SINSAENUM: “REPULSION FOR HUMANITY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 142018
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by the multinational collective Sinsaenum, which was released last month.)

Sinsaenum is a weird band, in the sense that I think supergroups usually end up being failures, but Sinsaenum are not.  The music they write is good, but they also serve as a case study for one of the bigger problems that comes from forming a supergroup in the extreme metal world:  When the membership of a supergroup is diverse, and when efforts are made for each member’s background to be represented sonically, that can lead to albums that are… fragmented, to say the least.

Sinsaenum, the brainchild of Joey Jordison and Frédéric Leclercq, boasts alumni and current members of Dragonforce, Mayhem, Dååth, and Slipknot, just to rattle off the big names, and their new album sounds like they don’t know what they want to be, even if the resulting product is still in my mind fairly excellent.

The thing is, even the fragmented, stylistically inconsistent nature of Repulsion For Humanity isn’t even consistent. Among the various pure death metal metal, pure black metal, and straight-up groove and nu-metal-bordering tracks on the album, there is a blackened death metal mix on songs in the latter part of the album that very distinctly stands out, and sounds like something the band could make an identity out of. I enjoy all of this album, but I have no doubt that many people will have a hard time finding a baseline to dial into. If there is one, it’s on those latter tracks. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: BLOODBATH, SLAEGT, ENTROPIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Sep 132018
 

 

The flood of new metal continues unabated. Since yesterday’s round-up, I’ve accumulated more than a dozen new tracks (not to mention newly released EPs and albums) that I’m itching to hear, on top of all the others I didn’t have room to include yesterday. In an effort to keep at least my nostrils above water, I’ve picked three new ones (two of which come with videos) to quickly launch at your heads today.

BLOODBATH

Those who live under rocks are unaware that Bloodbath have a new album coming out next month. Everyone else knows. Now there’s a first single to be consumed, the name of which is “Bloodicide“. And guess what? It includes guest vocal appearances by Jeff Walker (Carcass), Karl Willetts (Bolt Thrower/Memoriam), and John Walker (Cancer). Before you enjoy the song, enjoy these quotes from two of the guests: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GNOSIS — “THE OFFERING OF SEVEN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 132018
 

 

Ancient evil lives within The Offering of Seven, the new album by the Floridian black metal band Gnosis. The band twist their music into different cruel and often frightening shapes, through changing cadences and accented in different ways, but the atmosphere of the album is persistently and powerfully sinister.

The music is atavistic in more ways than one. It not only triggers primordial moods and primal reflexes, the music harkens back to the Greek black metal of the early ’90s, inspiring memories of such influences as Varathron and Thou Art Lord, as well as Mortuary Drape and Mystifier. And we have a full stream of the album for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASBEST — “THEY KILL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 132018
 

 

It’s a tough call whether the music or the imagery in this new video is the more intense, the more disturbing, and the more captivating aspect of the experience — not that we must make a choice, of course. The fact that both the song and the film are so gripping (and so unnerving) just makes the integration of the two unusually compelling.

The song is not brand new. “They Kill” was the first single released earlier this year from Driven, the new album by the Swiss trio Asbest, which will hit the streets on September 28th via Czar of Bullets and A Tree In A Field Records. But even if you’ve heard it before, it’s not the kind of thing whose novelty wears off easily. And if this video provides the occasion for you to hear it the first time, you couldn’t find a better introduction to the song. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARCHE FUNÈBRE — “DEATH WISH WOMAN”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 132018
 

 

When my NCS comrade Andy Synn made the Belgian band Marche Funèbre the subject of his 44th Synn Report almost five years ago, reviewing their debut EP and first two albums, he recommended them for fans of My Dying Bride, Eye of Solitude, and early Paradise Lost. He wrote: “Desolate and depressive, ominous and oppressive, their often lengthy, drawn out songs are simultaneously draining and invigorating – at times they hit with instant impact, at others they build slowly and insidiously, insinuating themselves into the darkest corners of your mind.”

Since then the band have released one more album, 2017’s Into the Arms of Darkness, and a pair of splits. And now, to celebrate their tenth year of life as a band, Marche Funèbre have recorded a new four-song EP that will be released on October 14th by GrimmDistribution and Cimmerian Shade Recordings. Death Wish Woman is its name, and what you’re about to hear is its title track — and if you’ve never heard this band before, you’re in for an electrifying surprise. You might be in for an electrifying surprise even if you have heard their music before. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUNFLO’ER — “INVERTED CROSS TATTOO”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

Writing more than a few words about “Inverted Cross Tattoo” runs the risk that it will take you longer to read them than to just listen to the song. Heedless of the risk, we will barrel ahead anyway, which is actually sort of appropriate since Sunflo’er themselves barrel ahead, heedless of risk.

There’s an unmistakable air of spontaneity about this song, which is loaded with exuberant twists and turns that are capable of both flipping your brain upside down like a frying egg (but not “over easy”) and leaving bruises on your kidneys. “Experimental hardcore” is a suitable label for the music. “Neuron-melting brawler” might be another. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEPULCHER — “PANOPTIC HORROR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

Welcome to Bedlam!

I can think of no better greeting to give you for the lawlessness, the pandemonium, the sheer uproarious (and often macabre) extravagance that awaits you within Sepulcher’s new album, Panoptic Horror. The faint of heart will shy away, but those who hunger for the taste of barely contained yet sharply executed mayhem will find a true home here. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (VOID RITUAL)

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  No Responses »
Sep 122018
 


 

(After a five-month hiatus, we present another edition of Andy Synn’s three-line album reviews.)

For various reasons (which I don’t plan on getting into here) it’s been quite some time since we’ve published a new set of Reviews in Haikus here at NCS.

Today’s edition is a little bit different than usual, however, as it trades-in the traditional format of featuring three albums from three different bands in favour of featuring three albums by one single artist, the prolific Black Metal poet known as Void Ritual, who has quickly (and rightfully) established himself as one of the most vital new voices in the US scene. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CIRITH UNGOL, CULTES DES GHOULES, HELRUNAR, WITCHTHROAT SERPENT, GEVURAH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

Heavy metal’s fascination with the occult has deep roots and shows no signs of weakening. It is manifested in many ways, not all of which can be reconciled into some philosophically consistent gestalt, running the gamut from sorcery and witchcraft to elaborate schools of satanism, from the Dark Lords of Middle Earth to the horrors conceived by Lovecraft.

To this day, the embracing and channeling of evil cuts broad swaths across metal genres (white magic fell before the power of black magic within heavy metal in its infancy), though how we should understand the concept of “evil” and why it’s such a persistent feature of metal are subjects beyond the scope of this post. The subjects are on my mind simply because they had something to do with why I chose the following five new songs for this round-up, all of which appeared (in many instances without warning) over the last 24 hours.

CIRITH UNGOL

The first bolt from the blue took the form of the first studio recording by these Kings of the Dead since the release of Paradise Lost in 1991. It’s a single named “Witch’s Game“, which was recorded for inclusion in the forthcoming animated movie The Planet of Doom (more info about that here). The B-side of the single is a live version of “Doomed Planet” as performed at Germany’s Hammer of Doom festival in 2017. As you can see, it comes with stunning cover art by Michael Whelan. Continue reading »

PYREXIA: “UNHOLY REQUIEM”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

(On September 14th Unique Leader Records will release a new album by NYDM band Pyrexia, and here we have Vonlughlio’s review of the album.)

As I sit in the santuary part of the house on a Saturday night, being sick, I have been thinking about the early- and mid-’90s living in the Dominican Republic and being a metalhead. It was a time when you would go to small get-togethers and see local bands perform, and to talk music with that guy who seemed to have all the info, as well as cassettes (I’ve mentioned him in some of my previous small write-ups). Sure, it was not a perfect time, but people weren’t uptight, and if you liked a band, cool, and if not, that was cool too. Nowadays, well, it’s not the same, but I won’t get into that.

So, why was I going back down memory lane?? Well, it’s because I had been given the opportunity to write about Pyrexia’s new album, Unholy Requiem. This band, founded in 1990 in New York, made waves in the scene with their demos and their 1993 debut album Sermon Mockery, one of the best Death Metal albums to be released and a true classic, at least for me. That album is ferocious, unapologetic, and in-your-face, with everything working together perfectly, from the riffs to the vocals, the drums, and the production work. This band, along with Suffocation, Internal Bleeding, and Dehumanized, were bands who left a mark in the scene, and that will be forever evident. Continue reading »

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