NETER: “INFERUS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jan 172018
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by the Spanish metal band Neter.)

 

Legacy… that’s a word which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. The legacy that some bands leave, and the legacy to which all bands belong.

And it does seem, from my admittedly limited perspective, that the idea of legacy is considered to be more important in the Metal scene than most, what with our differentiation and delineation of “Old School vs New”, and our preoccupation with categorising various genres (and sub-genres) into historical “waves”.

Not that any of this is a bad thing, by the way. If anything it always helps to know where you come from, in whose footsteps you might be following, and on whose shoulders you currently stand.

It’s why pretty much every Metal band, no matter how “extreme” they might be, owes a significant debt to Slayer or Metallica, and are part of a legacy tracing its origins not just from Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, but also from Blues and Rock and Roll and from a host of other acts and artists and musical styles down through the ages. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WTCHDR — “THE GLASS HAS NEVER BEEN SO EMPTY”

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Jan 172018
 

 

For every great thing you think you have accomplished, a nagging voice in your head tells you it really doesn’t mean anything of lasting value. And for every failure, the list of which is much longer, your mind hammers another nail into the coffin that time is constructing for you. And on top of that, you look at the world around you and what you see only compounds the feeing that right now, and maybe for all your tomorrows, the glass has never been so empty.

We’ve all had days like that, some of us more than others. On days like that, pretending that everything is rosy offers no solace, because reality stares you in the face with unblinking eyes. You have to stare right back without flinching, and fight back too.

Those are some of the thoughts I had while listening to “The Glass Has Never Been So Empty“, an unflinching track we’re premiering from Failed Ambition, the new album by WTCHDR, and watching the video that accompanies it. Continue reading »

TRANSCENDING OBSCURITY’S 2018 SAMPLER IS A MEGATON METAL WARHEAD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 172018
 

 

From humble beginnings and a focus on metal releases from Asia, Transcending Obscurity Records has mushroomed like an expanding nuclear blast front into a label with a globe-spanning, genre-spanning roster of very impressive bands. And the latest evidence of that is a 2018 label sampler released through Bandcamp a couple of days ago, which includes tracks from forthcoming releases by 36 bands, most of which haven’t been previously disclosed.

I’ve watched the ambitious growth of the label through a long-distance friendship with the label’s owner Kunal, and through that connection I learned some details about forthcoming T.O. releases that are the source of some of these tracks, and got a sneak peak at some of the cover art as well — which includes creations by such personal favorites as Costin Chioreanu, Juanjo Castellano, and Adam Burke. And speaking of cover art by personal favorites, the sampler artwork created by Misanthropic-Art is excellent.

Here are a few of the art pieces that Kunal previewed for me, beginning with part of Adam Burke’s creation for Imperialist and continuing with Juanjo Castellano’s album art for Eye of Purgatory, and the cover art for Depravity and Sathanas: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): ANTIGAMA, ARCHSPIRE, BENIGHTED

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  7 Responses »
Jan 162018
 

 

We’ve arrived at the fifth installment of this rapidly expanding list of Most Infectious Songs released last year. As I did with yesterday’s edition, I had a kind of organizing theme in deciding to group the following three songs together. And the theme is perhaps better expressed through this famous visual than in words.

ANTIGAMA

We had the good fortune to premiere an eye-popping video created by Chariot of Black Moth for a head-wrecking, bombing-run of a track called “Now” off Antigama’s latest EP, Depressant, along with a review of the EP. Although “Now” isn’t the song I’ve added to the list, I did want to excerpt DGR’s review by way of introducing the track I did choose. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KOSMOGYR — “EVITERNITY”

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Jan 162018
 

 

I first came across Kosmogyr last June when I was bowled over (and said so) by a song called “Quiescent“, which was the first offering from a promised debut album (it also appeared on several compilations — Crushing Intolerance Vol. 5 by Black Metal Alliance as well as We Are Shanghai Vol. 5). Now, the album has a name — Eviternity — and a concrete release date of March 9th. I’ve had the good fortune to listen to the album (which is fantastic), and it led me to do something I almost never do: I asked the band for the opportunity to premiere a song, and they agreed. What you will now hear is the new album’s title track.

By way of background, Kosmogyr is the name of a black metal band consisting of Shanghai native Xander Cheng (The Arcbane) and Ivan Belcic, formerly of Shanghai’s The Machinery of Other Skeletons and Death to Giants. Ivan now lives in Prague, but he and Xander collaborated by long-distance to record the album. And that collaboration has borne amazing fruit. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, HEADS FOR THE DEAD, NATTRAVNEN, GREBER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 162018
 

 

I had originally planned to get a SHADES OF BLACK post ready for today since I couldn’t do it on Sunday (or yesterday), and I might still finish it before I turn into a pumpkin today. But instead I decided to begin this Tuesday with a collection of other things I spotted over the last 24 hours in the midst of the flood of new metal that’s been rushing out on a daily basis since the first of the year.

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION

More than six years after their last album and almost four years after their last EP, Australia’s Mournful Congregation will release a new album named The Incubus Of Karma through 20 Buck Spin on March 23rd. This morning those details were revealed along with the album art — and the album’s first single, “Scripture of Exaltation and Punishment“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VENOM PRISON, SLUGDGE, AGRONA, HRVST, THY FEEBLE SAVIOUR, TOTENWAGEN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 152018
 

 

In 1983 the U.S. Congress passed a bill by a veto-proof majority, subsequently signed into law by President Reagan, establishing Martin Luther King Day as an American federal holiday. It’s being observed here today in the U.S., though one wonders whether such a law would have been passed by the current Congress or signed by the current President, what with all the talk about shitholes and such.

Here in our own metallic shithole we’re conducting our own kind of observance, the kind that doesn’t depend on Acts of Congress or presidential largesse, but only on the continuing brain-blasting creativity of metal musicians, which seems never-ending. The torrent of new music since shortly after New Year’s Day has been kind of staggering. I may have to try to do one of these round-ups every day this week in an effort (one doomed to failure) to keep up.

VENOM PRISON

My colleague Andy called Venom Prison’s debut album Animus “nothing less than a neck-wrecking explosion of audio ultra-violence that fans of Dying Fetus, Cryptopsy, and Cattle Decapitation should already be salivating over”. Roughly 18 months after that all-killer, no-filler advent, Prosthetic Records will reissue the album on February 23rd. To pave the way, the band released a new video late last week (via Revolver mag) for a track off the album called “Immanetize Eschaton“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEMONOMANCY — “THE DAY OF THE LORD”

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Jan 152018
 

 

Here at our putrid site we’re currently in the midst of rolling out our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal songs, but we’re also now beginning to assemble candidates for a 2018 list… and the song you’re about to hear vaulted onto that candidate list immediately. It succeeds on many levels, but the primal power of the song’s rhythmic drive and the catchiness of its supremely menacing melodies are among its notable achievements.

The song is “The Day of the Lord” and it comes from Poisoned Atonement, the ravaging new album by Italy’s Demonomancy, which will be released by the esteemed Invictus Productions on February 23rd. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): VALLENFYRE, WARBRINGER, VITRIOL

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  No Responses »
Jan 152018
 

 

Welcome to the 4th installment of my evolving list of infectious songs from last year. I’m continuing to have fun re-listening to tracks from 2017 on my massive list of candidates, and also having fun deciding which picks to group together.

Today, for example, I decided to group these three tracks together not only because I find the songs to be highly infectious but also because listening to them back-to-back is a very effective way of blowing my brain to smithereens. And who doesn’t enjoy that? In addition, all three of these tracks debuted with videos that are quite entertaining to watch.

VALLENFYRE

Well, we’ve been worshipfully prostrating ourselves to Vallenfyre for years at NCS, from the very beginning straight through to the band’s latest album, Fear Those Who Fear Him, which might be the end (see this interview). And so, it should come as no surprise that I’ve picked another Vallenfyre song for another Most Infectious Song list. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LAST LEGION — “GOD OV CHAOS”

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Jan 152018
 

 

Norse mythology has been a rich vein of lyrical themes and musical inspiration for heavy metal bands to mine, and not just for groups who were spawned in Scandinavian lands of ice and snow. Last Legion roam the boroughs of New York City rather than the frost-bitten northlands across the Atlantic, but the ancient and timeless tales of Norse paganism fuel the fires in their music, which is a particularly savage brand of melodic death metal.

Last Legion’s new album, Muspelheim, is being released today via Gravel Entertainment, and to commemorate the event we’re premiering an official video for the album’s sixth track, “God Ov Chaos“, which takes the travails of the trickster god Loki as its subject matter. Continue reading »

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