AN NCS PREMIERE: GLOOMY GRIM — “STARS ABOVE ME”

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Oct 052018
 

 

On October 20th GrimmDistribution (Ukraine) and MurdHer Records (Italy) will release a new EP by the Finnish symphonic black metal band Gloomy Grim entitled Obscure Metamorphosis, and today we present the second track in the EP’s running order, “Stars Above Me“.

This makes the third year in a row when we’ve premiered music off different releases by this band, but a few words of introduction might still be warranted for those who are encountering their music for the first time. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INFESTUS — “THRYPSIS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 052018
 

 

(On October 5th, Debemur Morti Productions will release the new album by the German band Infestus. Here, we present the premiere of a full album stream, preceded by Andy Synn‘s review.)

Read about, or write about, Metal for any appreciable length of time and you’ll probably notice that we talk about evolution a lot.

In particular, we frequently refer to (and argue about) the ways in which bands evolve, or choose not to evolve, over time, and the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to develop, refine, or maintain their sound.

Some bands, of course, are like sharks – musical predators perfectly suited to their environment, with no need (or desire) to change what they do or how they do it – while others are more mutable in nature, and don’t just embrace change, but actively pursue it.

Infestus are one such band. Continue reading »

HISSING: “PERMANENT DESTITUTION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 042018
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the debut album by the Seattle band Hissing, which will be released by Profound Lore on October 26th.)

Barely any time has passed since Profound Lore Records unleashed the aural savagery of Infernal Coil’s Within a World Forgotten upon the world, and now they are already back at it with the debut full-length by Seattle-based trio Hissing. Titled Permanent Destitution, this album capitalizes on the buzz around their 2016 self-titled seven-inch and also a well-received split with noise mongers Sutekh Hexen. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ZEALOT CULT — “SEA OF SUFFERING”

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Oct 042018
 

 

At the end of August I encountered “Blades of Jihad“, the first advance track from Spiritual Sickness, the debut album by the Irish death metal band Zealot Cult. Afterward, I suspected that I had a cretinous expression on my face while listening — mouth open, eyes glazed, perhaps a few rivulets of drool seeping out of my maw. The song begins strong, and the WOW factor only multiplies as the minutes pass.

Since then we’ve been given the opportunity to premiere a second advance track from the album, which you’ll find at the end of this post, below an assortment of borderline-demented verbiage. “Sea of Suffering” is a different beast than “Blades of Jihad“, but also left me gobsmacked. Continue reading »

A DIALOGUE ON THE “DEATH OF GENRES”

 Mosh Pit  15 Responses »
Oct 042018
 

 

Two days ago Metal Hammer published an essay entitled “I witnessed the death of genres“, in which the author raved about the live performance he’d recently witnessed by a band named  Scarlxrd, praising the artist’s hybridizing of musical styles from different genres, including metal. The article ended with these words:

“Where else will you find a night of music so indebted to aggressive metal and hip-hop, but unafraid to introduce AC/DC and Oasis into the mix? This is the future of music. Just music. Nobody cares about your arcane genre tags or inexplicably niche sub-genres that only two bands fit into, it’s all just sound, we’re in a genre fluid world and you should embrace it. Music is beautiful and narrow-mindedness is ugly.

“Be part of something, be part of everything.”

This provoked a Facebook status by my NCS colleague Andy Synn. By the time I saw it, it had drawn a large number of comments and exchanges, and one of those dialogues was with our mutual friend and former NCS scribe Joseph Schafer (who now writes for such publications and sites as DECIBEL and Noisey, after a stint as Invisible Oranges‘ editor). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HOLOCAUSTO EM CHAMAS — “לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 032018
 

 

Last year the Portuguese raw black metal band Holocausto Em Chamas  made a strong recording debut, first with the Sermões da montanha demo and then participating in a split with the Icelandic band Óreiða, both of them released by Harvest of Death. Now, the same label is poised to release the band’s debut album — לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ — on October 5th. Today we present the first public stream of the entire album.

It would be difficult to overstate the intensity of the terrors transmuted into sound through these 11 songs. Almost every song presents alternating sequences, interweaving different infernal ideas and arcane energies — from wretched, malignant doom to virulent black metal malignance (with tonalities of gothic horror rearing their head as well) — and all of them stinking of sulphur. The movements are narcotic and necrotic, murderously delirious and morbidly oppressive, and most definitely not for frail ears or fragile minds. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NEGATIVA — “XXI”

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Oct 032018
 

 

The Spanish depressive black metal band Negativa seems completely committed to their philosophy, a dogma in which an inner turmoil of “dismal negativity, dread, and insurmountable misery” is channeled through the catharsis of nightmarishly wretched sound. They don’t reach out to make human connections, to offer empathy or invite sympathy. They don’t disclose their identities or their lyrics (nor name their releases or compositions), and their music — as you will discover — seems unreservedly nihilistic, and often quite unnerving.

Despite the dehumanizing and debilitating aspects of the band’s outward manifestations, the sensations revealed through the music do have the capacity to make intense connections with the listener, as if casting a black spell that makes Negativa’s nightmares your own, or perhaps reacquainting you with personal torments you thought you could lock away in a dark corner of your mind.

03 is Negativa‘s second album. It will be jointly released by Sentient Ruin and Nebular Carcoma Records on October 19th. What we bring you today is a track identified as “XXI“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ICHOR — “GOD OF THUNDER GOD OF WAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Oct 022018
 

 

There is no escaping the long shadow of the Australian black metal band Nazxul in introducing Ichor and their debut album, God of Thunder God of War, which will be released by Seance Records on October 5th. The two members of Ichor — Wraith and Diablore — actually started the band in 1993, but put Ichor aside, after recording a demo, in order to focus on Nazxul, in which Wraith has been involved continuously since the beginning and in which Diablore (under the name Dalibor) was also an original member. In 2017 they decided to revive Ichor, and the results of their collaboration are what you’re about to hear.

We’re told that tehse two chose the name Ichor, the ancient Greek word for the fluid that runs in the gods’ veins, to express the concept that the only difference between humanity and the gods is a physical substance or principal, signifying that humanity can rise to the ranks of gods. But while the ancient Greeks may have furnished the name, this first album thematically focuses on Slavic paganism. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ARES KINGDOM, LIMOS, WOUNDVAC, VEIN COLLECTOR

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Oct 022018
 

 

“Short But Sweet” is the tag we usually apply to reviews and streams of EPs and other releases that are less than album-length; we would apply the tag consistently except sometimes I forget to add it. Today I’m adding it when in one instance I probably shouldn’t, since one of the following releases is classified as an album — though it’s only about six minutes longer than one of the following EPs. But I’m late getting to it and wanted to say something about it without further delay.

This post is “Short But Sweet” for another reason: Pressed for time, I’m not able to write respectable reviews, just brief words of praise about each of these four items. I’ll add that each of these occupies a different genre space from the others, so you should check out all of them even if some don’t hit your own sweet spot.

ARES KINGDOM

My interest in this Kansas City death-thrashing band, whose recording roots go back into the mid-’90s, extends to the very early days of this site — the first review I wrote about their music was in May 2010, about six months after I launched NCS. I’ve written more things about them since then, not only because their music is so damned good but also because I also got interested in their personal stories. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTIVERSE — “BLACK WAVES OF SORCERY”

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Oct 012018
 

 

WARNING: Excessive metaphors ahead! I’ve tried to bottle them up, but this blood-boilng, nerve-firing new Antiverse song has forced them from my head like a tsunami. And the song strikes like a tsunami, too. (You, see, the flood has already begun.)

“Black Waves of Sorcery” is a full-on blast furnace of mad-thrashing intensity and explosive instrumental and vocal exuberance. As speedy and as thrilling as a rocket-powered roller-coaster, as vicious as a pack of racing wolves, and as imperious as trumpet fanfares and whipping banners soaring above a galloping war charge, the song could bring the dead to life, cackling with glee. But there’s a hidden, darker dimension to the track, as well as to the album that includes it (Under the Regolith, which is set for release on October 19th by Seeing Red Records). Continue reading »

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