SHADES OF BLACK: GRAVE UPHEAVAL, NAER MATARON, VEILED, FOXGLOVE, THECODONTION

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Feb 042018
 

 

I spent a lot of time yesterday listening to new black metal and black/death metal, trying to decide what to write about in this Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column. My list of what I wanted to recommend to you included music from 20 bands… and that’s not counting the dozens more from previous listening sessions over the last couple of weeks. As a result, I chose the following five tracks pretty impulsively, consoling myself with the thought that I could pick some more for a further installment of this series early in the coming week. I hope that works out.

As you’ll discover, I bent the rules a bit… some of these tracks lean more on the death metal side of darkness than the black metal side. But it’s all still very black, and all very good.

GRAVE UPHEAVAL

Roughly five years after their untitled debut album, the Australian band Grave Upheaval, whose members are not officially identified but who are rumored to include members of Impetuous Ritual, Portal, and Temple Nightside, have a new album headed our way. Also untitled, and with songs that are identified only by Roman numeral, it will be released by Nuclear War Now! Productions on April 15th. Continue reading »

O DEATH: ALTERED CARBON, VERA HALL, RALPH STANLEY, JEN TITUS, A HILL TO DIE UPON, KHEMMIS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Feb 042018
 

 

I almost never watch anything available through on-line streaming services like Netflix. I don’t watch multi-part TV series available through cable networks like HBO either (I’m one of four people in the U.S. who has never seen a Game of Thrones episode; the other three have been in a coma since 2010). It’s not that I’m uninterested. It’s a question of time, and choices among what I’d have to sacrifice in order to make room for all the hours of viewing. But I made an exception last night.

My wife is out of town visiting one of her sisters. Time with my wife, who has no interest in watching the kind of shows referred to above, is one of the things I’d have to sacrifice if I watched more TV. Time with NCS is another one. But with my wife gone and with my NCS post for today (not this one, the next one) at least planned out in my head, I decided to start watching Altered Carbon on Netflix. The first season became available on February 2nd.

The book of the same name, by Richard Morgan, is an old favorite of mine; I’ve read every other sci-fi book he’s written, too, but I always thought it would be great if someone turned Altered Carbon into a movie or TV series. So, with some extra time on my hands, this was a temptation I couldn’t resist. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MORBOSIDAD, BLACK ROYAL, LEECHED, ARGONAVIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 032018
 

 

I got a late start on this Saturday’s round-up of new music, and then burned a lot of time trying to decide what to include. I didn’t have time to do much rounding up over the last couple of weeks due to the daily roll-out of my 2017 Most Infectious Song list and the usual platter of premieres, and during that interval my notes of things to check out became mountainous.

I know that DGR is pulling together his own round-up for Monday, which will help us catch up a bit, but there’s still quite a lot to do. I’ll at least make a modest start with the four songs I’ve packed into this post.

MORBOSIDAD

I still have vivid memories of the first time I saw Morbosidad play live, which was also the last time. That was at California Deathfest in 2015. They were absolutely barbaric, a blackened death metal war machine unleashing non-stop savagery from start to finish.

They were fronted by original vocalist Tomas Stench, a menacing shaven-headed figure clad in gauntlets with six-inch spikes and crossed bandoliers fully loaded with bullets. When he wasn’t banging his head during instrumental breaks, he was spewing ghastliness with head thrown back like a wolf calling to his kind. He also set an unbound Bible on fire and tossed the smoldering pages into the audience. Since the pages didn’t fully ignite, some helpful audience members finished the job, starting a small bonfire in the mosh pit. Very cool way to start that Saturday night. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DUSKBURN — “SERPENTIDE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 022018
 

 

The Croatian band Duskburn have latched on to a winning formula, but it’s an unusual and unusually gripping one, a kind of alchemical sorcery that combines disparate ingredients to produce powerful (and disturbing) effects on their listeners. Duskburn’s new album, which is the culmination of a decade-long stylistic evolution, is called Serpentide. It’s being released today as a digital download by Cimmerian Shade Recordings, with a tape release planned in the near future, and to help spread the word we’re premiering a full stream of the record today.

Duskburn first took shape in 2006, but the shape of their sound has changed over the course of a debut album in 2009 (Soldering the Seven Streams) and a quartet of EPs released from 2010 through 2013. Over those years, the band moved from an early manifestation of death metal in the direction of sludge and doom, but this new album embraces an even more atmospheric and much more mercilessly vicious take on what they created with their last EP. These are the colossal, high-intensity sounds of mortifying catastrophe. Continue reading »

AN NCS DUAL PREMIERE: CRYPT ROT (“SERPENTINE ATONEMENT”) AND CRINGE (“SEARING SIN”)

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 022018
 

 

Ashtabula, Ohio, is a port town located at the mouth of the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie, across from the province of Ontario, Canada, and about 60 miles outside Cleveland. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, the name Ashtabula is derived from ashtepihəle, which means “always enough fish to be shared around” in the Lenape language. But if you were to Google search “Ashtabula”, one of the first results comes from the Urban Dictionary, who define it as, “A city in Ohio known for being more worthless than a pile of shit.”

Whoever came up with that nasty witticism obviously hasn’t been listening to the metal coming out of Ashtabula, which is powerful enough to fracture foundations in Cleveland and send tidal waves across the lake toward Canada. It’s home to Homewrecker, and it’s also ground zero for two other bone-breakers — Crypt Rot and Cringe.

Those two bands are participating in a new split consisting of an EP from each group — Nocturnal Deterioration from Crypt Rot, and Memento Mori from Cringe. The split will be jointly released as a digital download on  February 9 and in a cassette tape edition on February 23 by the sibling labels Redefining Darkness Records and Seeing Red Records. Today we’re bringing you the premiere of a song by each band from this hell-raising split. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORIZON ABLAZE — “SLEEP IS THE BROTHER OF DEATH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 022018
 

 

(Andy Synn introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by Horizon Ablaze, which is set for release on February 17.)

 

When I was asked to select a song from the fantastic new Horizon Ablaze album, The Weight of a Thousand Suns (out Feb 17th), to premiere here at NCS, I really did have to think long and hard about it, as literally every single one of the record’s eight tracks is worthy of celebrating.

However, seeing as how the band chose to lead off with “Insidious” – the album’s proggy, moodily melodic final track – as the album’s first single/video, it only seemed to make sense (not to mention appeal to my love of poetic symmetry) to pick the album’s blistering opener as our gift to you all today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARKHETH — “TRISMEGISTUS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 012018
 

 

Prepare yourselves for a bewildering and bewitching piece of sonic sorcery, as we premiere a track appropriately named “Trismegistus” from the third album by the Australian experimental black metal band Arkheth. The album, entitled 12 Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew, will be released on February 20th by Transcending Obscurity Records.

This new song, like all the others on 12 Winter Moons…, makes you wonder how it could have been conceived from a blank slate, and then makes you wonder further how the ideas could have been realized so well in the execution. It is a strange and wondrous cornucopia of sounds, almost labyrinthine in its abrupt twists and turns, and with psychoactive properties as well, producing an effect on the listener that’s disorienting but also beguiling. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  8 Responses »
Feb 012018
 

 

Yesterday I ended the roll-out of our annual list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. As I’ve explained, it was more of an arbitrary halt than an orderly conclusion. When I began the rollout back on January 11 I had a big group of songs I knew would be on this list, but I hadn’t finished the selection. I started the rollout, and then continued to make up the list as I went along. I’m still not finished, but decided that we shouldn’t be continuing with a 2017 year-end list past the end of January in the new year.

Although many more songs could easily still be added, I do think the list, as it is, provides a decent snapshot of both the quality and the diversity of metal in 2017. And I think that’s true even though I only focused on the most “infectious” songs (some of the best songs and albums released in 2017 weren’t really “infectious”, but were stunning listening experiences nonetheless). Continue reading »

ARKONA: “KHRAM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 012018
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews Khram (“The Temple”), the new album by the Russian metal band Arkona, which was released by Napalm Records on January 19.)

The idea of folk metal is better than the application of it that often emerges in album form. Just when I think I have found folk metal I like, the smoke clears and it’s actually black metal. This band is almost a case study in this conundrum. At last a band who might dismiss the problems I have had with folk metal.

The majority of folk metal bands I have come across over the years play something closer to pirate drinking songs or have too much frolicking in the Shire. I play pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons twice a week and read tons of epic fantasy from, Glen Cook to Erickson, so I am the target audience for this kind of music.

But all of these frolicking shanties are too happy, and I need my metal as dark as possible. The ninth album from this Russian band delivers what I need when they do begin to gallop off into the sunset, with moments of majesty contrasted by more dark and heavy passages. Continue reading »

BULLETBELT: “NINE CENTURIES”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 012018
 

 

(We welcome back New Zealand writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises), who brings us this review of the new album by NZ’s Bulletbelt, which was released through Bandcamp just a few days ago.)

 

Nine Centuries is the latest hard-hitting release from New Zealand black/thrash metallers Bulletbelt. Much like their high-octane pals Midnight, Bulletbelt mine metal’s core aesthetics, and Nine Centuries duly features plenty of battle-vested and spiked-gauntleted oomph. Interestingly, though, the rip-roaring album is also somewhat bittersweet. Because Nine Centuries marks Bulletbelt’s final album with vocalist Jolene Tempest.

Tempest exited Bulletbelt late last year, along with guitarist Seth Jackson, and while singers come and go from bands all the time, Tempest’s leaving is certainly notable because her performance on Nine Centuries is so confident and impassioned. Tempest originally joined Bulletbelt not long before they recorded their second album, 2014’s Rise of the Banshee, and that release showcased the band’s burning ambitions like never before. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries