces and demands further listening because it’s such a twisted, continually changing nightmare, and so insidiously effective at worming its way into the listener’s head for a long, haunting occupancy. Continue reading »

A FEW IMPRESSIONS FROM BEYOND THE GATES 2018

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 042018
 

 

(Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum was in Bergen, Norway last week for part of the latest edition of the Beyond the Gates festival. This isn’t a complete review of the fest, but rather some reflections about the location, some musical recommendations prompted by the line-ups, and impressions of some of the performances that made a particular impact. Credit for all the wonderful photos in this post goes to Jarle H. Moe.)

Beyond the Gates is a festival that takes place every year in the mythical Black Metal city of Bergen (at least, it certainly seems mythical). It’s a paradise for blackpackers (a name for the hopeful souls who make the journey to the land of Black Metal and if they do their research well may end up in Abbath’s garden), a good city if you are into grey, doleful weather and dark surroundings. You’ve got the beautiful and dark mountains of might surrounding the city; it rains pretty much every day; and as a consequence the shadowy forests will be under a shroud of fog. All in all, pretty Black Metal.

If you are considering traveling in spite of everything I’ve mentioned above then go here and you will find a comprehensive list of metal stuff to do in Bergen. I find Bergen a nice place since I like grey skies, dark forests, mountains, and rain, so being there is a happy experience for me, especially when combined with music. Continue reading »

BYONOISEGENERATOR: “NEUROMECHANICA”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 042018
 

 

(Vonlughlio reviews the new album by the Russian death metal band ByoNoiseGenerator, who combine brutal death metal, grind… and jazz. The album will be released on September 20 by Reality Fade Records.)

ByoNoiseGenerator from Perm, Russia, are one of the most forward-thinking brutal death metal bands at the moment, because of their unusual willingness to incorporate new elements into their sound.

They broke out back in 2015 with the release of their debut, Turbulent Biogenesis (available here), to which my immediate reaction was the following: “Really??? What the fuck????”. Of course I listened to that release five times in a row, which was not an imposing challenge because it’s only about 14 minutes long. Listening to a saxophone in this kind of music was just mindblowing, because to be honest I had bought the CD and did not know what to expect.

In fact, one thing that I regret was not including this release in my top albums from that year. To be able to mix BDM, grind, and jazz elements in elaborate yet short songs, and make it work, is not an easy task. Continue reading »

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