AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GILLIAN CARTER — “…THIS EARTH SHAPED TOMB”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 282018
 

 

Nor for the first time, Adam Burke‘s cover painting was the first source of intrigue about this album. The intrigue deepened when I listened to what was publicly available at the time I first saw the painting. The music in many ways was pretty far afield of what we usually cover at this site, and maybe that was part of its attraction — the allure of something stylistically different, and yet in its own way just as dark, as bone-bruising, and as emotionally super-charged as the metal extremity that takes up most of our time here. Little did I know, even then, how intensely involving the complete album would be.

The album in question is …This Earth Shaped Tomb by the Florida band Gillian Carter. It’s their fifth full-length, a 15-track, 35-minute affair that proves to be a constantly changing and perpetually surprising juxtaposition of sounds and moods. It will be released on August 31st by Skeletal Lightning in North America and Moment of Collapse Records in Europe — and we have a full stream of it for you right now, preceded by bunch of spoilers. Continue reading »

KRISIUN: “SCOURGE OF THE ENTHRONED”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio‘s write-up on the new Krisiun album, Scourge of the Enthroned, which will be released on September 7th by Century Media.)

As I started to write this small review for Krisiun‘s new album Scourge of the Enthroned, I found myself thinking that this band needs no introduction. They have been active since 1990, releasing crushing Death Metal from their homeland of Brazil.  After this many years of activity, some bands tend to reduce the intensity and fury of their music, evolving into something more, or something less. Sometimes change is good, at other times not so much.

In the case of this band, they seem not to have aged one bit, still combining that fury and precise execution that I discovered back in my country. The year was 1996, and in the Dominican Republic this type of music was hard to get. But fortunately, there was a guy there who somehow got all the music (or knowledge) and would burn tapes, and one of those was Krisiun’s debut album. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MALIGNER — “ATTRACTION TO ANNIHILATION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

The Swedish death/thrashing power trio Maligner wear their late-’80s and early-’90s influences on their sleeves, blasting ahead in the footsteps of such bands as Sadus, Dark Angel, and perhaps most especially Human-era Death. But it’s one thing to draw influence from bands like those and it’s quite another to execute on a vision with the kind of supreme confidence and jaw-dropping skill displayed by Maligner on their debut album, Attraction To Annihilation.

They waste no time establishing their credentials, opening the album with a track (“Oath-bound”) that’s an explosive adrenaline-surge powered by lightning-fast fret-work and agile, rhythmically dynamic drumming with a propensity to turn on a dime. Serving up an array of blaring chords and frenzied riffs, this trio explode through the song in a way that’s surgically precise but capable of channeling bonfires of chaos. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 100): ANCESTORS

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

(We have arrived at the glorious 100th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, which Andy started back in January 2011 with a retrospective about Astarte. In this month’s column, he reviews all the albums released to date by L.A.-based Ancestors, including the just-released Suspended In Reflections.)

Recommended for fans of: Yob, Devin Townsend, Anathema

Selecting what bands to include in the “Recommended for fans of” section of each of these columns is sometimes really easy, sometimes really hard, and sometimes… a little more complicated.

In the case of Progressive Stoner-Doom sorcerors Ancestors it’s really not sufficient to like just one of the bands recommended above, you have to appreciate all three of them – the gruff vocals and expansive grooves of Yob, the dynamic soundscapes and soul-stirring riffs of Devin Townsend (particularly circa-Terria), and the melancholy moods and soaring melodies of latter-day Anathema – and be keen to hear what a crossover between these artists might sound like.

You also need to be open to some calmer, more introspective experiences, particularly since their two most recent albums – 2012’s In Dreams and Time, and the just-released Suspended in Reflections – find the group pushing even further down the Prog/Post-Rock pathway.

But if all that sounds intriguing… then this will definitely be the band for you. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MEPHORASH, DALKHU, DYSYLUMN, NIGHT CROWNED, DARVAZA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 262018
 

 

The thick blanket of smoke that’s fallen over the part of Wyoming where I’m currently vacationing has diminished the attractiveness of outdoor activity, and that in turn led me to do what I usually do on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings — listen to recent offerings of music from the darkest realms.

Strong winds seem to be creating some clearing in the noxious fog from burning forests, so I probably won’t be writing a second part for this column, though I have more than enough new songs and full releases to justify it. I’ll have to content myself with the following five selections.

MEPHORASH

Last week brought us the second single from the fourth album, Shem Ha Mephorash, by the Swedish band Mephorash. The first single, “777: Third Woe“, was released way back in November of 2017, and it prompted me to marvel at its pitch-black devotion — music that was reverential, grandiose, and fearsome in its conjuring of majestic and sinister power (and also quite memorable). Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR: ARKHAMIN KIRJASTO

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  No Responses »
Aug 262018
 

 

I keep coming up with reasons to talk about this band, despite the fact that they haven’t released any new music in more than five years. The last time I found an excuse was almost exactly one year ago, in exactly the same place where I am now (Jackson, Wyoming), after playing the song to exactly the same group of people I was hanging out with last night.

Arkhamin Kirjasto have recorded 19 songs so far, in the eight years they’ve been together, but I continue returning to one song, because it has such tremendous primal attractiveness that it rises up from my memory in a way that few songs do. And it did again last night, and that’s all it took for me to find one more excuse to put the stream on our site. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NIGHTGRAVE, SCORCHED, ABYSSOUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 242018
 

 

As I mentioned in yesterday’s last post, I’m leaving my home for a short vacation this morning (in fact, by the time you read this, I will have already left), and that probably means we won’t have the usual number of posts today. I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be able to put together our usual Sunday post either.

But before vanishing for two or three days, I did want to contribute something, and this short post is what I’ve done. It consists of a grand total of three songs that surfaced during the last 24 hours, and only three, but they’re very good and I hope you’ll dig ’em.

NIGHTGRAVE

Nightgrave ought to be a familiar name to you if you’ve been a patron of that regular Sunday column mentioned above, SHADES OF BLACK, because I’ve written there frequently about this one-man Indian band, the work of self-taught musician and vocalist  Sushant Rawat. But rather than hold my thoughts about his newest music until Sunday, I thought I’d provide them now, in the hope of catching the ear of some new listeners. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EVOKEN, BENIGHTED, KĀLA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 232018
 

 

After three premieres today, we’re nearing the end of our normal posting hours, and I find myself with just enough time to quickly assemble a shorter-than-usual round-up. Tomorrow will probably be a fairly barren day around here, because I’m leaving home at about 4:15 a.m. to begin the journey to Sea-Tac airport, and from there to a top-secret location in Wyoming where I’ll be meeting with world leaders in a training session I call “How To Pull Your Head Out Of Your Ass Even If You Have the IQ of A Ground Squirrel, With Apologies to Ground Squirrels Everywhere.” I expect the event will be well-attended.

Despite the awfulness of my departure time from home tomorrow, I do hope to get at least something short completed to start the day before I sleep tonight, and I do have a review in hand from one of our contributors, and perhaps something else will show up unexpectedly.

EVOKEN

Six years is a long time to wait for a new album when the band in question is as immensely talented as Evoken, and a long six years it has been since Atra Mors. But this morning’s e-mail arrivals brought a press release announcing that on November 9th Profound Lore will release a new Evoken album named Hypnagogia. And as an added bonus, it features cover art by Adam Burke. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOD OF SERPENTS — “IN DARKNESS, BROTHERHOOD”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 232018
 

 

The song you’re about to hear is such a wild, vicious, blazing torrent of sound that it’s hard not to think of it as a shock-and-awe campaign, or perhaps as a cyclonic Sirocco scourge blasting from the open gates of Hell. The name of the track is “In Darkness, Brotherhood“, and it comes from Sulphur Sovereign, the explosive new album by the Swedish black metal band Blood of Serpents.

This new track isn’t the first one to be divulged from the album in advance of its September 25 release by Non Serviam Records. Earlier this month we were assaulted by the song “Devil’s Tongue“, which was so striking that we were moved to write about it immediately, before we had any inkling we’d be invited to host today’s premiere. The sheer electrifying effect of that song’s blinding speed and warlike vehemence (and the scalding savagery of the vocals) were gripping, and the high, soaring, delirious grandeur of the melody at its core made it even more riveting. And now we’ve been riveted again. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFESTUS — “THRON AUS TRÜMMERN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 232018
 

 

Infestus may have reached the point when it is no longer fair to characterize the music as black metal, because as diverse as that genre of music has become, the term connotes limits that no longer seem applicable to this German band’s extravagantly multi-faceted new album, Thrypsis. Even Debemur Morti Productions, who will be releasing the album on October 5th, now refers to the music as Dark Metal — which is the amorphous banner we tend to hoist over music that we can’t easily (or accurately) categorize with more familiar metal labels, no matter how many hyphens they might include.

The further progression of ideas reflected in the music of Thrypsis will not come as a shock to those who experienced the stunning tapestry of desolation, malevolence, and bleak beauty rendered in the last Infestus album, 2014’s The Reflecting Void, yet it’s abundantly evident that Infestus has climbed to dizzying new heights on this new record. The song we’re helping to premiere today, “Thron aus Trümmern” is powerful proof all by itself. Continue reading »

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