AFGRUND: “THE DYSTOPIAN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 202018
 

 

(We present DGR’s review of the new album by the Swedish/Finnish trio Afgrund, which was released last month.)

 

There’s already been a couple of victorious return-from-the-ashes releases so far in 2018, and one of the earliest — after a long period of silence — was on January 5th, courtesy of Swedish/Finnish grind collective Afgrund.

Still somewhat embroiled in a dispute with others in their history over who owns the name has resulted in potentially two versions of the band existing. The three-piece group presented here consists of founding and long-time members Andy, Pat, and Panu, who among the three of them were with the band in one form or another from their first releases up to the 2012 album, The Age Of Dumb. On January 5th, this group returned under the Afgrund banner with a new album, eleven tracks jammed into a little over twenty-three minutes, delivering a dark and pessimistic fiery blast of grind-and-punk under the title The Dystopian.

The Dystopian feels like Afgrund returning home in more ways than one, not only because the lineup consists of founding members but also in the way The Dystopian moves and what it consists of. It sounds like Afgrund knocking down all of their old favorites all over again, reaching into a comfortably familiar bag of tricks in order to dispense high-speed blasts and yells about the world of today. The Dystopian is Afgrund performing a delicate balancing act, viewing the world through a current lens yet throwing themselves back in time in order to effectively restart the band. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WHEN BLOOD FALLS DOWN — “SERPENS CIRCULUM ALBIDUS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 192018
 

 

The wolven brotherhood When Blood Falls Down come our way from the city of León in Guanajuato, Mexico. Their debut album P A N D AE M O N I U M will be released later this year by Transcending Records, and today we have for you an official video for a song from the album called “Serpens Circulum Albidus“.

The song could be thought of as a manifestation of satanic blackened deathcore. While creating an atmosphere that’s persistently ominous and arcane — a feeling that’s enhanced by the shadowy, occult-themed video — the band mete out a serious beating capable of leaving welts, bruises, and more than a few loose teeth. Continue reading »

CYPECORE: “THE ALLIANCE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 192018
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new fourth album by the German band Cypecore, which was released on February 16, 2018.)

 

I’ve known about Cypecore since the debut of their third album Identity, released in 2016. I don’t know a lot about the history of the band, but that record came after a 6-year gap between albums. I’ve never heard anything from those first two albums, only Identity, and the subject of today’s review. This new release by them is The Alliance.

Cypecore are not some futuristic black metal band, despite what you might immediately assume from their attire. Rather, they are a brawny, massive melodic death metal band with a lot of industrial/electronic elements sandwiched in. It’s all about grooves, hooks, and atmospherics with machine-gun rhythms and grandiose melodic set pieces. I’d call them Heaven Shall Burn mixed with Fear Factory and Reroute To Remain/Soundtrack To Your Escape-era In Flames, all things I happen to be a fan of. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SENTIENT HORROR — “BLED DRY BY THE NIGHT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 192018
 

 

The cover art of the great Juanjo Castellano heralds the return of Sentient Horror from the crypts below, where they have been at work creating a ghoulish new five-track EP named… The Crypts Below. The vault will be opened wide on March 30, when the EP will be released through the conspiracy of Redefining Darkness Records (North America) and Testimony Records (Europe), but something abominable is escaping into our world today… a new song named “Bled Dry By the Night“.

Those of you who are familiar with this death metal band’s 2016 debut album, Ungodly Forms, will have a good idea what to expect, but may still not be fully prepared for the new terrors on this EP, which includes a cover of Edge of Sanity’s “Darkday” (from 1993’s The Spectral Sorrows) and four new original songs. As guitarist/vocalist Matt Moliti explains: Continue reading »

NECROPHOBIC: “MARK OF THE NECROGRAM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 192018
 

 

(This is Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Necrophobic, which will be released by Century Media on February 23, 2018.)

 

There was a time, way back in 2009, when the constant kvetching and complaining about what constituted “real” Black Metal – mostly fuelled by a bunch of obnoxious elitists online desperately trying to portray themselves as the true heirs to a half-baked ideology cooked up by a bunch of disaffected Norwegian teenagers – started to take a real toll on my ability to appreciate it.

More and more it seemed that, despite being long associated (in my mind at least) with creative freedom and primal emotion, the Black Metal scene was becoming just as ignorant, insular, and cluttered with impotent keyboard warriors and perpetual adolescents, as any other.

Thank God Satan for Necrophobic then, who swept in at just the right time to help reignite my passion for the genre. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WIEGEDOOD, ATRA VETOSUS, JUBAL, AGRONA, LUSTRE, KALMANKANTAJA, BLUTVIAL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Feb 182018
 


Wiegedood – photo by Stefaan Temmerman

 

Saturdays and Sunday mornings have become challenging times for me in the thinking I allocate to these SHADES OF BLACK posts. Having listened off and on to a lot of new black metal during the preceding week, I think I’ve figured out by mid-day Saturday what to include, and then, by coincidence or cunning, a whole bunch of new stuff lands in my lap.

Yesterday was a prime example. Having narrowed my choices, they suddenly ballooned again, thanks to late-breaking recommendations from friends and readers, and e-mails from bands and labels. The flood of communications into our chaotic command center usually dwindles dramatically on Saturdays, but those that persist tend to focus on music from the black realms, and I tend to pay attention to them more quickly because everything else has kind of cleared out.

What to do? Well, one thing I did was to expand the volume of music in today’s post. And given my renewed resolution to cut down on the number of premieres I agree to write during the week, another option will be to collect more new music in a blackened vein for a week-day edition of this series.

WIEGEDOOD

I do my best not to read comments about music on the internet (or comments about almost anything else) unless they were written by friends or respected musicians, or unless they appear at NCS. I can guess that if I made an exception to that resolution in the case of Wiegedood’s new song and video, the majority of them would be juvenilia about penises. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABOMINATIONS — “INVASION OF UNEARTHLY BEINGS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 182018
 

 

The German band Imperceptum (from Bremen), has released two EPs and three albums. I’ve reviewed all of them excerpt the first EP. At the risk of oversimplifying the experience of Imperceptum’s music, it combines elements of atmospheric black metal, funeral doom, ambient music, and post-metal to create long void-faring journeys that are both terrifying and beautiful.

The richly textured music moves from immense hurricanes of cataclysmic fury to slower, earth-shattering, and crushingly bleak expositions of doom, to illuminating drifts through astral planes or across the yawning maw of deep space. Sweeping and soaring movements of vast and alien grandeur are juxtaposed against harrowing, blood-freezing storms of shock and awe. All of the releases are immersive; the songs are long, but for this listener the minutes seem to pass without any consciousness that time is passing.

I provide that prelude to explain the thrill I felt when I learned that Imperceptum’s sole creator (who goes by the nom de guerre Void) has another project, a death metal operation named Abominations. Abominations released two demos in 2016 — Realms of Horror and Darkness and Insanity — and a debut album, Summoning Death, will be released in March. Today we bring you a stream of its first single, “Invasion of Unearthly Beings“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 2): THY CATAFALQUE, GRAVEYARD, SKELETAL REMAINS, BLACK ROYAL, OUTER HEAVEN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 172018
 

 

Still playing catch-up after a week devoted mainly to premieres, I picked the following five tracks to conclude this two-part Saturday round-up. I’m definitely not caught up yet, but this will have to do for now. More catching up will happen tomorrow, with the usual Sunday focus on black metal.

THY CATAFALQUE

Tamás Kátai has recorded a new Thy Catafalque album, and I could hardly be more excited to hear it. If perchance you haven’t discovered Thy Catafalque, carve out some time this weekend and go explore the Bandcamp page, which I’ve linked below. I think you’ll find the music distinctive and enthralling.

The new album (the eighth one) is Geometria, and Season of Mist plans to release it on May 4. Tamás explains that this one includes violins, electronica, occasional saxophone, trumpet, and fretless bass, plus the voices of Martina Veronika Horváth (Nulah, Niburta) and Gyula Vasvári (Perihelion), in addition to his own. Viktoria Varga also provides narration. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 1): AUGURY, THE CROWN, DRUDKH, ROTTING CHRIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 172018
 


Augury – photo by Mélany Champagne

 

I made a resolution last night: I resolved that henceforth I will post no more than two premieres a day, and only one per day if it’s a full album stream. During the week just ended, I posted 14 premieres, and two of those were full albums.

I might not care about the volume if I could be content to write little more than, “Here — listen to this!”, and then just provide the music stream. But where’s the fun in that? Besides the fun, I feel a compulsion to include reviews with the premieres, even if only the bands or labels might pay attention to what I write. Given that mindset, working on a big flood of premieres tends to constrict my ability to do anything else — such as compile round-ups like this one.

Full disclosure: I’ve made resolutions like this one before, and couldn’t stick to them. Did I mention that we’ll have another premiere tomorrow? It’s really good!

Anyway, as you can see, this is a two-part round-up. I decided to collect some older arrivals in this first part, organized alphabetically. My colleague DGR suggested all of them for a newsy post that would have been timely if I’d been able to get it done when he made the suggestions. Maybe some of these will still be news to a few of you despite the delay. They also involve higher profile bands; I’ve got some lesser-known groups for Part 2. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PUREST OF PAIN — “THE SOLIPSIST”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 162018
 

 

Purest of Pain is a Dutch melodic death metal band led by guitarist and principal songwriter Merel Bechtold of Delain (and also a member of MaYaN and The Gentle Storm, with Anneke van Giersbergen and Arjen Anthony Lucassen). In Purest of Pain, her bandmates now include Delain drummer Joey de Boer, guitarist Michael van Eck, vocalist J.D. Kaye, and bassist Frank van Leeuwen.

Purest of Pain’s debut album, Solipsis, will be released on March 1st, building on the band’s 2013 single, “Momentum”, and their 2011 EP, Revelations In Obscurity. Today we present a lyric video for a song from the album called “The Solipsist“. Continue reading »

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