AN NCS PREMIERE: CHARUN — “MENVRA”

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Feb 072018
 

 

The song we’re about to present is “Menvra“, from the album Mundus Cereris. The musicians are a spellcasting quartet from Sardinia, Italy, who go by the name Charun. They have no vocalist; I have a feeling that if they did, the vocals would interfere with the mesmerizing effect of the music, unless perhaps the vocals consisted of nothing more than the whispering of ghosts.

“Menvra” lasts for about nine minutes. The immediate temptation is to cycle back through it again as soon as it stops. It’s so easy to get lost in the sound, to be transported into realms of the imagination — and so difficult to shake yourself and return to the here and now. The effect isn’t exactly hypnotic, because there’s granitic weight in the music and head-moving rhythms, too. The body wants to respond while the mind is moving away; it’s a trance that works on two levels. Continue reading »

A TUMULTUOUS TUESDAY (PART 4): CARDIAC ARREST, VEISLAKT, UHRILAHJA

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Feb 062018
 

 

All good things must come to an end, and so I must end this Tuesday torrent of tumultuous sound in order to pay a small amount of attention to the rest of my life. If you’ve managed to make your way through all four parts of this round-up, congratulations on your fortitude and thank you (and I’m sure the bands would thank you too), but I assume no responsibility for the cost of medical treatment for your eardrums.

In this final chapter, I’ve ranged far and wide in genre terms, perhaps more so than in the previous chapters. Buckle up for a swerving ride.

CARDIAC ARREST

Songs like “It Takes Form” make me feel like Pavlov’s dog at the sound of the dinner bell: I start salivating uncontrollably. This kind of utterly morbid but powerfully electrifying vintage death metal, composed and performed this masterfully, always seems to have that effect. Continue reading »

A TUMULTUOUS TUESDAY (PART 3): RUST, ITERU, VISIONS OF THE NIGHT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 062018
 

 

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends… when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage….”

And I do have some raging metal in this third installment of today’s new-music round-up. Furthermore, despite how much savage new stuff I’ve launched at your earholes today, I have one final installment planned. And now, cry “Havok!” and let slip the dogs of war.

RUST

To begin Part 3 of this round-up I’ve chosen “Windumanouth“, a track from Urstoff, which is the debut album of the Italian black/death band Rust. It will be released in the spring of this year by Dusktone, which characterizes the music as “magical, evocative and enchanting work, as well as tragic, apocalyptic, cruel, painful, fatal, nefarious, violent and deadly….” With one possible exception, I wouldn’t quarrel with any of those adjectives. Continue reading »

A TUMULTUOUS TUESDAY (PART 2): RIVERS OF NIHIL, UNCREATION, DOMEDAG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 062018
 

 

I’m continuing to parcel out new and newly discovered music as time permits today, almost all of it displaying cyclonic ferocity in different ways, hence my decision to give the “SEEN AND HEARD” title a rest in favor of something more connected to the sounds.

RIVERS OF NIHIL

We’ve been writing about Pennsylvania’s Rivers of Nihil since January 2012. I count 14 posts featuring them since then, including album reviews, song premieres, and live concert reviews. I guess you could say we’re fans. And now they’ve given us a reason to add Post No. 15 to the list.

On March 16, the band will release a new album entitled Where Owls Know My Name, and today the first advance track from the album appeared on Bandcamp. “The Silent Life” is the song’s name, but it isn’t a quiet and contemplative piece of music… though surely no one would have expected that anyway. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CULTUS PROFANO — “CULTUS PROFANO, OP. 9”

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Feb 062018
 

 

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of premiering a track from the debut album Sacramentum Obscurus by the Los Angeles-based black metal duo Cultus Profano. The album will be released on February 23rd by Debemur Morti Productions, and today we bring you the debut of this impressive new album’s final track: “Cultus Profano, Op. 9“.

In writing about the previous song we premiered (“Under the Infernal Reign, Op. 10“), I observed that from the hate-filled scowls of their corpse-painted visages to the Satanic mysticism that inspired their song titles and lyrics, Cultus Profano fuel their creations with loathing and abhorrence, seemingly guided by visions of fire and plague, and of the ascendency of evil and the triumph of sin. But, at least to my ears, I thought the mood of that previous song was one of intense sorrow and desolating despair — and it proved to be a hauntingly memorable song as well. Continue reading »

A TUMULTUOUS TUESDAY (PART 1): DANTE, DESTRUCTATRON, ENDLESS, FALSEHOOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 062018
 

 

I decided to give the “SEEN AND HEARD” title a rest today, if only because DGR used it twice yesterday. And yes, even though his two-part round-up tossed eight new songs and videos at your head to start this week, I have many more I want to hurl your way, too. Most of what I’ve selected tends to hit like a plague of tornados, hence the title to this post.

As the post title also implies, I’ve divided this collection into bite-sized pieces rather than one massive meal (and the next bites will likely be smaller than this first one). I haven’t written the other parts, but will attempt to dribble them out as the day goes on. I’m going to do something similar with a SHADES OF BLACK series as well, picking up where I left off on Sunday. There is just too damned much good metal coming out!

DANTE

It seems that Dimmu Borgir and Vesania drummer Dariusz “Daray” Brzozowski has formed a new band named Dante, along with guitarist/vocalist Lucas and guitarist Yony. Their debut EP Paranoidosaur will be released digitally on February 22nd, and yesterday they revealed a lyric video for a track called “Fathers Die Sunday“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: VICTIM PATH — “FACELESS NAMELESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 052018
 

 

After releasing a debut demo in 2011 (In Life We Trust), a debut album in 2012 (Surrounded By Pain), and a single the following year (“Edges of Insanity“), the Belarusian metal band Victim Path are returning at last with a new two-song EP. Entitled Faceless Nameless, it will be released tomorrow via Bandcamp, but we have a stream of both tracks for you today.

The band’s lyrical focus, as they explain it, is on themes of “misanthropy, pain, the loneliness of a human being who is deprived of a right to be god’s creation,” and “the denial of religious postulates, rules and dogmas of everyday life”. And beyond the lyrics, the music on this new EP is itself an expression of grief and pain, one that draws upon the stylistic tools of black metal but employs other musical styles as well. And so perhaps resorting to the more vague but more encompassing term “dark metal” could be appropriate. Continue reading »

CONJURER: “MIRE”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Feb 052018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by the UK band Conjurer, which will be released on February 23rd by Holy Roar.)

I want to begin this review with a confession – I am extremely envious of Conjurer’s ongoing (and hard-earned) success.

I’m not jealous (that actually means something slightly different), nor do I feel that their success is in any way undeserved. In fact I hope I’ve contributed to it, in my own small way, by covering several of the band’s live shows and their EP, here at NCS.

But I do think that, if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, being in a band and seeing someone else do so well will always arouse some feelings of envy. It’s an entirely natural reaction, and not necessarily a bad thing (unless it turns bitter), as it should in turn push you to do better, to think bigger, and to work harder.

However, apparently it’s something we’re not supposed to talk about since it so clearly runs counter to the whole “brotherhood of Metal” concept that we’re meant to at least pay lip-service to.

There’s one thing I definitely don’t envy though, and that’s the excessive hype and fawning flattery which I’ve seen Mire receive elsewhere on the internet. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 2): THE KENNEDY VEIL, MEMORIAM, NECROPHOBIC, DARKEST HOUR

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Feb 052018
 

(This is the second part of a new-music round-up compiled by DGR. You can find Part 1 at this location.)

 

The Kennedy Veil – Bloodletting North America Full Set Live

We ended the first part of this collection with a live music video from Rotting Christ, and speaking of live shows, let’s check in with a Sacramento death metal crew who also wound up with a recorded live show in 2017. This one is courtesy of The Kennedy Veil, whose label Unique Leader recently uploaded the twenty-some-odd-minute full set from when the band were on opening tour duties for the tech-death-packed Bloodletting North America tour, which saw them playing alongside the likes of Origin, Archspire, Dyscarnate, and Defeated Sanity. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 1): MISERY INDEX, DEMONICAL, LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, ROTTING CHRIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 052018
 

 

(DGR compiled a round-up of new music to launch our Monday at NCS, an eight-song collection that we’ve divided into two parts, with Part Two slated to come very quickly after this first installment.)

 

I’m not going to lie to you all, I’ve been pretty distracted around the NCS office as of late. Usually I’ve unleashed a handful of ridiculous-length reviews by this point, but so far the beginning of 2018 has had your buddy here firmly ensconced in the news trenches, freeing up some of the other folks around here to fully dive into the deep and murky waters of all things underground and unlistenable.

It doesn’t help that I’ve also had tabs open alongside the news haul consisting of album streams from Dagon’s victorious return on Back To The Sea, Bloodshot Dawn’s surprisingly tech-death oriented Reanimation, Afgrund’s mean and urgently-now The Dystopian, and even the occasional leap back into 2017 with Ireland’s Weed Priest and their stoner doom throwback; all of which are seeing constant listens and hopefully time to deep-dive in the near future. Shit, there is even a new Apophys disc entitled Devoratis that we covered very briefly but need to dive back into.

Of course, now that all of that has been written down, the news flood will get worse and I’ll get something done just in time to watch the moon finally escape Earth’s gravity and go sailing off into space as we’re devoured by the Sun’s outer layers as it goes red giant.

But enough jokes about things that seem preferable to going outside and facing the world. Let’s get on with the music. Continue reading »

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