SHADES OF BLACK: PLAGUESTORM, CLOAK OF ALTERING, ENSCELADOS, THE NIGHTLY DISEASE, RAAT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 132018
 

 

There’s a mountain of black music in today’s column — five full releases, the shortest of which is more than 20 minutes long. Moreover, one of those releases is a single song that itself tops 20 minutes in length. I don’t expect everyone to make their way through all of this; tastes do vary, as does the amount of time people are prepared to set aside for the exploration of new music. Recognizing that, I’ve provided previews of the music (at least as I hear it), and in the case of the releases other than the two that consist of long-form monoliths, I’ve selected specific songs that I think provide a good test for whether you’ll like the rest of what’s there.

PLAGUESTORM

Eternal Throne is the debut EP by a Swedish black metal band (from Malmö) named Plaguestorm. According to the two labels who are releasing it (Helter Skelter and Blood Harvest), it was recorded in 2015 but is only now being released for the first time due to unspecified “hardships and delays”. Their description of the music peaked my interest:

Eternal Throne, they wrote, “features four tracks in 21 minutes, where all possible aspects of black metal is being mixed into one, big gruesome bowl where everything from the classic guitar leads of Mercyful Fate, and the chaotic mayhem of Katharsis has its righteous place”. Continue reading »

SET FIRE TO YOUR SATURDAY WITH IMMORTAL, NERVOSA, LELAHELL, ALIEN WEAPONRY, SAHON, AND KARNAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
May 122018
 

 

One of my friend Andy’s objectives in launching our Saturday Waxing Lyrical series (the new edition of which is here) was to make it possible for me not to worry about coming up with something to post on Saturdays. I get to party on Friday nights, sleep in on Saturday mornings, and loll around like a walrus in penguin shit for hours after waking.

So I’m sort of defeating the purpose of Andy’s generous gesture by doing this post… but only sort of. I couldn’t resist throwing these brand-new hell-blazing tracks and videos at you because I had so much fun listening to and watching them yesterday and this morning, but I’m not going to take the time to explain what happens in the songs or why I like them so much. I’ll just give some basic info and let you have at it.

There’s some good geographic dispersion in this collection, as well as a lot of enviable talent on display. Also, if you happen to have some asbestos underoos, you might want to pull those on to protect your nether regions. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: THE KING IS BLIND

 WAXING LYRICAL  1 Response »
May 122018
 


photo by Kieran Wakeman

(In this edition of Waxing Lyrical, Andy Synn elicited thoughts from Steve Tovey, vocalist of the UK metal band The King Is Blind.)

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of The King Is Blind?

Now keep them raised if you’ve heard their fantastic second album, We are the Parasite, We are the Cancer.

If your hand is down… well, what the heck have you been playing at? Not only did I give the album a glowing review, but I also hand-picked it as a close runner-up to Immolation in last year’s “Critical Top Ten”, describing it as:

“…one killer slab of Old-school influenced audio violence, with a Major in Riffology and a Minor in Metallic History, whose every track seems to exist solely to remind you why you fell in love with the more extreme side of Metal in the first place.”

So, with all that in mind, you can see why I decided to talk to the band’s frontman Steve Tovey about his influences (or lack thereof), his favourite vocalists, novels… and pretty much anything and everything else which feeds into his overall concept for each of the band’s records. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH 2018 (PART 3): HUNDRED YEAR OLD MAN / MASK OF JUDAS / VOICES

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 112018
 


Hundred Year Old Man

(Andy Synn delivers another installment in a series focused on recent releases by UK bands.)

There’s not going to be too much preamble for this edition of “The Best of British”, mainly because I’m currently very busy with work for my day job, work for my band(s), and work for a certain other music magazine, all of which are collectively conspiring to monopolise most of my time at the moment.

Be that as it may, however, I’m hoping there’s enough variety contained within these three albums – some of which you might say are a little bit off our regularly beaten path here at NCS – that most of our readers will be able to find something they can engage with and enjoy. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DÉLÉTÈRE — “CANTUS I – TEREDINIS LEPRA”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
May 112018
 

 

The song we’re about to present is one that’s so emotionally explosive and so persistently electrifying that it left this listener wide-eyed in wonder, and wondering what the hell to do with all the energy that had suddenly surged into the blood stream.

The song is “Cantus I – Teredinis Lepra“, the opening track from the new album by the Québec black metal band Délétère. Entitled De Horae Leprae, the record is described as “a monumental concept album devoted to Teredinis, a simple leper whose calling it is to become a prophet of Centipèdes as well as an incarnation of the Plague”.

The album is indeed a colossal achievement, a sprawling 65-minute opus that demands more careful consideration and a more extensive discussion than you’ll find here today. All you’ll find here — in addition to the music stream — is a gushing flood of adjectives un-corked by just this first track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HEGEMONE — “WE DISAPPEAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 112018
 

 

If you’re looking for titanically heavy music, the kind that will loosen your teeth and vibrate your spinal fluid, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for music that glimmers and shimmers like the northern lights, you’ve also come to the right place. If you want the sounds of tension and pain, lead-weighted gloom and feverish desperation, mechanized warfare and sunrise grandeur, you’ll find that here as well — plus a steady dose of what makes people compulsively bob their heads.

Even if all you know about Hegemone’s new album, We Disappear, is what you just read, you can already tell that they’re devoted to creating contrasts on multiple levels, sometimes by separating and juxtaposing the differences, and often by layering them together. The music surges and subsides, seems to crack the earth and heat the blood to a feverish boil, and spirits the listener away to heights of of perilous and panoramic wonder. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUTUMNWIND — “LOST AND ALONE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
May 102018
 

 

Autumnwind is the solo project of a Syrian musician named Abdulrahman Abu Lail, and the third Autumnwind album, Endless Fear, will be jointly released on May 20th by Symbol of Domination and More Hate Productions. An instrumental album, it draws upon the elements of atmospheric black metal to capture the sensations of terrifying panic attacks that struck its creator in the summer of 2017.

Of course, the effect of all music on any listener is the product not only of the inspirations, moods, and goals of the musician but also of the listener’s own mental and emotional states and experiences. Pain and terror may have been at the source of the music on Endless Fear, but to this listener the song we’re premiering today, “Lost and Alone“, is an entrancing as it is unsettling. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VALGRIND — “LAST ANGEL (INTO THE UNKNOWN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 102018
 

 

On the 25th of May, Everlasting Spew Records will release Blackest Horizon, the third album by the Italian death metal band Valgrind (named for the ancient gate that stands before the great hall of Valhalla in Norse mythology), which follows the band’s tremendously good 2017 EP, Seal of Phobos. Last month we brought you the album’s victorious opening track, and today we present another. This one — “Last Angel (Into the Unknown)” — begins a trilogy of songs that end the album.

That song we shared previously — “Victorious” — launches the album in extravagant fashion, delivering a kaleidoscopic aural experience that’s hallucinatory, heart-pounding, mind-bending, savage, and exuberant to the point of madness. The one you’re about to hear is no less fascinating. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VELD – “GRAND DAY OF DEMISE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 102018
 

 

Three years on from their eye-opening 2015 album Daemonic: The Art of Dantalion, the Belarusian blackened death metal band Veld are returning with a new full-length named S.I.N., which will be released in June by Listenable Records. In addition to the formidable talents of vocalist/guitarist Kiryl Bobryk and bassist Tomasz Wawrzak, it features the drumming of Romain Goulon (Benighted, Necrophagist) and a guest appearance by Karl Sanders (Nile).

We had the good fortune of premiering a track from the band’s last album, and now we get to do it again, presenting a ferocious head-spinner named “Grand Day of Demise“, which does indeed threaten your demise in grand fashion. Continue reading »

LYCHGATE: “THE CONTAGION IN NINE STEPS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 102018
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer’s review of the new album by the UK band Lychgate, released in March by Blood Music.)

If you show up for this album expecting black metal, it might be a jarring turn for you. The fact that it is not black metal but still manages to be just as dark and interesting made me willing to go along for the ride. Not every movement on this shifting landscape of angular chaos connects with me, but I approve of the sense of adventure and rebellion against the black metal status quo.

The atmosphere and melancholy of the first song make the angular math of the guitars more balanced, and they get into some proggy abstraction on “Unity of Opposites” to the point that it might be too much like free-jazz for even Deathspell Omega fans. Like it or not, the band has to be applauded for doing their own thing. Continue reading »

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