IMPURE SOUNDS: GOLGOTHAN REMAINS, GRAVEIR

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102018
 

 

Impure Sounds is an appropriately named independent label and recording studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Their past releases have included works I’ve written about at NCS, including a split by Graveir and Mar Mortuum, and the debut album by Dødknell. Impure Sounds now has two new releases on the way, one of which can now be streamed and downloaded in full and the other of which has an advance track up for listening — and both are very good.

 

GOLGOTHAN REMAINS: PERVERSE OFFERINGS TO THE VOID

Sydney’s Golgothan Remains launched their first demo two years ago and are now following that with a full-length record through Impure Sounds named Perverse Offerings To the Void. A digital version of the album is available now, and a 12″ vinyl is scheduled for April 20.

“Vehemence (Through Pain Divine)” opens the album in stunning fashion, with titanic rumbling and booming in the low end, bursts of freakish, swarming guitar dissonance in the upper reaches, and grim grinding in the mid-range, like a bone saw scything through gangrenous limbs. The destructive barrage of sound is segmented by slower cascades of pile-driving brutality. A heartless roaring monstrosity has somehow seized the microphone, venting a tyrannical tirade in the midst of this war zone. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MYSTAGOS, AMNUTSEBA, SCARIFICARE, NATAS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102018
 

 

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has visited us more than once that I enjoy doing premieres of new music. Sometimes, however, I lose my head: For example, over the last two days we did eight of them. I believe in the worth of each one of those, but they shoved everything else out of the way, including this post, which I started writing last Wednesday and couldn’t finish.

Posting this on Saturday runs it right up against the usual spot for this SHADES OF BLACK series on Sunday, but so be it. I’ll still post another one of these installments tomorrow, and then try to figure out how to catch up on Monday with everything else I’ve neglected over the last two days.

MYSTAGOS

In December we premiered a song from a then-forthcoming EP named Pvrvsha by the Spanish black metal band Mystagos. That song alone (“Drowning In the Sea of Unconsciousness”) was enough to land the EP on my own “most anticipated” list for the early months of 2018. And on February 1, Pvrvsha was released by BlackSeed Productions. It’s available now through Bandcamp, and if you haven’t heard it, you really should give it your full attention. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEDNJA — “DOLINE SU OSTALE IZA NAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 092018
 

 

The Bednja is a river in northern Croatia that rises in the mountainous forested areas near Macelj and follows a winding path until it flows into the larger Drava River. Bednja is also the name of a small village located near the river’s spring, well-known for the hard-to-understand dialect of its people… and for being very cold. And Bednja is also the name of the three-man Croatian band whose debut album, Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas, we’re now premiering.

When the band contacted us about the possibility of a premiere, I began listening to the album, as I always do before deciding whether to host a premiere. By the end of the second song, I was completely captured by the music and hurriedly wrote YES! before the third song began. As I eventually discovered, the rest of the album is every bit as good as the way it begins, striking like an unexpected bolt from the blue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NORTH HAMMER — “AVATAR”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 092018
 

 

Andrew James from Edmonton, Canada (and a member of Eye of Horus and Shotgunner) is completely open and forthright about the passions that have inspired his creation of the solo project North Hammer and the music on the debut album Stormcaller, which is set for release on March 16th.

He names the mighty Quorthon as well as Wintersun, Ensiferum, Amon Amarth, Aether Realm, and Blind Guardian as the revered sources of his musical inspiration, and ancient Norse legends as the wellspring from which he has drawn the new album’s thematic and lyrical concepts. The name of the project itself was meant to invoke winter (as well as his native Canada) and of course Thor’s formidable hammer, Mjölnir. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “FAR ABOVE THE BOILING SEA OF LIFE”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Feb 092018
 

 

The photograph that appears on the cover of Stardust, the new album by the Belgian black metal band Soul Dissolution, is beautiful, otherworldly, and haunting. You can imagine standing on that cold, craggy shore, gazing in wonder as the sea becomes illuminated by a column of celestial light, as if a window on the cosmos has been mysteriously opened and what was once inexpressibly distant has now been brought near.

It’s not the cover art alone that might make listeners feel a sense of wonder, or to become rhapsodic in their reactions to the album. The music has a similar effect, as you’ll soon discover: Today we open a window into Stardust’s own celestial vistas in advance of its March 25 release by Black Lion Records through our premiere of the album’s closing track, “Far Above the Boiling Sea of Life“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: NEGATIVE SLUG — “BLISS OF CORPSE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

On February 9th — tomorrow — Cimmerian Shade Recordings will release a new EP by Negative Slug from Zagreb, Croatia. Before this record, the band had released a trio of EPs and a debut album. I hadn’t heard any of them, but I read the song titles before listening to the new release.

As a representative sample, they included tracks named “Horrendously Noxious”, “Black Smoke Atrocities”, “Rotten Existence”, “Thermal Piss Eyes”, and “Blotted Rotted”. I began to expect something foul and mean-spirited was headed my way. And of course the name of the new album is Bliss Of Corpse.

Some of the song titles on the new record can be found on the earlier releases, as well as the title track and an ode named “Slugs & Snails”. I was not expecting happy or polite music. Aural hell was what I was expecting. I mean, look at that creepy-as-shit album cover up there. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ERYN NON DAE. — “ASTRAL”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

When you have followed, enjoyed, and praised the work of a band for as long as our site has been doing in the case of Eryn Non Dae., there is some risk that objectivity will be lost, or at least as much objectivity as can play a role in the appreciation of music, which some might argue isn’t very much at all.

Our site has been alive since November 2009, and one of our earliest reviews, only two months later, was of this French group’s debut album, Hydra Lernaïa. Since then, we’ve written about them more than a dozen other times, the last of which was a post in which my comrade Andy Synn named the band’s new album, Abandon of the Self, one of his most anticipated albums of 2018. It has been one of mine as well.

Eryn Non Dae. do not hurry themselves. More than five years have passed since their second album, Meliora; and it took roughly three years for Meliora to arrive after Hydra Lernaïa. If you’re a fan, you must be patient, but we’ve learned that the patience is rewarded. We’re about to learn that again. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ALL MY SINS – “ZOV IZ MAGLE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

(We present the premiere of a new two-song EP by the Serbian duo All My Sins, which is now available on Bandcamp, preceded by a review of the release by Andy Synn.)

 

There are some people out there who would have you believe that there are only really two types of bands – “innovators” and “imitators”.

But this is a vast, and misleading, over-simplification of how things really are.

The truth of the matter is that most bands will never be the next Mayhem/Opeth/Meshuggah… or whoever… but that doesn’t mean their music doesn’t have value.

In fact I’d contend that it’s more important to be distinctive, rather than “innovative”, in your chosen field, and that the willingness and ability to truly pour your heart and soul into your music, to twist and tweak established facets and features into something that truly represents your vision, is the most vital thing of all. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUTOKRATOR — “AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

The first two Autokrator albums — the self-titled debut in 2015, and The Obeisance To Authority in 2016 — were senses-shattering experiences. On my own senses, the first album (reviewed here, with an interview) probably had a more stupefying impact, because I didn’t know what was about to hit me. For the second one, I had the good sense to wear body armor and flame-resistant head-gear before listening; but it wasn’t enough. It blew right through me like a howling hurricane.

I’m speaking in a figurative sense, of course, but only barely. The almost unmitigated savagery and destructive power of Autokrator’s death/industrial assaults are overpowering. But the music also exerts a powerful primal appeal; you can become easily intoxicated by this brand of violence. And so, with steeled nerves but with a trembling mix of fear and excitement, I confront the fact that Autokrator are about to unleash hell again.

The band’s new album is Hammer of the Heretics. It will be released on April 10 by Krucyator Productions. It consists of five tracks, including one mind-scarring interlude, and today we present the album-opener, a piece called “Against Flesh and Blood“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORMALIST — “ARSON”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

If you have not yet heard a note of music from the Italian band Formalist, there are still ample reasons to expect that Formalist will be formidable. Four reasons, to be more precise: Their vocalist is Ferdinando Marchisio, frontman of Forgotten Tomb; their bassist Nicola Casella and drummer Riccardo Rossi (also in charge of electronics) come from Malasangre; and guitarist Michele Basso has been the central figure in Viscera///.

One would expect that an alliance among those four would produce an amalgam of doom, black metal, sludge, and ambient/drone capable of opening “new gates to total sonic horrors”, “with a completely hostile, nihilistic approach to vocals and lyrics” — just as the labels who will jointly be releasing Formalist’s debut album on March 16th have claimed. Those labels are Third I Rex (UK), Wooaaargh (Germany), and Toten Schwan Records (Italy). The name of the album is No One Will Shine Anymore.

Yes, these are completely legitimate expectations. But we will see for ourselves whether they prove true. Continue reading »

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