AN NCS PREMIERE: ABSOLVTION – “CONCRESCENCE OF THE OPPOSITE”

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Jun 102018
 

 

In May we presented the premiere of “The Lion’s Face”, one of four tracks on Gallow’s Destiny, the new EP by the French black/death metal band Absolvtion that will be released by Atavism Records on July 31st. Today we have another track from the EP for you, this one entitled “Concrescence of the Opposite“.

“The Lion’s Face” pulled the listener headlong into an alien nightmare, choking with the aroma of pestilence and dazzled by visions of shape-shifting archfiends. Both diabolically oppressive and irresistibly innervating, the song was an eye-opening herald to Absolvtion’s rising power within the globe-spanning realms of the black/death underground. The song you’re about to hear only further strengthens the appeal of the EP. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: CROCELL AND NYLITHIA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 092018
 

 

I feel like a broken record in writing this sentence, but will say again that my list of new songs that have appeared just in the last two weeks, and seem worth checking out, is enormous — more than 50 tracks long at this point. The paucity of SEEN AND HEARD posts over that period, due to the paucity of time I’ve been able to devote to NCS as a result of other distractions, means that the list has grown at a much faster rate than I’ve been able to whittle it down through listening and writing.

So, I came up with an idea for making headway against the tide: Rather than compiling “playlists” of four or five songs (or more) as is usual for the SEEN AND HEARD column, I’m going to spend at least the next week creating much shorter collections, under a new title, limited myself to only two tracks per post. This is the first of those. I hope to do this on a daily basis, but may fail.

CROCELL

Honestly, I’m not sure what happened here. Many of the scribblers at NCS, including me, have been devout fans of Crocell. And yet they came out with their fifth album in March (Relics) and until today we’ve said nothing about it. Having completely overlooked it, I haven’t even heard the record. But this new lyric video will cause me to remedy that glaring omission pretty damned quick. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: GOD DETHRONED

 WAXING LYRICAL  2 Responses »
Jun 092018
 

 

(After a brief hiatus, Andy Synn’s WAXING LYRICAL series resumes today with the results of Andy’s interview of God Dethroned’s Henri Sattler.)

Those of you who’ve been paying attention may have noticed that there was no new “Waxing Lyrical” column published last weekend, largely because Islander and co. were busy with Northwest Terror Fest (and also because I was at a wedding all weekend).

Thankfully normal service can now resume, and today’s entry is particularly special to me, as it features insight and input from Henri Sattler of the resurrected God Dethroned, who just so happen to be one of my all-time favourite bands! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATH PORTAL STUDIO SAMPLER 2018

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 082018
 

 

Persistent followers of our putrid site will recognize the name Death Portal Studio, as we’ve written multiple times about music from this Colorado label’s releases, which range from black and death metal to ambient and noise. To help spread the word about Death Portal and to expose more listeners to the spectrum of sounds represented by its array of releases, today we’re presenting the premiere of a new Death Portal sampler, which is now available for digital download with a “name your own price” option.

The sampler, prepared with the assistance of Hidden Hand Extreme Music Marketing, consists of 11 diverse, globe-spanning tracks from Gôr Mörgûl, Satarial, Hak-ed Damm, Sar Isatum, Chaoscraft, Sarcophagus, Sereignos, Zardens, Thrymheym, Striborg, and Aetranok. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOD WORSHIP — “SHADOWS ETCHED IN STONE”

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Jun 082018
 

 

Death’s Omnipotence is an apt name for the first EP by the Swedish black metal band Blood Worship: The deep shadows of death loom over the music, and the Great Leveller also strikes with implacable savagery. It is the sound of souls scythed out of existence and of survivors driven to the brink of devastation by their anguish. The music gets heads moving as it lashes and thrashes with explosive energy, and it just as effectively puts a deep chill down the spine. It is, in short, a hell of a good debut.

Blood Worship is a new band, the brainchild of Stockholm-based Astrophobos guitarist Martin Andersson, who also plays bass and contributes backing vocals on the EP. He was aided in the recording by Astrophobos bandmate Micke Broman, who is the lead vocalist here, and by session drummer David Folchitto (Fleshgod Apocalypse, Gravestone).

One track from the EP — “Rites of the Inner Shrine” — previously premiered at DECIBEL, and today we present another in advance of the June 15th release date: It’s the EP’s closing track, “Shadows Etched In Stone“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ANTAGONY — “END OF THE CIRCLE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 072018
 

 

The video we’re about to premiere provides a bit of history, a bit of nostalgia, and plenty of feral energy that hasn’t lost its punch or power despite the passage of 19 years since the release of the song featured in the video.

The band here is Antagony, a Bay Area group active from 1999-2009, that became one of the pioneers of deathcore, integrating elements of death metal, grind, and hardcore in ways that really hadn’t been done before. Their name may have been eclipsed in popularity by other groups that gained greater prominence, and their continuing progress hobbled by extensive line-up changes, but they’re still remembered to this day by a lot of fans. And their former members went on to form or join such bands as Oblivion, All Shall Perish, Hacksaw to the Throat, Suffokate, Oblige, Misericordiam, Connoisseur, and more.

Last year saw the release through Metal Injection of a 32-minute documentary film about Antagony directed by Brandon Hunt and entitled Dawn of Deathcore, much of it consisting of Antagony performance footage in the Bay Area. What we have for you today is a video for the song “End of Circle” that was bonus footage after the end of the closing credits and hasn’t been previously revealed. Continue reading »

MYLINGAR: “DÖDA DRÖMMAR”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jun 072018
 

 

The 2016 debut EP by the mysterious Swedish band Mylingar, Döda Vägar, was a nightmarish hybrid of black and death metal that seemed designed with the objective of inflicting torment and terror on a thermonuclear scale, igniting one violent hurricane of hate after another, each song ravaging the listener’s head with horrendous and even stupefying power while managing to provide unsettling changes of mood and gripping grooves to latch onto as handholds in these storms of sound.

A paradoxical combination of eagerness and fear gripped me upon learning that Mylingar had completed a debut album, and today it has been released through a conspiracy between Amor Fati Productions and Vigor Deconstruct/Fallen Empire Records. The name of the album is Döda Drömmar. How does it measure up against that frighteningly powerful first EP? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AL ARD — “WHO WANTS TO LIVE FORGOTTEN”

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Jun 072018
 

 

The Italian band Al Ard, originally formed in Sicily but now spread between Turin and Pavia in the north, have devoted themselves to the merging of ingredients from three adrenaline-inducing musical genres to create the channel for the hate they have to spit. With black metal as their main matrix, Al Ard have interwoven drum-and-bass and noise, the goal of their alchemical endeavors being to create a genuine melding of the sounds rather than a sequential stitching-together of distinct movements or an obvious layering of them in parallel.

“Industrial black metal” might be the genre label that comes to mind most readily, but it doesn’t completely capture what Al Ard have achieved. They name among their influences such groups and projects as Dodheimsgard, Red Harvest, MZ412, Brighter Death Now, Aborym, and DiabolicuM. Their debut album is self-titled, and it will be released on June 22nd by Aural Music’s sub-label code666, and from that album we happily present a new song name “Who Wants To Live Forgotten“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ATAVISMA — “INVOCATION OF ARCHAIC DEITIES”

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Jun 062018
 

 

The song you’re about to hear, “Invocation of Archaic Deities“, is a stupendous death-doom monstrosity, and it’s also stupendously good — a multifaceted, richly dynamic, electrifying, hook-heavy, and otherworldly piece of musical nightmare.

The track comes from The Chthonic Rituals, the eagerly awaited debut album by the French quartet Atavisma, which follows a debut single in 2014, a four-song demo that same year, a split 7″ with Maur in 2015, and a two-song 7″ last year released by Blood Harvest. The album will be released by Memento Mori on July 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ODIUM

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jun 062018
 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: NCS Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum had the good fortune of both attending this year’s Inferno Fest in Oslo and interviewing some of the musicians who performed there. The last of those discussions is the one we present today — an interview with guitarist/vocalist Secthdamon of the resurrected Norwegian symphonic black metal band Odium. The band’s 1998 album The Sad Realm of Stars was reissued by Blood Music a few years ago and is still available here.

Odium’s performance at Inferno was their first in 19 years, and a celebration of The Sad Realm’s 20th anniversary. The live line-up consisted of Secthdamon (Emperor, live), Gortheon (Myrkskog), Destructhor (Myrkskog, ex-Morbid Angel), Dominator (Dark Funeral), Righ (Cor Scorpii), and Morindune. Continue reading »

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