SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): YOVEL, ETERNAL SACRIFICE, AVAST, HULDREKALL, SPEKTRAL HATCHERY, S.E.K.H.

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Sep 032018
 

 

It’s Labor Day here in the U.S. today, which won’t mean much or anything to half the people who visit our site. For those people, who don’t live here, it’s a holiday designed to celebrate the American labor movement. For me, it’s just another laboring day at NCS, though of course it feels more like fun than work or you can be damned sure I wouldn’t be doing it.

This is the second Part of a column I began yesterday, which I hope you’ll check out if you haven’t, because there’s a lot of good music there as well as here.

YOVEL

Although I mostly focus these columns on new or forthcoming releases, I’m stepping back in time for the first recommendation today. I overlooked this album when it was released on April 1st of this year, but was called back to it through a recent e-mail we received. The first track was seductive; the second track spun the turbine in my head into the red zone. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYSTALMOORS — “HIJOS DEL SOL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 032018
 

 

On October 15th Casus Belli Musica and Beverina will join forces to bring forth an album-length split by two distinctive Spanish pagan metal bands, CrystalMoors and Hordak, both of whom pay homage through their music to the ancient lifeblood of their Iberian homeland, and today it’s our pleasure to present one of the CrystalMoors tracks that will appear on the album — “Hijos del Sol“.

The CrytalMoors side of the split, which consists of four tracks, is named Árguma, a Cantabrian word for a plant called gorse which we’re told is an invasive species that originated in Cantabria but now grows throughout Europe. With 4-cm thorns and deep, strong roots, “Árguma (also known as Tojo) symbolizes the Cantabrian nation of the pre-Roman epoch, bristling in the same way for self-defense and deeply rooted in its native land.” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): A FOREST OF STARS, ÖVER, THE ORDER OF APOLLYON, TEZCATLIPOCA, BLACK MOLD

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Sep 022018
 

 

This Sunday’s collection of music validates the title of the series: No two of the songs are very much alike, and they display quite different degrees of “blackening”. If you’re like me, you’ll like all of it; even if you’re not, there’s enough diversity in the music that you’re bound to discover something of interest.

As you can see, there will be a second Part of what I’ve pulled together this week. But the odds are I won’t finish it in time to post it today, and you’ll see it tomorrow instead.

A FOREST OF STARS

The first single from A Forest of Stars‘ new album (“Precipice Pirouette”) was a glorious extravagance, a 10 1/2-minute pageant capable of carrying the listener away like a leaf in a gale. I said so, and so it must be true. And now we have a second single, with the delightfully loony yet carefully calculated title “Decomposing Deity Dance Hall“. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 78: KIZIN, INANNA, SOULROT

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Sep 012018
 

 

This MISCELLANY series is one of several that I started at NCS in the early days, but it has become moribund in recent years. In the case of this series, I posted the first edition on July 5, 2010, and the last one (No. 77) in June 2016, and the series had become very irregular even by then. So a refresher on the MISCELLANY game is probably worthwhile:

On a fairly random basis, I pick releases I’ve not heard before, usually by bands I’ve not heard before; I listen to a song or two (usually without much or any advance idea of what the music will sound like); I write my immediate impressions; and I then stream what I heard so you can make your own judgments. I should add that I have some ambitions to revive this series going forward, though I know myself too well to promise that it will happen on any kind of predictable basis.

I decided to sample the music of these three bands based solely on an e-mail we received from a Chilean metalhead whom I don’t know, recommending these three releases. All three groups are from Chile.

KIZIN

Of the three bands in this collection, Kizin have the most recent release, a 2018 debut album named Abstraction (released on July 17th), which includes cover art by Nox Fragor. Metal-Archives also lists three demos and a compilation in the discography of this group from Temuco going back to 2012, none of which I’ve heard. Abstraction is on Bandcamp, and on that page there’s a written prologue for the album: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINDFAERER — “ALMA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 312018
 

 

Those of you who’ve been visiting our site regularly for more than a year or two will be familiar with the name Windfaerer, because we’ve been following their steady ascent since early days. This New Jersey-based, folk-influenced black metal band was launched by guitarist and frontman M. Gonçalves as (we are told) “an epic black metal paean to his ancestral homeland of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)”. From its earliest days, Windfaerer has now evolved into a full band in which Gonçalves is joined by electric violinist B. Karas (aka Valček), guitarist I. Keren, bassist M. Muñoz, and drummer J. Applegate, some of whom contribute vocals in addition to their prodigious instrumental talents.

Since 2009 Windfaerer have released two albums, in addition to a few shorter releases, and their third full-length, Alma, is now rapidly approaching a September release by Fólkvangr Records and Avantgarde Music. It’s their most impressive work to date, as you’re about to discover through our stream of all eight tracks. Continue reading »

THREE FACES OF DEATH: BÆST, INNUMERABLE FORMS, NAILS OF IMPOSITION

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Aug 312018
 

 

(We present a collection of three death metal reviews by Andy Synn.)

If you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention to the digital metalsphere over the last several months then it’s highly likely you’ll have noticed quite a lot of people talking/writing about how this has been a real banner year for Death Metal, to the point where it’s starting to feel like its corpse-painted cousin, Black Metal, is really struggling to keep up.

And while there has been a solid number of truly great Black Metal albums released this year so far (with more still to come), there’s definitely some truth to this assertion. 2018 really is a great time to be alive if you’re a fan of massive riffs and guttural vocals.

So, in that spirit, here are three more ravenous recommendations, straight from my brain/fingers to your eyes/ears. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GODEATER, ATRAMENT, ZEALOT CULT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 312018
 

 

The nature of the chemical interactions triggered by the following three bomb-makers differ from each other, but the results are uniformly explosive — and that’s the word of the day for this post.

GODEATER

I confess that I got an advance listen to Godeater’s new single well before its release today (and before its premiere a couple of days ago), and was able to go back to it whenever I wanted, which I did on those many occasions when it seemed like a more efficient and slightly less life-threatening way of juicing my brain, during its sluggish phases, than jamming a wet finger into an electrical socket. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: SKEPTICISM AND ORKAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 302018
 

 

Today has been one of those days when most of the NCS slaves, including myself, have been diverted from NCS slavery by other compulsions. Without meaning to take anything away from the one review and one premiere we’ve furnished today, we just haven’t had time to do more.

This state of affairs gnawed on my brain to the point when I decided I would at least provide another quick hit of new music. I chose the songs in an odd way: I didn’t listen to them before making the choices. For a while this morning I was in a place where I could write but couldn’t listen, so I wrote first and listened later, and then wrote a bit more before having to bid NCS good-by until tomorrow.

SKEPTICISM

Admittedly, I wasn’t taking a complete shot in the dark when I picked this first song without listening to it. First, duh, it’s Skepticism. Second, I’ve heard the song before… sort of. Allow me to explain. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIFELOST — “MALIGN EMANATIO”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 302018
 

 

What happens when the frontman of the brain-twisting Spanish death metal band Wormed turns his imagination and talents to black metal? You are about to find out, because that is what Phlegeton has done through a new solo project named Lifelost.

The first fruits of this new adventure are collected in a debut album entitled Dialogues From Beyond. Perhaps it will come as no surprise, at least to those listeners who are fans of Wormed, that the music transports listeners far away from the familiar contours of the world in which we lead our daily lives and into a midnight-dark, alien dimension that turns reality upside-down and inside-out. It is a mystifying, hallucinatory, and above all, a very frightening place. The album track, “Malign Emanatio“, that we’re premiering today is a vivid example of these achievements. Continue reading »

RAW: “THE PERSECUTE HEINOUS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 302018
 

 

(Vonlughlio reviews the debut album by the one-man brutal death metal band RAW from Surabaya, Indonesia.)

Today’s write-up is about the debut of the Indonesian Brutal Death Metal band Raw entitled The Persecute Heinous, set to be released via Brutal Mind on August 31st. But before we get into that gem of BDM, I want to talk about the label.

Brutal Mind is an Indonesian label established in 2009 and their main chief, Mr. Deni Lisain, is well-respected in the scene, due to his hard work and dedication to the genre. How he has been able through the years to amass fans from around the world is something amazing. Continue reading »

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