NO CLEAN SINGING

SHADES OF BLACK (OVERFLOWING STREAMS EDITION): COMMUNION, FEVER, HIMELVARUWE, KOMMANDANT, SANGUINARY TRANCE, SKELETAL SERPENT, THE SPIRIT OF IUVENIUM, TAUR-IM-DUINATH, TETH-NAHASH

Jul 292018

I have a lot of black (and “blackened”) metal I’d like to recommend this Sunday. But because of a two-day picnic that Ms. Islander and I are hosting this weekend at the NCS compound for co-workers and other friends, I don’t have time to write much about each song or album that I’ve chosen. So I’m resorting to a thing I’ve done in the context of the SEEN AND HEARD posts during the work week when I’ve been in a similar metal-flooded, time-short situation, which I’ve called OVERFLOWING STREAMS, for obvious reasons.

Here’s a big torrent of music, with fewer words of review than usual, and I hope it’s not so much metal that you’re deterred from investigating for yourselves. I’ve arranged the music in alphabetical order by band name,

COMMUNION

In December of last year I posted about a stream of a song called “Witching Thrust” by the Chilean black/death band Communion. It came from their second album, The Communion, which was then set for release by Hells Headbangers on January 26th. The whole album popped up in a Bandcamp alert I received late last week, which might mean that it only recently became available as a digital download. Or maybe it was just a reminder. Either way, I got all fired up again listening to the song “Witching Thrust”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORGUE WALKER — “GHOUL CATHEDRAL”

Premieres 1 Response »

Jul 282018

The ghastly scene of bombed-out, body-strewn destruction depicted on the cover of Morgue Walker‘s new EP, Forage the Ash, serves as an accurate visual representation of the music, and of the effect it might have on your quivering brain. Their brand of blackened deathgrind is poisonously toxic, ghoulishly malignant, and viciously obliterating. But don’t take our word for it — listen to the track we’re bringing you through this rare Saturday premiere: bow your heads and prepare to enter the “Ghoul Cathedral“.

This new band from the Carolinas features members of Putrefying Cadaverment, Hateful Transgression, and Mysteriarch, and Forage the Ash is their debut release — a five-track attack that will be released on August 30 and is available for pre-order as of today. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: GIANT OF THE MOUNTAIN

Interviews, WAXING LYRICAL 1 Response »

Jul 282018

(Andy Synn’s guest in this week’s edition of WAXING LYRICAL is vocalist/guitarist Cody Daniels of the Texas band Giant of the Mountain.)

Texas metalloids Giant of the Mountain have been a band we’ve followed here at NCS for quite some time, and our very own DGR recently reviewed their latest (and probably best) album, Nature’s Wrath, describing it as a complex and creative piece of Prog/Black Metal that “takes on a hypnotic quality as it traverses down the multitude of twisting and winding paths within each song”.

So I thought, why not keep the coverage and momentum going by getting the band’s guitarist/vocalist Cody Daniels to sit down for a few moments and pen us some thoughts on his lyrical process, his love of hooks, and the important contributions of H.P. Lovecraft and Spongebob Squarepants to the band’s conceptual evolution? Continue reading »

BENEATH A BURNING SKY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 11 Responses »

Jul 272018

Climate Reanalyzer Global Weather Map – July 27, 2018

(Andy Synn has compiled a collection of songs from seven bands suitable for the hell we find ourselves in.)

Depending on where you are right now in the world, there’s a good chance you’re enjoying/enduring (delete as appropriate) the same sweltering heat and blazing sunshine which is currently scorching us here in the UK, and perhaps you find yourself wondering, as the earth around you slowly returns to its molten, primordial state… what albums provide the best soundtrack to my current situation?

After all, while a lot of Stoner Rock/Metal bands have built a career out of an association with lazy, sun-kissed vibes and hazy, weed-fuelled riffs, the majority of the more Extreme/Underground bands we cover here at NCS tend to be more associated with darkness and shadow… heck, about 50% of all the world’s Black Metal bands are obsessed with snow and ice, regardless of where they actually hail from… and there’s a reason we so often use words like “dank” and “cavernous”, “chilling” and “frostbitten, to describe their music – it just fits!

As a result I had to think long and hard about what albums truly capture the sensation of being trapped and tormented by the oppressive weight of the burning sun in all its torrid and terrible glory, before finally settling on the handful of suggestions you’ll find below. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DIPLEGIA — “SELF”

Premieres No Responses »

Jul 272018

Diplegia, who hail from Troy, New York, made their recording debut in 2017 with the release of an EP named Squander. Since August of last year, they’ve also released two singles from a forthcoming album — “Follow” and “Bitter” — and we wrote about each of them in our SHADES OF BLACK columns (here and here). The name of the album is Abject Failure, it will be released on September 21st, and today it’s our pleasure to premiere a video for a third single from the album, a track named “Self“. Continue reading »

INTEGRITY AND KRIEG: A SPLIT

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jul 272018

(This is Todd Manning’s review of the new split by Integrity and Krieg, which will be released by Relapse Records on August 3rd.)

Oftentimes, split recordings are an opportunity for two lesser known bands to introduce each other to their respective fan bases. It is representative of the camaraderie of the underground, and one of both Metal and Hardcore’s most beloved formats. What we don’t see as often are two well-established acts doing a split together. While there are a few examples, such as Napalm Death’s work with the Melvins and Converge, these exceptions prove the rule.

The latest exception now comes from the pairing of Hardcore legends Integrity and Black Metal juggernaut Krieg. It’s unlikely these groups got together as some sort of calculated marketing move, but rather out of a mutual respect for one another. Continue reading »

POUND: “POUND”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jul 262018

Few people would probably notice, but I write very few album reviews unless they’re accompanying our premiere of a full album stream (and occasionally I include brief ones as part of a Sunday SHADES OF BLACK post). It’s not for lack of interest, but for lack of time. But I’ve been inspired by my friend DGR‘s massive catching-up exercise this week, in which he funneled 13 reviews our way in one fell swoop. There’s no way I can catch up to that extent, but I found myself with a little extra time over the last 24 hours, and so I’ve made a small effort to recommend two recent releases by bands near and dear to my black heart — and this is the second of those.

******

It seems that every time I’ve written about Seattle’s Pound (who used to go by the name Lb.!), I’ve begun by reminiscing about how gob-smacked I’ve been by the hair-raising, head-spinning, ridiculously explosive nature of their live performances, and here I am doing it again. You really have to witness it to fully understand why it’s such a nerve-firing, nerve-rending experience, but while it’s impossible for any recording to do it justice — because you’ll only be able to hear, and not to see — their long-awaited debut album comes as close as one could hope for. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEADS FOR THE DEAD — “DEEP BELOW”

Premieres 1 Response »

Jul 262018

I’ve been hungry for this new album ever since I first caught wind that it was on the way. That greediness was based entirely on finding out who was in the band, and the names of the people who had contributed as guest or session musicians. The leading roles were filled by the very busy Jonny Petterson (Wombbath, Ursinne, Henry Kane, Pale King), who was responsible for the music and its production, and by vocalist Ralf Hauber (Revel In Flesh), with Erik Bevenrud (Down Among the Dead Men) as the session drummer. And to add to those names, Matt Moliti (Sentient Horror) performed guitar solos on three tracks, and Håkan Stuvemark (Wombbath, Pale King) soloed on two others.

With that line-up and those additional contributors, I had little doubt this new collaboration, which goes under the name Heads For the Dead, was going to be good. The question was, how good? And the further question concerned the direction that Petterson pursued in the music. Death metal, of course, but that’s a very broad label, and Petterson has already proven that he’s capable of venturing off in more than one direction beneath that big banner.

Well, now we have some clues for you. One track premiered earlier this month from this new album, Serpent’s Curse, and today we’ve got a second one in advance of its release by Transcending Obscurity Records on September 24th. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP: ZOMBIEFICATION — “BELOW THE GRIEF”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Jul 262018

******

In his brief introduction to DECIBEL‘s premiere stream of Zombiefication‘s new album earlier this month, Dutch Pearce wrote that “this Mexican duo seem to have undergone a potent metamorphosis” since their last releases, and that “Below the Grief bombards the listener with sounds both reminiscent of the past and completely novel in the realm of death metal.” Although he didn’t elaborate, I would agree. Continue reading »

DGR’S MULTI-BAND REVIEW NIGHTMARE (PART 4): JACK KETCH, ALTARS OF GRIEF, ALUCINARI, APOPHYS

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jul 262018

(DGR delivered a tome of reviews so massive that we decided to serialize it throughout the week so as to avoid fracturing your spine beneath its weight. This is the 4th and final part of the series.)

On occasion we find ourselves backlogged with albums that we want to write about but seem never able to find the time to do so. Sometimes this results in multiple review ideas getting tossed and never revisited, and at other times you get posts like this one as we deseperately try to hammer out a whole bunch of reviews about EVERYTHING that we’ve been listening to.

In this case that means 13 different releases, unsorted by genre and from all varying walks of all things heavy. So, with the floodgates now fully open, let us wade further forth into the rushing waters of heavy metal to recommend some stuff that perhaps might have flown by you.

Jack Ketch – Ashes Of Vesuvius

You may have caught it in the opening of my Light This City review, but a lot of bands who’ve been silent for the better part of a decade have decided that 2018 would be a good time to come back. Maybe it’s just the general sense that the world is on fire right now, but a bunch of groups are now putting stuff out as if they’ll never get another chance to do so. Among the increasing number that are returning to us are two local Sacramento acts, one of which released a new album I reviewed yesterday (Journal) and the other of which is Jack Ketch, whose new EP The Ashes Of Vesuvius is a stunning turn of events from the band’s previous material. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries