SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): ANOMALIE, KORONAL, OBLIVION, OUTRE-TOMBE, THUNDERCROW, U-FOES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 072018
 


Anomalie – photo by Sunvemetal

 

We’ve thrown a gigaton of new music at you on this Friday, but the way I think about, why should we be the only ones who feel like we’re drowning in a sonic flood? The answer is, we shouldn’t. You should feel the same way.

And so here we have Part 3 of today’s gigantic round-up. The bands my NCS comrades and I decided to feature in Part 1 and Part 2 are among extreme metal’s better-known names. The ones I’ve included here (again presented in alphabetical order) are lesser-known, but worth more attention.

You might notice that this 3-part round-up is a bit light on black metal, but that’s only because I’ve pushed those selections a bit further down the road… until Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column.

ANOMALIE

We’ve devoted a fair share of attention to the previous releases by this Austrian band, including Andy Synn‘s devotion of one of his SYNN REPORTs to their discography last year and our premiere of a video for a song off their last album, Visions. Although that album was only released last year, Anomalie are back already with a new four-song EP named Integra. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: AGRONA / LEECHED / NOMAD

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

(Andy Synn brings us another of his periodic columns devoted to metal from his homeland.)

Today’s edition of “The Best of British” features a nice amount of musical variety, from a bunch of different bands at different levels of fame/exposure (although, coincidentally, two of them hail from the same place – my original home town of Manchester), all of whom released their debut full-length album at some time in the last six months.

As a result, even if you’ve heard of one of these three acts before (and with the recent press furore over one in particular there’s a very good chance that will be the case) you should still be able to find some fresh new metallic morsels here to sink your teeth into. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): BEHEMOTH, CRYPTOPSY, RIVERS OF NIHIL, THE OCEAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

 

Well, this is just getting ridiculous. As you may have seen me observe in Part 1 of today’s round-up, the last few days have brought a proverbial flood of new advance tracks and videos. I had planned to make this a two-parter, with better-known bands in Part 1 and more obscure names in Part 2. But before I could even begin working on the second Part, my NCS comrades brought to my attention all the following new stuff, most of which just appeared this morning.

So, I decided to insert all this late-breaking stuff in Part 2 (again presented alphabetically, but with few words from me) and then turn to what has now become Part 3.

BEHEMOTH

To begin, here’s the official music video for Behemoth’s “Wolves ov Siberia“, which will appear on their new album I Loved You At Your Darkest. The song is a roiling, rapacious, dissonant piece of speed and savagery, with melodic accents that are emblematic of Behemoth‘s penchant for looming, sulphurous majesty. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): ARSIS, EVOKEN, PROFANATICA, PSYCROPTIC, VOIVOD, WOLFHEART

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

 

It’s been one of those weeks, one of those weeks when for various reasons I just haven’t had time to compile any round-ups of new music. Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of those weeks when a ton of new songs and videos have premiered (in addition to those we’ve premiered ourselves). I’ve picked a couple handfuls of those, and divided the collection into two parts. This one includes better-known bands, presented in alphabetical order. The next one will include more obscure names.

ARSIS

James Malone sports a shaven head in the Arsis video that appeared overnight, but still screams like a banshee and is obviously still capable of cooking up some tasty riffs, while the people around him help put the spurs to this galloping, groove-some new song and spice it up with a bit of occult aroma, too. Speaking of which… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OUTRÉ — “THE ORDER OF ABHORRENCE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

 

Three days ago we published Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Polish black metal horde Outré, a group whose debut full-length Ghost Chants he declared to be the best Black Metal album of 2015, a year that brought many other similarly stunning releases, including Mgła’s Exercises in Futility and Misþyrming’s Söngvar elds og óreiðu. Of the new album, Hollow Earth, Andy wrote that it’s now immediately a contender for the best black metal album of 2018.

Three days ago Outré’s label, Debemur Morti Productions, who will be releasing Hollow Earth on October 26th, hadn’t yet officially announced the release or divulged any tracks for public listening — but now that’s happening, and we’re privileged to help present the first music from the album, a track named “The Order of Abhorrence“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DRUG HONKEY — “THE OBLIVION OF AN OPIATE NOD”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 062018
 

 

Of all the intensely disturbing tracks on Drug Honkey‘s latest album, Cloak of Skies, “The Oblivion of an Opiate Nod“, is not only the longest but probably the most brutally obliterating. The album as a whole is a hopeless and often hellish soundscape, but this one is a weapon of destruction that becomes devastating on multiple levels. It’s a bone-crusher, but it also triggers nightmarish visions that don’t soon go away. No wonder the band chose the song as the subject of their new video, which we’re presenting today.

The hallucinatory effect of the music is likely to spawn different blood-freezing dreams for different people, because we all bring parts of ourselves to the experience of listening to music such as this. It becomes an interactive process, in ways that just don’t happen with a lot of music. In the case of this video, Drug Honkey‘s Paul Gillis (aka Honkey Head) brought his own tortured imaginings into play (beyond what’s expressed by his harrowing vocals and frightening synths), because he made the video himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOEBEGONE OBSCURED

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 062018
 

 

(Comrade Aleks rejoins us with this interview of Danny Woe from the Danish band Woebegone Obscured, whose most recent album was released this summer.)

Danny Woe is one of the two founding members of Woebegone Obscured (Denmark), alongside K.Woe. Danny performs vocals, drums, and keyboards in the band, and occasionally guitars. Previously he played in the black metal bands Tronraner and Rimfrost and also the death metal outfit Skinned Beyond Recognition. However, none of these projects went further than demo records, but the experience helped him to create Woebegone Obscured from pieces of his black, death, and doom metal influences.

Growing from album to album, the band released their most mature record The Forestroamer through Aesthetic Death in July 2018. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOAT SPERM — “VOICE IN THE WOMB”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Sep 052018
 

 

Let’s first deal with the elephant in the room: this band’s name. To some of you it might signify primitive, ear-raping, bestial black metal. For others it might lead to scoffing — derisive presumptions that there will be nothing to take seriously here. Both guesses might be understandable, but both would be wrong.

Having heard, and thoroughly enjoyed, Goat Sperm‘s persistently surprising debut EP, Voice In the Womb, it does occur to me (without any inside knowledge) that there was a streak of perversity at work in this Ukrainian band’s choice of name, and not just for the most obvious reason. I can imagine them chuckling behind their hands, or maybe cackling with devilish glee, over that decision, because of the head-fake that it represents. And part of the reason I make that guess is because the music itself is such a twisted but ingenious experience. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORNE — “TO THE NIGHT UNKNOWN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 052018
 

 

There’s a lyrical passage in one of the songs on Morne’s new album that comes across like a challenge:

Show your fear
Show the way you bleed inside
Wear your wounds like I wear mine

When you listen to the music on this shattering album, those words seem to be more than a possible challenge to listeners. They could just as easily be understood as an expression of the challenge that these Boston doom insurgents set for themselves when they made this record, one they threw themselves into meeting, body and soul. Continue reading »

DGR REVIEW COLLECTION: SECTIONED, BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD, PSYCHOTIC PULSE, CLANDESTINE REVELATION, THE BREATHING PROCESS, DEPTHS OF HATRED

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 052018
 


Sectioned

 

(DGR prepared this large collection of reviews and streams, addressing some older and some newer music, and some things that haven’t yet arrived in full.)

This poor review collection saw more permutations than I’d be willing to admit, with so many different groups being added and removed for fear that I hadn’t spent enough time with a disc and so wouldn’t be able to speak about it properly, that the body count has to be in the double digits by this point. What this thing did move into was something of a themed archive of releases — bookended by earlier albums but with two that are much more recent, and with preview songs from two upcoming releases in the middle to help transition over the two.

What I found I was listening to recently was the real heavy and destructive forces of powerviolence, death metal, and grind, and on the other side of the spectrum, some real caveman level prefix-core styled music as well, just ones with a taste for the symphonic and speed on top of it. It was fortuitous then that on top of that I had a small collection of singles for upcoming (maybe? in one case) releases that I wanted to talk about that felt like suitable bridges between the two, so that our esteemed editor would’ve have to cleave this poor baby in twain; it kind of felt like a perfect thematic walk along the admittedly arbitrary spectrum brought before you.

Much like my much larger review nightmare collections, this one includes four albums but with somewhat shortened reviews, and all come highly recommended. Fingers crossed, maybe you’ll find something to enjoy as well, once you’re able to scrape your face off of the wall behind you. Continue reading »

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