LISTMANIA 2018: REVOLVER’S 30 BEST ALBUMS OF 2018

 LISTMANIA 2018  33 Responses »
Nov 282018
 

 

As part of our annual LISTMANIA series we re-publish “best album” lists from some of the the few surviving print publications that cover metal, and from a handful of “big platform” sites that include metal in their coverage, along with a range of other music genres and other aspects of popular culture.

Of course, as soon as you see the words “popular culture” you know there’s not going to be too much attention devoted to the kind of music we cover at NCS. But it’s still amusing, and sometimes even edifying, to get a glimpse of what the above-ground world is seeing acclaimed as metal’s best releases. Continue reading »

INHUME: A PREVIEW OF THE “EXHUME” COMPILATION AND AN INTERVIEW OF BEN JANSSEN

 Album Reviews, Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 272018
 

 

(On December 7th Xenocorp will release a special 25th-anniversary compilation of remastered material across the long career of the Dutch extremists Inhume. In this post Vonlughlio provides a preview of the release, including music, and an interview of the band’s guitarist Ben Janssen.)

This small preview is about Inhume, a Dutch BDM/Grindcore band that was founded back in 1994 who have released albums and shorter releases that for some (including me) are classics.  However, this project has not gotten the recognition it deserves, despite creating  quality music that is pure raw aggressiveness and reminds us of a golden era in the underground.

They have released some demos, splits, and four albums that are fast, deadly, in-your-face BDM/grind; the band just wants to rip your face off.  But their last release was the full-length Moulding The Deformed back in 2010, so you might understand that I’d given up on more music until I saw a FB status from the Xenocorp label that they would be releasing a compilation collecting all of Inhume’s demos and splits, tribute tracks, and previously unreleased material. Continue reading »

KUNSTZONE: “SOLARBORN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 272018
 

 

(In this post DGR reviews the latest album by one of his favorite projects, the two-headed industrial-death monster known as Kunstzone.)

I’ve followed Kunstzone for a long time, having covered them at this site since their debut release — an interest spawned by my having enjoyed its two component musicians’ prior projects: Khaozone and the various messes musician Alex Rise involves himself in, at the time his Tyrant Of Death project.

Half of the fun of following Kunstzone has been witnessing the tug-of-war for the group’s sound on each one of its releases, with one side slowly gaining a victory over the other. If one were to pick apart the industrial death metal group’s sound, one would note the slow favoring of more and more overall extremity on each one of the band’s releases, with the group’s 2017 single Creatures Of Sinew And Lard serving as a bellweather for what the group’s newest album Solarborn was going to subject us all to. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WITCHING HOUR — “AS I WALK AMONG SEPULCHRAL RUINS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 272018
 

 

“Blackened thrash” was an overly simplistic label for the music of Germany’s Witching Hour even in the case of their first two albums, 2009’s Rise of the Desecrated and especially 2011’s Past Midnight…, but it’s an even more superficial and inadequate way to describe their new record, …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon, which is due for release on December 21st by Hells Headbangers.

I suspect that most of us who are fans of black/thrash come to it for the blood-rush and the ferocity, for the feeling of demonic cruelty and chaos — intertwined with neck-wrecking riffs. What we usually don’t expect, and what Witching Hour deliver through the new album, are other dimensions of sound, style, and emotional resonance that give their music a mystical, dreamlike, and even somber aspect in the midst of all the slaughtering. Continue reading »

BLASPHEMER: THE PREMIERE OF “NAZARENE” AND A REVIEW OF “LUST OF THE GOAT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 262018
 

 

The British band Blasphemer, whose roots go back to 1990, returned to the field of battle with a self-titled album in 2017 after a 20-year gap in their musical output. The story of what happened to the band after their auspicious beginnings is recounted in this NCS interview. Fortunately, as that interview foretold, Blasphemer have let much less time pass between releases since then, with a second album now due for release by Grind Scene Records on November 30th.

While last year’s self-titled album was a roughly 50/50 mix of old Blasphemer compositions and new ones, Lust of the Goat brings eight newly-written tracks, one of which (“Child Catcher”) debuted last month, and we’re bringing you another one today. This new track, which closes the album, is “Nazarene“. Continue reading »

SVARTIDAUÐI: “REVELATIONS OF THE RED SWORD”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Nov 262018
 

 

(Andy Synn prepare this review of the new album by Svartidauði.)

As a fan of this weird and wonderful sub-genre we call “Extreme Metal”, you’d have to have been living under a rock for the past several years not to be aware of how impressive and influential (not to mention incestuous) the rapidly developing Icelandic Black Metal scene has become over the last several years.

But even though the scene is, in terms of wider international exposure at least, still relatively young, such is the prolific nature of the various bands and artists involved that a recognisable hierarchy of heretics has already begun to take shape.

And right at the top of the totem pole, in my opinion at least, are Svartidauði. Continue reading »

BLOG SLOW-DOWN AHEAD (AND NEW MUSIC FROM HELLLIGHT)

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 252018
 

 

Over the next two weeks you’re probably going to notice a diminution in the number of posts at NCS, compared to what you’ve become accustomed to. Rest assured that it’s not a sign of some awful catastrophe that has befallen us, or an indication that we’re getting tired of what we do. To banish any such concerns, I’m writing now to explain that I (Islander) will just be on vacation.

Of course, it’s likely that the rest of the NCS staff and contributors will continue to send reviews and interviews to me for publication at their usual pace, but because I tend to write most of the daily posts, things will probably slow down a bit. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CHAPEL OF DISEASE, MISOTHEIST, HAUSTIÐ, CNTMPT, VANANIDR

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Nov 252018
 

 

For reasons that I’ll explain in a subsequent post today — reasons that will also probably diminish the volume of content at our site over the next two weeks — I’ve written this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK hurriedly. As is always true, I picked this week’s selections because I really like them and believe most of you will too, but today I don’t have as much time to explain why. The bands, however, convincingly speak for themselves through their music.

CHAPEL OF DISEASE

This German death metal band established themselves as a force to be reckoned with through their first two albums, Summoning Black Gods (2012) and The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art (2015). Their new album, …And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye, will only elevate their already-respected status. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DEATH KARMA, ULVDALIR, HANORMALE, PROLIFERHATE, BATTALIONS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 242018
 

 

I didn’t really listen to these songs for the first time today. It was actually last night, though I did listen to them again on this Saturday morning, just to make sure that the vodka in my system on the previous evening hadn’t warped my judgment. I concluded it hadn’t, even if it might have super-heated an already warm reaction.

I like the way this playlist of new music and videos flows, even without the vodka lubricant, though it won’t put you in a single headspace and let you linger there for very long. It starts in ravaging and ravishing fashion, shifts into much more bewildering and cerebral gears, and then just rocks out.

DEATH KARMA

Thanks to a tip from my Norwegian fiend friend eitororm, I learned that the Czech band Death Karma, who share a couple of members (Vladimír Pavelka and Tom Coroner) with Cult of Fire, will be releasing a new album, The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part 2, TODAY on CD (and digitally on November 26th). Continue reading »

BEYOND CREATION / GOROD / ENTHEOS – LIVE IN BIRMINGHAM 23/11/18

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 242018
 


Gorod (in Prague, not Birmingham)

 

(Andy Synn spent last night at the Asylum in Birmingham, England, enjoying performances by Beyond Creation, Gorod, and Entheos, and has quickly provided the following report and videos.)

Despite how stultifyingly stressful this week has been for the most part, yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day all in all, as things at work took a major turn towards the positive, while the evening found me taking a trip over to Birmingham to catch three (out of four) great bands of the “technical” persuasion. Continue reading »

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