MORS SUBITA: “INTO THE PITCH BLACK”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 142018
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Finland’s Mors Subita, which was released by Inverse Records on April 6th of this year.)

Mors Subita are a peculiar band to me, but one that scratch a lot of itches. While they’ve always embodied everything great about energetic, riff-driven European melodic death metal might, their embracing of the more metalcore elements of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal bands like Chimaira, Lamb Of God, etc., has always caused them to stand apart from a lot of their current peers. These guys love the ’90s and early 2000s at their core, which resonates with me considering that a lot of my favorite metal in my formative listening years came from those eras.

The thing is, this Soilwork-meets-Chimaira-ism of Mors Subita produces some pretty compelling, consistently driving piston-pressure metal that includes the epic melodic scope and guitar work of melodic death metal as well as the beefy sense of groove and emotive sensibilities of their metalcore influences.  It’s junk food metal at its purest and finest, and I mean that as no insult whatsoever.  Into The Pitch Black is one of the year’s best records in my book, both addictive and engrossing. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLOODTRUTH — “THE LAST PROPHET”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 142018
 

 

As a general rule, generalizing is fraught with risk. For every sweeping statement, someone will come up with a hundred exceptions. Yet there’s more than a kernel of truth in the observation that Italian death metal tends to live in the fast lane. It often seems like the Autobahn of death metal, in which bands with adrenaline for blood race so fast and furiously that the wheels leave the ground, trailing flames. Bloodtruth is a prime example of this phenomenon — and the explosive extravagance of their highly accelerated attack is indeed phenomenal. Witness this new song we’re bringing you today through a lyric video.

“The Last Prophet” is one of ten absolutely ferocious tracks on Bloodtruth’s new album, Martyrium, which will be released by Unique Leader Records on September 28th. Consistent with the overarching thematic concept of the album, it’s a lyrical sledgehammer against the edifice of the Christian Church and the historical atrocities committed by the Church against people branded as “heretics”. Musically, it’s a spectacle of fast-twitch muscle fibers in action, everything geared toward heart-pumping savagery and maximum destructive impact. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABSOLVTION — “GALLOW’S DESTINY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 142018
 

 

The effect of listening to the new EP by the French black/death band Absolvtion is similar to what I imagine I’d feel if I turned a corner and found a cobra immediately at my feet, its head raised, its hood open wide, swaying, about to strike. I’d feel shock and fear mixed with repulsion, but I’d be transfixed, mesmerized by the terrible beauty of the thing, frozen in fascination.

Gallow’s Destiny exerts a similar mesmerizing attraction, a similar capacity to freeze you in your steps, and at the same time it’s unnerving and poisonous. It tends to blot out rational thought, paralyzing that part of your mind and then sinking its fangs deep. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REBEL SCUM — “GUZZOLINE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 132018
 

 

When we first encountered music from the blood-pumping debut album of Buffalo’s Rebel Scum two years ago, we were moved to write: “Rebel Scum are churning out some devilish rock ‘n’ roll that will make you want to get loaded, jump on a big, smoking chopper, and eat up the highway, with Satan as your co-pilot.” With one more short leap of imagination, we might also have referred to a full-throttle chase across a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the kind of marauding rush so vividly captured in the Mad Max movies.

We’re fiendishly happy to report that Rebel Scum are returning, and this time they’ve made that leap of imagination for us. On September 3rd they’ll be releasing a new self-titled EP, and the first single we’re bringing you today has a title that evokes the Road Warrior — “Guzzoline“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFURIATE — “MORI TERRAE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 132018
 

 

The debut album of the Texas death metal band Infuriate won’t be released by Everlasting Spew Records until the 31st of August, but we’ve already devoted quite a lot of attention to it, and are about to do so again. On July 2nd we premiered a track called “Juggernaut of Pestilence”; last week we published a guest review of the album in which our friend Vonlughlio proclaimed it his favorite debut album of all time (and yes, he keeps a list of such things). And today we have yet another premiere, one that showcases a merciless but enormously infectious track named “Mori Terrae“.

If you suspect that we’re just looking for fresh excuses to emblazon Jon Zig‘s remarkable cover art for the album at the top of our site, that would be a well-founded suspicion. But that’s not the only reason. The music is also just ridiculously good. Continue reading »

A DIRTY HALF DOZEN: GRAVITON / HEMELBESTORMER / IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT / ORATOR / ORDINUL NEGRU / SOREPTION

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 132018
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn has packaged together six new reviews of six outstanding new albums across a range of metal sub-genres.)

I don’t know about you, but this year I’m finding it far harder than ever before to stay on top of all the new and upcoming releases proliferating throughout the Metalsphere.

Partially this can be attributed to the growing pressures of my day job, combined with the fact that I’m currently renovating my house and working hard on Beyond Grace album #2 (with an eye also turned towards future work for both Twilight’s Embrace and Apathy Noir too), but a lot of it is just down to this simple truth… there’s simply too much music, and not enough hours in the day, to cover it all.

Still, it wounds me to think of all the great (and good) albums and artists out there who our readers might otherwise be missing out on, so consider this another desperate attempt to redress the balance somewhat. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: TEMPLE NIGHTSIDE, AETERNUS, ESSENZ, TEHOA, BLEEDER

 SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
Aug 122018
 

 

There’s a reason why I chose SHADES OF BLACK as the title of this series many years ago, instead of something like BLACK METAL. It avoids debates about whether the music I choose to highlight is or isn’t that thing, and allows me to roam a bit more widely than I would even if I were just applying my own definition of what belongs in the genre, which in itself would still take us well beyond whirring guitars, blasting drums, and scalding shrieks. It allows me to choose the following collection of excellent new music without thinking too hard about it.

TEMPLE NIGHTSIDE

In 2013 the vaunted Australian band Temple Nightside released their debut album, Condemnation. They’ve released one other album since then (along with a couple of splits), in the shape of 2016’s The Hecatomb. Now, rather than releasing a full-length of entirely new material, they’ve re-recorded their debut album — although “re-imagined” is a better word for what they seem to have done. It makes sense that they would also commission new cover art, and they enlisted the abundant talents of Elijah Tamu for that. Continue reading »

EXOCRINE: “MOLTEN GIANT”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 122018
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new third album by the French death metal band Exocrine, which will be released by Unique Leader Records on August 17.)

There’s a sort of hyper-manic, throw-in-everything-including-the-kitchen-sink school of death metal that, while adopted by few bands, has always been really appealing to me. The main two bands I think of when this approach comes to mind are the legendary hydro-grinders Cephalic Carnage and Cattle Decapitation since their reinvention, starting at Monolith Of Inhumanity. Cephalic Carnage have been out of the album-release game a long time especially, and I feel like they’re a definitely missed icon in extreme metal right now.

Exocrine, however, appear to be a band who’ve been working on usurping the throne of the legendary progressive technical death/grind behemoths by not only doing a convincing spin on the band’s sound, but taking the template Cephalic established and propelling it to an over-the-top extreme. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: OAK PANTHEON

 WAXING LYRICAL  No Responses »
Aug 112018
 

 

(In this week’s edition of WAXING LYRICAL, Andy Synn presents the results of his interview with Sami and Tanner of long-time NCS favorites Oak Pantheon, whose new EP Sol was released last spring.)

Anyone who’s been a regular reader of NCS for any decent amount of time will undoubtedly recognise the name Oak Pantheon, as we’ve been writing about and supporting the band practically since their inception, and have covered practically everything they’ve released thus far, to a greater or lesser extent.

The one thing we haven’t really had much chance to go into detail about, however, is their latest EP, Sol, which sees them breaking from their established pattern and pursuing a calmer and more contemplative, Neo-folk-influenced sound.

Thankfully I was able to corral guitarist/vocalist Sami Sati and guitarist/backing vocalist Tanner Swenson to participate in this latest edition of Waxing Lyrical, where you’ll find a wide range of information about all stages of the band’s career, including the mindset and process behind their newest and most unusual release. Continue reading »

PAARA: “RIITI”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Aug 102018
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the second album by the Finnish band Paara, released this past February by ViciSolum Productions.)

I personally feel like 2018‘s black metal game has been a bit lacking compared to 2017, which was a pretty stellar year.  Yeah, there’s been Horizon Ablaze and Shining, both two of the best albums of the whole year for sure, but at least for me my perusing for black metal has mostly turned up disappointing results — typical blatant first- and second-wave worship that drags on with repetition, horrible mixes, awful vocalists, relying on the novelty of the genre’s beginnings. For me, black metal is one of the most exhausting genres to explore because SO MUCH of it sounds the same and fails to pay tribute to the best aspects and results of the style.

Paara, on the other hand, is a very pleasant discovery. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries