AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VREID — “LIFEHUNGER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 272018
 

 

There was once a time when the music of Vreid could be characterized, at least at a high level, as melodic black metal or black thrash. Those days are pretty much gone. The expansion of Vreid’s music into more diverse territory has been an evolving process, evident from the changes that have occurred with each successive album, but the band’s new album Lifehunger seems more heedless of genre boundaries than any other, and the result is an ever-changing experience, richly embroidered with a multitude of musical styles, of which black metal is only one.

Lifehunger will be released tomorrow by Season of Mist, and today we’re helping premiere a full stream of the record — preceded by a few more words of introduction. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EMPTY — “VACIO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 272018
 

 

In 1988 the Spanish poet, novelist, and prolific essayist Julio Llamazares published his second novel, entitled La Lluvia Amarilla (“The Yellow Rain”). Widely praised, it was translated into English years later, leading to even more praise. As one review of the first English translation described it:

“In this somber and elegiac novel… the last, dying resident of a deserted village in the Spanish Pyrenees, ‘forgotten by everyone, condemned to gnaw away at my memory and my bones like an old dog,’ summons the ghosts of his past.”

Left only with his dog after the suicide of his wife, “on what seems to be his final night on earth, he recalls the tragedies that have befallen him,” including the death or abandonment of every child and the collapse of his village into rot due to the closing of the local mill and the departure of all residents, save himself. The review concludes: Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX / FAMYNE / SPIRES

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Sep 272018
 

 

(In this new edition of Andy Synn‘s occasional series, he reviews new releases by three UK bands — Crippled Black Phoenix, Famyne, and Spires.)

Despite my well-documented griping about how frequently certain sections of the UK scene seem to embrace mediocrity, there’s still a hefty amount of quality music and quality bands coming out of these green and pleasant lands these days, and today’s edition of “The Best of British” rounds up three of them for your aural delectation.

Fair warning, however, the following three albums contain a lot of clean singing so… you’ve been warned! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KHANDRA — “DECAYING INTO THE ASCENDED”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 262018
 

 

Almost one year ago we had the pleasure of premiering (and reviewing) All Is of No Avail, the debut EP of an enigmatic Belarusian black metal duo who call themselves Khandra (Хандра), a Russian word for “melancholy”. Though originally planned as a self-release through Bandcamp, that EP was quickly picked up by Redefining Darkness Records, which released it both digitally and on CD.

Now the same label is poised to release Khandra’s debut album, entitled There is No Division Outside Existence, on October 12th in the U.S. (with Possession Productions handling the European release), and once again we’re fortunate to bring you another Khandra premiere, a track from the album called “Decaying Into the Ascended“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPERIALIST — “UMBRA TEMPEST”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 262018
 

 

Adam Burke strikes again, creating another immediately eye-catching piece of artwork for what turns out to be an equally riveting album. This time, the music comes from the California black metal band Imperialist, whose debut album Cipher will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on October 20th.

In introducing the music of Imperialist, Transcending Obscurity makes reference to the traditions of such bands as Necrophobic, Dissection, and Sacramentum, with nods to the thrashier dynamics of Aura Noir and Vektor as well. And while harnessing such dark, savage, and melodically memorable sounds as those names might suggest, Imperialist have also created a futuristic, sci-fi-themed concept for Cipher, which is evoked by Adam Burke‘s cover painting.

Several songs from the album have surfaced so far, and today we have another — “Umbra Tempest“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFESTUS — “SEED OF AGONY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 262018
 

 

About one month ago we had the pleasure of premiering a stunning track named “Thron aus Trümmern” from the powerful new album by the German band Infestus, and now we get to bring you a second song from Thrypsis in advance of its October 5 release by Debemur Morti Productions.

As was true of “Thron aus Trümmern”, “Seed of Agony” ebbs and flows. It becomes thunderous and also fragile in its sound and mood. It dives to depths of unconsolable desolation and rises to heights of terrible, soul-splintering magnificence. But all of these evolving transformations resonate as shades and phases of emotional pain, with the most wrenching expressions of agony channeled through the truly shattering vocals of this album’s sole creator, Andras. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: ZEALOTRY, FALGAR, RAAT, NECHOCHWEN, NATTRAVNEN, NIHILO, JUNE 1974, CHTHONIC, DRH, DAIRA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 262018
 

 

This was hard. I spent more than an hour yesterday just going through all the e-mails that had landed in the NCS e-mail septic tank in-box since I left on vacation last Friday and, from what I found there, adding to the endless list of new music and videos I thought might be worth checking out. And then I started going through what I’d added to the list, listening and watching until I had to make myself stop.

I found a great many dramatically different things I thought would be worth sharing, so many that I picked 10 of them for this post. And that’s not counting such things as Revolver’s exclusive song premiere for Devouring Star, the just-released split by Ragana and Thou, Terror’s new track, or the new track by Minsk that premiered at DECIBEL, among others. (You see what I did there?)

We’ve got three premiere features of our own today that I need to finish, so I’ve got to keep my own commentary in this post a bit briefer than usual.

ZEALOTRY

First up is the title track from At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds, the new album by the Boston death metal band Zealotry. It will be released on December 7th through Unspeakable Axe Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RAPHEUMETS WELL — ‘WITCH OF DARKSPIRE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 252018
 

 

Many metal bands have embraced science-fiction themes for their music, some of them building entire albums around concepts and story-lines rooted in the genre, some original and some taken from existing novels or short stories. But Rapheumet’s Well have dedicated themselves to their own science-fictional narrative arc in a way that’s unusually thorough and immersive.

Over the course of three albums — Dimensions (2014), The Exile (2016), and Enders Door (2017) — this North Carolina symphonic death metal band built an interdimensional, worlds-spanning narrative arc of conflict and perseverance, with head-spinning music that served the mind-bending events of this weird and wondrous tale, which ranges from “the birth of organic matter to great wars that tear the fabric of space/time”. Now the band are returning with The Elder’s Anthology (Special Edition) which includes selective tracks from all three albums, remixed and remastered, and with revised performances, drawing together the segments of the epic saga they’ve created.

To help highlight The Elder’s Anthology, which will be released by Test Your Metal Records on October 26th, the band have created an extravagant music video for the new version of “Witch of Darkspire”, which originally appeared under a slightly different title on The Exile, and we’re presenting that video today. Continue reading »

DÖDSRIT: “SPIRIT CRUSHER”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 252018
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Swedish one-man project Dödsrit, which will be released on September 28th by Prosthetic Records.)

Dödsrit’s self-titled debut album (though, at only 4 tracks and just 29 minutes in length, I tend to think of it more as a long EP myself) made a lot of waves and a lot of noise when it was released in October of last year.

And with good reason.

Rich in both aggression and atmosphere, and practically overflowing with gleaming melody and gritty riffery, the band’s sound (actually the product of a single individual, Christoffer Öster) was a brilliantly realised, blisteringly visceral, blend of Black Metal and Crust Punk, that was equally capable of appealing to fans of Wiegedood and Wolves In The Throne Room as it was fans of Ancst and Martyrdöd… and even, dare I say it, fans of everyone from Deafheaven to Darkest Hour.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the follow-up is even better! Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BINAH — “PHOBIATE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 252018
 

 

A fixation with horror cuts across wide swaths of extreme music like the scythe of the Great Leveler. The most primitive and ineradicable fears of humankind have been given a multitude of frightful shapes, both monstrous and spectral, in varying musical expressions since the earliest days of the heaviest music. This fascination with death, and with what might loom behind that terrible event horizon, or what might lurk even now at the jagged edge between our own dimension and another, continues to animate the creative impulses of numerous groups, but few albums this year have succeeded in channeling such morbid terrors as effectively as Binah’s new album, Phobiate.

In broad strokes, the album is massively heavy, and manages to both freeze the blood and set fire to the nerves. It creates a deep, preternatural atmosphere, suffused with ghastliness and gloom, but also persistently triggers adrenaline surges through ravaging assaults and bouts of irresistibly headbangable barbarism. Continue reading »

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