THREE FACES OF DEATH: BÆST, INNUMERABLE FORMS, NAILS OF IMPOSITION

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Aug 312018
 

 

(We present a collection of three death metal reviews by Andy Synn.)

If you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention to the digital metalsphere over the last several months then it’s highly likely you’ll have noticed quite a lot of people talking/writing about how this has been a real banner year for Death Metal, to the point where it’s starting to feel like its corpse-painted cousin, Black Metal, is really struggling to keep up.

And while there has been a solid number of truly great Black Metal albums released this year so far (with more still to come), there’s definitely some truth to this assertion. 2018 really is a great time to be alive if you’re a fan of massive riffs and guttural vocals.

So, in that spirit, here are three more ravenous recommendations, straight from my brain/fingers to your eyes/ears. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GODEATER, ATRAMENT, ZEALOT CULT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 312018
 

 

The nature of the chemical interactions triggered by the following three bomb-makers differ from each other, but the results are uniformly explosive — and that’s the word of the day for this post.

GODEATER

I confess that I got an advance listen to Godeater’s new single well before its release today (and before its premiere a couple of days ago), and was able to go back to it whenever I wanted, which I did on those many occasions when it seemed like a more efficient and slightly less life-threatening way of juicing my brain, during its sluggish phases, than jamming a wet finger into an electrical socket. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: SKEPTICISM AND ORKAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 302018
 

 

Today has been one of those days when most of the NCS slaves, including myself, have been diverted from NCS slavery by other compulsions. Without meaning to take anything away from the one review and one premiere we’ve furnished today, we just haven’t had time to do more.

This state of affairs gnawed on my brain to the point when I decided I would at least provide another quick hit of new music. I chose the songs in an odd way: I didn’t listen to them before making the choices. For a while this morning I was in a place where I could write but couldn’t listen, so I wrote first and listened later, and then wrote a bit more before having to bid NCS good-by until tomorrow.

SKEPTICISM

Admittedly, I wasn’t taking a complete shot in the dark when I picked this first song without listening to it. First, duh, it’s Skepticism. Second, I’ve heard the song before… sort of. Allow me to explain. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIFELOST — “MALIGN EMANATIO”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 302018
 

 

What happens when the frontman of the brain-twisting Spanish death metal band Wormed turns his imagination and talents to black metal? You are about to find out, because that is what Phlegeton has done through a new solo project named Lifelost.

The first fruits of this new adventure are collected in a debut album entitled Dialogues From Beyond. Perhaps it will come as no surprise, at least to those listeners who are fans of Wormed, that the music transports listeners far away from the familiar contours of the world in which we lead our daily lives and into a midnight-dark, alien dimension that turns reality upside-down and inside-out. It is a mystifying, hallucinatory, and above all, a very frightening place. The album track, “Malign Emanatio“, that we’re premiering today is a vivid example of these achievements. Continue reading »

RAW: “THE PERSECUTE HEINOUS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 302018
 

 

(Vonlughlio reviews the debut album by the one-man brutal death metal band RAW from Surabaya, Indonesia.)

Today’s write-up is about the debut of the Indonesian Brutal Death Metal band Raw entitled The Persecute Heinous, set to be released via Brutal Mind on August 31st. But before we get into that gem of BDM, I want to talk about the label.

Brutal Mind is an Indonesian label established in 2009 and their main chief, Mr. Deni Lisain, is well-respected in the scene, due to his hard work and dedication to the genre. How he has been able through the years to amass fans from around the world is something amazing. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRUCIBLE OF HATE — “THE HELL INSIDE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 292018
 

 

Crucible of Hate may be a new name for many of you, but this Ohio metal band’s members aren’t newbies, having burnished their vicious skills in such groups as The Conquering (black metal), Skullbomb (thrash), and The C.O.A.S.T. (melodeath). In this new formation, which began to take shape in 2016, they’ve pursued a groove-heavy brand of dynamic melodic death metal, whose varying sounds are about to be displayed through a debut album named Dark Metamorphosis, which will be released on September 15th.

The diversity of the music on this first full-length means that it’s tough to fully represent what they’ve accomplished in any one song, but the one they’ve chosen for our premiere today — “The Hell Inside” — certainly reveals their talent for crafting hook-heavy, head-moving thrill-rides. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR, MONSTROSITY, BLOOD STORM, XALPEN, ARROGANZ

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 292018
 

 

The first three items in this mid-week round-up are big blasts from veteran bands, two of whom haven’t been heard from in a while. The last two just seemed to suit the mood I fell into after making those first three picks — though I’ve had a difficult time trying to describe the mood. With apologies to friends who recommended brand new tracks by the likes of Beyond Creation and Nekromant, that hard-to-define mood explains why I left those off (though they’re definitely good), as well as other tracks among the couple dozen I checked out yesterday. Inadequate time explains other omissions.

LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR

I can gauaran-damn-tee you that one of the two tracks below will be on my list of 2018’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — unless my brain suffers a seizure trying to decide between them, which is entirely possible. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SEROCS — “SCP-106”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 292018
 

 

The multi-national collective known as Serocs, whose line-up now includes members of First Fragment, Chthe’ilist, Funebrarum, Benighted, and Sutrah, have a new album headed our way. Under the title The Phobos/Deimos Suite, and adorned by an eye-catching painting by Nicola Samorì, it will be released on October 26th by Everlasting Spew Records.

We have a lot of information to share with you about this new album, as well as the premiere of the first single, but we’re going to depart from our usual practice of leaving the song stream to the end and get right to it — preceded only by a piece of cautionary medical advice: If you don’t have an oxygen mask with a fully charged canister nearby, you might try hyperventilating before you listen to this track. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PHLEBOTOMIZED

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 292018
 


photo by Josefien Hupkes

 

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Tom Palms, founding guitarist of the Dutch death/doom band Phlebotomized, whose last album was released in 1997 , who have revived after an extended absence, and whose first new album in 21 years is now on the horizon.)

As you probably know, the Netherlands’ avant-garde death-doom and whatsoever metal legends Phlebotomized  didn’t stop working after their sudden resurrection in 2013. The band actively forged their sound in the early ’90s, moving from pretty brutal death metal toward a new direction through experiments which took place on their full-length album Immense Intense Suspense and the absolutely different sophomore record, Skycontact.

It’s now 2018, and Phlebotomized are on Hammerheart Records and at work on their third album (the first one in 21 years!) under the title Deformation Of Humanity, which should come to light soon.

The only remaining original Phlebotomized member, Tom Palms, helped me to learn more about the band’s history and reveals a few things about the new stuff. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PILLARS — “SWARMS FROM THE SWAMP”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 282018
 

 

Imagine a sudden, seismic shift in your reality. You find yourself alone on a vast, humid plain, shrouded in mist and littered with bones. Before you looms a giant monolith of granite, a gargantuan tombstone of broken hopes that blots the sun — and it’s disintegrating, with boulder-sized fragments cascading down in a slow-motion avalanche of black destruction. You want to run, but the earth has turned to tar beneath your feet, and begins to heave as the boulders strike like bombs.

It’s an ugly, nightmarish dream from which you awaken in a cold sweat, haunted and shivering. It’s one way (my way) of imagining the visions created by the song you’re about to hear, the name of which is “Swarms From the Swamp” by the French band Pillars. It comes from their debut album, aptly entitled Onwards to Nothingness, which will be released on September 28th by Seeing Red Records. Continue reading »

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