INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 2

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 042018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which will be spread out in installments over the balance of this week. Day 2 is the focus of this post; reactions to Day 1 can be found here.)

 

Day two of Inferno began with… me sleeping in. And damn, did it feel good.

It also meant that, after grabbing some food, doing some writing for NCS, and checking my work emails, I was nice and rested and ready to hit the festival good and early, even getting there with enough time to have a bit of a wander around the (admittedly quite limited) array of merch stalls on offer, where I picked up a copy of Drottnar’s second album Stratum and browsed a bunch of truly terrible band shirts, before grabbing a cool spot from which to watch the opening band, Swedish occult artists Mephorash. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MICAWBER — “IN SHADOW AND LIGHT”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 042018
 

 

Micawber have already made quite a name for themselves over the last decade despite the challenges of self-releasing their recordings. They’ve produced two albums and three EPs, to growing enthusiasm among fans and critics, and have participated in 25 tours across North America and Europe, supporting such bands as Sepultura, Vader, Vital Remains, and Internal Bleeding, as well as appearing at numerous metal festivals. But with their new third album, Beyond the Reach of Flame, it could hardly be clearer that the band’s ambitions are still soaring.

Among other things, this new one will be released by Prosthetic Records, who know a good thing when they hear it. For another thing, Prosthetic and Micawber turned to the great Dan Seagrave for the cover art, and the record was mastered by Ryan Williams (Black Dahlia Murder). But even more importantly, the band have also stretched their creative wings on the new album, incorporating a broader range of metal genre elements into their core death metal sound and upping their game both in songwriting and in performance.

We hasten to add that this is not empty PR talk. It is backed up by what you will hear today, as we present the debut of an electrifying track from the new album named “In Shadow and Light“. Continue reading »

PANOPTICON RELEASES “THE SCARS OF MAN ON THE ONCE NAMELESS WILDERNESS (I AND II)”

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Apr 042018
 

 

We almost never just post stand-alone news announcements, but we’re making an exception here — and to cut to the chase, Panopticon has now released its eagerly awaited new album, The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness (I and II).

Austin Lunn shared the album with a few select friends, but requested no reviews before the release of the album. And so you won’t see one in this post, but you will see one tomorrow, simply because the album inspires too many thoughts and reactions that might cause me some kind of internal damage if I don’t get them off my chest and out of my mind.

For now, I just want to share the stream and links to the places where the album can be downloaded and ordered in physical editions (my own vinyl order should be arriving any day). But first, here is a statement from Austin Lunn that appears on the Bandcamp page where it can be downloaded: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DREAMARCHER

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 042018
 

 

(The members of Dreamarcher hail from the Hardanger district on the west coast of Norway, and their latest EP, Harding, was released on March 9th. Here, Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum talks with the band’s Ruben Aksnes.)

 

Dreammarcher combines different influences. At times the music can resemble something like Cult of Luna, but for the most part it is progressive, and in a rock fashion; I think of The Mars Volta. The faster parts are a hybrid of hardcore and Black Metal. Clean vocals in an American style that at times remind me of bands from P.O.D to Fear Factory, but are rock-like for the most part.

I’d say Harding, their newly released EP, has a complex array of different vocal styles, a mesh of different genres, and interesting song structures. They have even brought folk into the mix by using the fiddle, which was, I found out, a symbol of rebellion in Hardanger, the Norwegian region the band hails from. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FOSA — “DEMO MMXVI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Apr 032018
 

 

This isn’t a premiere in the usual sense of the word, or the usual way in which we use it. The recording is a 2016 demo, first released digitally, and even the tape release that’s the occasion for this feature is a couple of months old. But I’m calling it a premiere anyway because the odds are that this is the first time most of you will be hearing the music. I can promise you that you won’t soon forget it.

Demo MMXVI is the first release by a Chilean band named Fosa, and it’s also the first release by a new Santiago-based label and distro named Unpleasant Records (a name that you’ll see again quite soon here, because we’re also hosting a stream of the label’s second release.)

There’s no satisfying short-hand genre phrase for Fosa’s music on this demo. Crust and black metal are probably the dominant ingredients, but there are others, including sludge, harsh noise, and regular doses of lysergic acid. The end result is an experience that’s incredibly intense and undeniably traumatic. The sounds are primally powerful, titanically heavy, and murderous in their attempts to fracture the listener’s sanity. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VALGRIND — “VICTORIOUS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 032018
 

 

Last year we had the fiendish pleasure of premiering two tracks off the Seal of Phobos EP by the Italian death metal band Valgrind. That was a remarkably multifaceted EP that succeeded on multiple levels, but it still may not be adequate preparation for what the band have accomplished on their new third album, Blackest Horizon, which will be released by Everlasting Spew Records on May 25th. But the song we’re presenting today provides a better sign — one that blazes like some widescreen neon billboard flashing with a thousand colors.

This new song is named “Victorious“, and it is indeed victorious — a kaleidoscopic aural experience that’s hallucinatory, heart-pounding, mind-bending, savage, and exuberant to the point of madness. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 1

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 032018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which will be spread out in installments over the balance of this week.)

 

What to say about Inferno Festival that I haven’t said before?

From the venue(s) and the location, to the bands and the general organisation, it’s still one of my favourite festivals I’ve ever been to, and this year was a particularly good one for me.

Of course things didn’t get off to the best start, as my plane was delayed on the tarmac for almost two hours, meaning that, by the time I finally hopped off the plane, jumped on a train, and made my way into Oslo, I had missed the one part of the Inferno Music Conference, which I really wanted to attend.

Anyway… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UTBURD — “THE HORROR UNTOLD”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 032018
 

 

Utburd is the alter ego of Vitaly “Tuor” Goryunov from the city of Olenegorsk in the Murmansk region of Russia. For his second album under the Utburd name (and the third release overall), Tuor has turned his imagination to visions of Lovecraftian horror and employed the techniques of atmospheric black metal to spur the imaginations of listeners. Featuring appropriately frightful cover art and booklet design by Paint-It-Black, the new hour-long album is named The Horrors Untold, and it will be released on the 15th of April by Satanath Records.

One song from the new album (“Death From Mount Tempest”) has been previously revealed, and today we present a second one, with a name similar to that of the album itself:  “The Horror Untold“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOODEN STAKE (VANESSA NOCERA)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Apr 032018
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us this extensive interview with Vanessa Nocera, vocalist and bassist of Wooden Stake and a central figure in other bands such as Cauldron Burial and Vaultwraith.)

 

Originally born in Kentucky, this project was raised by Vanessa Nocera, who has performed in a half -dozen of more extreme bands, such as black death outfit Cauldron Burial. In Wooden Stake she has mixed old school death doom with traditional doom metal since 2010.

From the very beginning she has handled bass and performed all sorts of vocals, from clean ones to hungry and savage harsh ones. She recorded the debut full-length Dungeon Prayers & Tombyard Serenades with Wayne Sarantopoulos (guitars, drums, keyboards), and the second album A Feast Of Virgin Souls was done with William Wardlaw (guitars, drums). Three years have passed, so what’s happening now? Where are the new stories of gore and horror? Where are new tunes from the gloom of the basement?

I approached Vanessa to clarify the current status of Wooden Stake and to learn about its origin. Continue reading »

KRODA: “SELBSTWELT”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 022018
 

 

It seems that more and more bands (though still a small number) have been springing their albums by surprise, with little advance notice and no preview tracks, and the Ukrainian powerhouse Kroda did that at midnight last night, launching a new album named Selbstwelt on Bandcamp (though I confess that I was given an opportunity to hear the album in advance of that release).

Selbstwelt (The Land of Selbst) is Kroda’s seventh full-length studio album and joins a discography that also includes EPs, live recordings, and compilations. It follows a live album, Kälte Aurora – Live In Lemberg II, and is the band’s first studio release since 2015’s Навій схрон (Navij Skhron) (reviewed here), which was a significant departure from most previous Kroda releases, consisting of six ghostly and chilling ambient-music tracks and three black metal songs (including an electrifying cover of a song by Kroda’s countrymen Nokturnal Mortum), each different from the others and all still different in some ways from the pulse of Kroda’s past music.

Selbstwelt can be understood as both a return to earlier times and as a culmnation up of the band’s career so far. In Kroda’s own words: Continue reading »

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