GRETHOR: “DAMNATIO MEMORIAE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 122018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Virginia’s Grethor, which is out now via Edgewood Arsenal Records.)

 

As the old saying goes, “too many cooks spoil the broth”. And the same could be said of influences too.

But while every Tom, Dick, and Harriet out there seems to be dead set on mashing together as many different styles and sub-genres as possible, often in a desperate attempt to maximise their appeal and marketability, there are still some bands – call them purists, call them elitists, call them whatever you will – whose primary goal is not to be all things to all people, but simply to be the best that they can be.

Blackened Death Metal demons Grethor are one such band. Continue reading »

DRONE THERAPY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 122018
 

 

(Grant Skelton returns to NCS with a round-up of new music with a particular stylistic focus, as he will explain below.)

Greetings, friends! It’s been quite some time since I’ve shared a proper roundup of music. The following four artists heavily employ the use of drones in their sound. I used to hate drone music, but have grown quite fond of it in recent months. I’m listing the artists at the beginning of the article while holding my usual lunatic ravings until the end. Why drone? And why should you care? Music first. Lunatic ravings after.

Bismuth

In 2013, our esteemed Editor-In-Chief covered Bismuth’s split with Undersmile (which featured a glorious noisy testament called “Collapse”). For those who, like me, are perpetually late to the party, Bismuth is Tanya Byrne on bass and vocals and Joe Rawlings on drums. Together they create a barbarically slow, deeply entrenched interdimensional wall of sound that is likely to entrance few and repel many. Bismuth’s music is best thought of less in terms of song structure and more in terms of an agonal cycle of musical misanthropy. The unrepentant ugliness of their sound, though, is an aloe for a soul made bitter by the frequent futility of life. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GLORIOR BELLI, ABRAHAM, OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE, SCIENTIST, FOEHAMMER, HOSTIA, KALMAH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 122018
 

 

The flood of outstanding new metal is unceasing. I actually wouldn’t mind a break — not long, mind you, maybe a week or 10 days of absolutely no new music at all. But since that won’t happen, I’ll continue doing my best to tread water and keep my flaring nostrils above the tide.

Here’s a collection of new tracks that I sifted from those that appeared late last week. In genre terms, they’re all over the map.

GLORIOR BELLI

It has gotten increasingly difficult to predict what Glorior Belli is going to do from album to album, or even from song to song. The one you’ll find below is “Deserters From Eden“, the first single off this French band’s new album, The Apostates. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SETSUKO — “CHILD WITHOUT BRAIN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 122018
 

 

The Stockholm group Setsuko think it’s fine for screamo bands to move more in the direction of metal (and grindcore in particular), and for grindcore bands to move more toward screamo as well. They’ve chosen to position themselves in the middle between those two camps, with a laudable objective:  “to combine the most violent sounds of both hardcore and metal and play the fastest, angriest stuff we possibly can”. And these Swedes do mean what they say, as you’re about to find out.

Setsuko’s debut album is The Shackles of Birth, which will be released in March on the UK label Dog Knights Productions. The song we’re bringing you is “Child Without Brain,” which according to Setsuko follows a “theme of paranoia and living in a world somewhere between lucidity and psychosis”. In fact, most of the songs follow that theme as well. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ECLOSS, SVNEATR, MORMÂNT DE SNAGOV, SVPREMACIST

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Feb 112018
 

 

As I explained in Part 1 of today’s long column, this collection begins with three substantial works of atmospheric black metal largely devoted to “long-form” compositions, and then makes some sharp stylistic turns. The first item in this Part 2 is the third of those opening pieces and becomes a bridge to the veering course in the final trio.

ECLOSS

Ecloss is a one-man project based in Paris. The Ecloss debut album, Diluvienne, was released on January 26 and consists of three long songs. The shortest of those, at about 9 minutes, is the opener “Mensonges De Profane“, which is what convinced me (without argument) to plunge into the even more substantial works that follow it. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MIDNARTIIS, WINDSWEPT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 112018
 

 

Welcome to the regular Sunday edition of this column, which follows the irregular one I posted yesterday after failing to complete it earlier as planned. I’ve divided it into two parts because there’s quite a lot of music in today’s post, with six bands and four complete releases in addition to advance tracks from two others that are on the way.

On top of that, the first three of the complete releases include “long-form” songs. All of them are examples of emotionally powerful atmospheric black metal. But after those three I decided to make a sharp stylistic turn (actually, several sharp turns).

P.S.: I’m rarely cool, calm, and collected when writing about music; I only write about what I like and tend to let the words reflect the excitement… and I really like what you’re about to hear.

MIDNARTIIS

Two years ago I reviewed and premiered a wonderful album named Waves of Degradation by the Texas folk-influenced atmospheric black metal band Krigsgrav. It was the band’s fourth album but my first serious exposure to their music, and it was a hell of a discovery.

Krigsgrav are far along in their work on a new album, but their former bassist Wes Radvansky, who seems to have parted ways with the band since the last Krigsgrav album, has his own solo project, the name of which is Midnartiis. Continue reading »

IMPURE SOUNDS: GOLGOTHAN REMAINS, GRAVEIR

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102018
 

 

Impure Sounds is an appropriately named independent label and recording studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Their past releases have included works I’ve written about at NCS, including a split by Graveir and Mar Mortuum, and the debut album by Dødknell. Impure Sounds now has two new releases on the way, one of which can now be streamed and downloaded in full and the other of which has an advance track up for listening — and both are very good.

 

GOLGOTHAN REMAINS: PERVERSE OFFERINGS TO THE VOID

Sydney’s Golgothan Remains launched their first demo two years ago and are now following that with a full-length record through Impure Sounds named Perverse Offerings To the Void. A digital version of the album is available now, and a 12″ vinyl is scheduled for April 20.

“Vehemence (Through Pain Divine)” opens the album in stunning fashion, with titanic rumbling and booming in the low end, bursts of freakish, swarming guitar dissonance in the upper reaches, and grim grinding in the mid-range, like a bone saw scything through gangrenous limbs. The destructive barrage of sound is segmented by slower cascades of pile-driving brutality. A heartless roaring monstrosity has somehow seized the microphone, venting a tyrannical tirade in the midst of this war zone. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MYSTAGOS, AMNUTSEBA, SCARIFICARE, NATAS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102018
 

 

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has visited us more than once that I enjoy doing premieres of new music. Sometimes, however, I lose my head: For example, over the last two days we did eight of them. I believe in the worth of each one of those, but they shoved everything else out of the way, including this post, which I started writing last Wednesday and couldn’t finish.

Posting this on Saturday runs it right up against the usual spot for this SHADES OF BLACK series on Sunday, but so be it. I’ll still post another one of these installments tomorrow, and then try to figure out how to catch up on Monday with everything else I’ve neglected over the last two days.

MYSTAGOS

In December we premiered a song from a then-forthcoming EP named Pvrvsha by the Spanish black metal band Mystagos. That song alone (“Drowning In the Sea of Unconsciousness”) was enough to land the EP on my own “most anticipated” list for the early months of 2018. And on February 1, Pvrvsha was released by BlackSeed Productions. It’s available now through Bandcamp, and if you haven’t heard it, you really should give it your full attention. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEDNJA — “DOLINE SU OSTALE IZA NAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 092018
 

 

The Bednja is a river in northern Croatia that rises in the mountainous forested areas near Macelj and follows a winding path until it flows into the larger Drava River. Bednja is also the name of a small village located near the river’s spring, well-known for the hard-to-understand dialect of its people… and for being very cold. And Bednja is also the name of the three-man Croatian band whose debut album, Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas, we’re now premiering.

When the band contacted us about the possibility of a premiere, I began listening to the album, as I always do before deciding whether to host a premiere. By the end of the second song, I was completely captured by the music and hurriedly wrote YES! before the third song began. As I eventually discovered, the rest of the album is every bit as good as the way it begins, striking like an unexpected bolt from the blue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NORTH HAMMER — “AVATAR”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 092018
 

 

Andrew James from Edmonton, Canada (and a member of Eye of Horus and Shotgunner) is completely open and forthright about the passions that have inspired his creation of the solo project North Hammer and the music on the debut album Stormcaller, which is set for release on March 16th.

He names the mighty Quorthon as well as Wintersun, Ensiferum, Amon Amarth, Aether Realm, and Blind Guardian as the revered sources of his musical inspiration, and ancient Norse legends as the wellspring from which he has drawn the new album’s thematic and lyrical concepts. The name of the project itself was meant to invoke winter (as well as his native Canada) and of course Thor’s formidable hammer, Mjölnir. Continue reading »

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