SEEN AND HEARD: CHURCHBURN, NIHILIFER, THE HOWLING VOID, JOHN MORELAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 052018
 

 

As mentioned yesterday, I’ve been missing in action at NCS for the better part of the last two weeks, attending one metal festival and helping present a second one. The last of these new music round-ups I was able to prepare came on May 18th. Since then, the flood of new metal has continued unabated rather than politely waiting until I could pay attention again. As a result, there’s perhaps even more than the usual degree of randomness in the following selections.

And speaking of randomness, I decided to include some country music at the end, which I learned about through a conversation on Sunday with Austin Lunn (Panopticon). And since I’ve now dropped his name, maybe you’ll be more likely to give the song a chance.

CHURCHBURN

The dark handiwork of Nestor Avalos adorns the new album by Rhode Island’s Churchburn, the name of which is None Shall Live…The Hymns of Misery. It will be released on July 13 through the Armageddon label. Some new members have joined the band since their last album four years ago, and guest performers appear on the album as well. The first advance track, “The Misery Hymns“, is the song I’ve chosen to lead off today’s playlist. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOTT — “LIFELESS WILL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 052018
 

 

The obscure Italian black metal band Nott, which is the work of the lone wolf Mortifero, has released three albums so far since 2013, the most recent of which was the Disfacimento full-length last year. And although that album may still be fresh in the minds of Nott’s adherents, the band has chosen to present a new EP this year, the title of which is Vestigium Mortis. Five of these seven tracks were originally composed more than a decade ago, intended for a first album that was never recorded, while the opening and closing tracks were composed by Noctuaria for Nott in 2018.

Vestigium Mortis will be released by the Italian label Obscvrvs Records on September 15th. While that seems a long way off in a world that rushes at a frantic pace, we have something for you that will make the wait worthwhile and fortify your patience: the premiere of a track from the EP named “Lifeless Will“, which is one of the songs first composed years ago and now finally recorded. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONSTRUCT OF LETHE — “TERRACES OF PURGATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 052018
 

 

Metal feeds a multitude of needs, both emotional and intellectual. At one end of the genre’s vast multidimensional spectrum, it can induce a dreamlike revery, guiding the mind in a gliding drift across astral planes. At another end of the spectrum, it can slug you in the neck and jellify the brain with explosions of chaotic savagery, playing upon our darkest fears. With the song you’re about to hear, we’re at that latter end of the span.

The song in question is “Terraces of Purgation” from Exiler, the powerful new death metal album by Construct of Lethe, which will be released on June 20 by Everlasting Spew Records. It features guest vocals by Enrico H. Di Lorenzo (Hideous Divinity). This is the second premiere from the album that it’s been our privilege to bring you, following “Rot of Augury”, and if you missed that one you’ll also have a chance to hear it at the end of this post along with the album’s first advance track, “The Clot”. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NORDJEVEL

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 052018
 

 

(We present Karina Noctum’s interview of DzeptiCunt (ex-Ragnarok), bassist for the Norwegian black metal band Nordjevel, who are working on a new album named Necrogenesis which will be released by Osmose Productions and who will be embarking on a European tour with Hate in July, following appearances at Hellfest (France) and Garasjefestivalen (Norway). The interview took place during Inferno Festival 2018.)

 

You released an EP last year. Are you in the process of writing a new album?

Yes indeed, we are close to finishing our second album! We are very excited to see how it will turn out altogether; the songs that are already written are killer!

 

What stage is the album’s creation at now?

The album is in the making as we speak, we have written 6 songs and another 4-5 coming up soon. We haven’t decided which songs will be on the album yet — we’ll see when all songs are recorded. Our designer will be starting on the artwork for the upcoming album these days as well. Continue reading »

FRACTAL GATES: “THE LIGHT THAT SHINES”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 052018
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of the new album by Fractal Gates, which was released on May 12th through Naturmacht Productions.)

Five years between discs is on the long end of the “should I just stop checking to see if this band is doing anything or move on” segment of the waiting scale for fans. It actually may be the darkest part of said scale, where you wind up quickly moving through the five stages of grief about letting a group go, yet being thankful at the same time for all the music you do enjoy from them while clinging to the hope that if something new does pop up in the future it will serve as a pleasant surprise. It’s an odd yet freeing type of emotional whiplash, and one that many fans of France’s prog keyboard-heavy melodeath crew of Fractal Gates had likely started going through as the time passed since the release of the group’s 2013 album, Beyond The Self.

The musicians in Fractal Gates have certainly kept busy during that time, particularly vocalist Sebastien Pierre, who has become part of a variety of projects including Enshine, his solo work through Cold Insight, his various Mass Effect cover songs and reimaginings, and even some work with Monolithe — but those who enjoyed the up-tempo, keyboard-heavy work of Fractal Gates finally got their own taste of new material this year with the group’s new, densely packed album The Light That Shines, a disc that has absorbed five years worth of experiences into its own introspective formula. Continue reading »

WE’RE STILL HERE

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jun 042018
 


Panopticon at Northwest Terror Fest

I forecast a slow-down at NCS a couple of weeks ago and explained why. It did occur to me that some people might have missed that post and that I ought to say it again, in case our readers assumed the forces of shitty metal had finally succeeded in shackling and then dismembering us. That didn’t happen; the struggle continues. But I never got around to posting a reminder about why the volume of music and words has dwindled.

The reason that happened is that I and some other NCS villains made the trip to Baltimore for Maryland Deathfest and then turned right around and help put on Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. The latter ended on Saturday night; we spent Sunday loading backline gear and other stuff out of the venues and storing things for the 2019 edition of NWTF — and then drinking for about 8 hours solid, until past midnight, joined by some excellent people from one of the bands who performed at the fest. Continue reading »

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 042018
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this article, which includes thoughts about the new albums by Lago from Arizona and Burial In the Sky from Pennsylvania.)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but the concept of pure “originality”, in its most stringent and (ironically) restrictive form, is often given far too much weight and consideration when bands are being critiqued/assessed.

Now this in no way excuses bands whose music never rises above being a dilute derivative of something we’ve heard a thousand times before, but the truth is that the majority of musical growth and evolution occurs in the form of slow, incremental changes, with successive artists tweaking, altering, and adding to the formula(s) of their predecessors over time.

In that sense it’s a lot like science, where new developments are generally the results of years of perseverance, building on the legacy of the work done previously, so that the chain of events, the path of discovery, is clear for all to see.

Of course in music, as in science, there will always be sudden, paradigm-altering breakthroughs when inspiration suddenly strikes, and something truly “original” is created, but, for the most part, we need to acknowledge that all of us, from the least to the greatest, are standing on the shoulders of giants. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 97): WAYFARER

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
Jun 012018
 

 

(Andy Synn delivers a SYNN REPORT for the month of May, focusing on the discography of the Colorado band band Wayfarer.)

Recommended for fans of: Agalloch, Panopticon, Oak Pantheon

One of the great things about writing The Synn Report over all these years is how much variety has been involved since its inception, with the collected entries (now nearing a cool one hundred) covering a wide swathe of the Metal landscape as well as a solid proportion of the globe.

Heck, in just the last ten entries we’ve had entries from Norway, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Poland, and the USA, featuring a mix of Black, Death, Sludge, Thrash, and Post-Metal, and I have plan to visit many more countries and a variety of other genres (and sub-genres) going forwards.

This month’s entry however, as well as being a day late, just so happens to mark the second entry in a row hailing from the good ol’ US of A (Denver, Colorado, to be exact)… and next month’s might just end up making three in a row if things carry on the way they are doing… but I think you’ll find that the strength of the music on offer easily justifies this decision to stick around in the putative “Land of the Free”. Continue reading »

DEAD WRETCH: “HUG DIVISION DEAD WRETCH”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 312018
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Dead Wretch, released on April 27th by the Albuquerque label Ipos Music.)

Hug Division Dead Wretch may be the fastest I have ever gone from clicking around with the Random Band button on Metal-Archives to purchasing an album.

Hug Division Dead Wretch is the first full-length for Dead Wretch, a one-man project belonging to musician Daniel Jackson based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, that at one point counted amongst its ranks fellow band member “Definitely Not A Copy Of EZDrummer”. It is a tongue-in-cheek black/death/grind project that despite its less-than-serious origins has grown into something that not only has an acidic sense of commentary but also the musical bite to back it up. Having spent a few years launching EPs and a handful of joking singles, Dead Wretch released its previously mentioned first full-length this year, comprising mostly new songs and three tracks re-done from the project’s first EP, the tersely titled fuck it.

While most projects like this tend to make use of the plug-and-play nature of grindcore, Dead Wretch performs a much more difficult act — that of skewering various specific subjects (at one point claiming to be from Minot, North Dakota, so they too could seem more exotic) but also offering righteous indignation and social commentary (check out “Eat Shit” for an immediate example) while backing it up with excellent music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): JYOTISAVEDANGA — “THERMOGRAVIMETRY WARP CONTINUUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
May 302018
 

 

Although the subject is not free from doubt, the laws of thermodynamics can be understood to forecast a far distant future in which ever-increasing entropy leads to the heat death of the universe. Order devolves into disorder, chaos leads to extinction, and meanwhile the unexplored fifth dimension of our reality shadows the path of this lethal arrow of time.

These concepts have inspired the harrowing sounds of Jyotiṣavedāṅga, but mysticism holds a powerful attraction as well. This international entity, whose members consist of guitarist Sadist from the Indian band Tetragrammacide; H. from Russia’s Sickrites on synths, noise, and effects; vocalist AR, from the Kolkata band Banish; and Ukrainian drummer Dimitry Kim (Sickrites, Goatpsalm, Balance Interruption), is named after Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa, one of the earliest known Indian texts on astronomy and astrology. In their music and lyrics, they seek an intersection “between light and obscurity, between science and superstition, between good and evil”, a place “between the pit of all fears and the peak of all true knowledge.”

How they have done this you are about to discover. Jyotiṣavedāṅga’s new album, Thermogravimetry Warp Continuum, will be released by Larval Productions on June 6th, and now we give you the chance to hear the full album in advance of its release. Continue reading »

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