HORIZON ABLAZE: “THE WEIGHT OF A THOUSAND SUNS”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Jan 152018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Norway’s Horizon Ablaze, which will be released on February 17th by Leviatan/Diger.)

Ever since Emperor first semi-reformed for their ongoing series of reunion shows people have been asking them about the possibility of a new album. And while this, in itself, isn’t all that surprising, the band’s forthright comments about how that’s never going to happen have been rather refreshing.

As Ihsahn himself has said multiple times, any new album would have to be a product of both his and Samoth’s different writing styles, and the two of them have since diverged so much – one leaning more and more towards pure Prog, the other delving ever deeper into more deathly waters – that finding some sort of consensus or common ground that still actually represented the Emperor sound, would be almost impossible.

But… if they ever did produce a sequel to Prometheus I would imagine it wouldn’t sound a million miles away from the extravagant, expressive extremity of The Weight of a Thousand Suns. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DAMNATION’S HAMMER (TIM PRESTON)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 152018
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings u this interview of Tim Preston, guitarist/vocalist of the UK band Damnation’s Hammer.)

 

Damnation’s Hammer is a strange beast. They’re usually tagged as “death doom”, but despite this label this UK project is strongly influenced by the late Celtic Frost sound. As the band’s founder Tim explains, “The vision of the band has always been to create dark, doom-laden metal incorporating surreal atmospherics”.

Tim Preston (guitars, vocals) has been in the underground scene since the early ’90s, so he knows for sure a few things about how to play dark and heavy, and the band’s second album Unseen Planets, Deadly Spheres was recorded with a new, though experienced, lineup.

And yet despite the new blood in the veins of Damnation’s Hammer, the sound of this album is very close to the debut record, Disciples Of The Hex. What new things did Tim and his crew incorporate into the band’s sound? Let’s ask Tim. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 3): ASAGRAUM, ALMYRKVI, ULVEGR, SCHAMMASCH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  5 Responses »
Jan 142018
 

 

There won’t be a SHADES OF BLACK column today. I’ve had a very busy but fun-filled weekend with Ms. Islander, one of her sisters, and my brother-in-law, whooping it up in Las Vegas. Lacking the time to write any more than one post for this Sunday, I felt it would be better not to miss another day on the rollout of this list. I’ll try to do some catching up on new music tomorrow.

But although there won’t be a SHADES OF BLACK column today, I did decide to focus on black metal for this episode of the Most Infectious Song list.

ASAGRAUM

I’ve been a big fan of “Carried By Lucifer’s Wings” since I listened to it the first time before agreeing to premiere the song last August. If you haven’t heard it yet, it’s one of eight tracks on Potestas Magicum Diaboli, the debut album by Asagraum, a band whose line-up (as of the time of this recording) consisted of Dutch guitarist/vocalist Obscura and drummer T. Kolsvart, who is Canadian but lives in Norway. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S MOST ANTICIPATED ALBUMS OF 2018

 Listmania  23 Responses »
Jan 132018
 

 

(Here’s a personal list by Andy Synn identifying eagerly anticipated forthcoming 2018 albums.)

 

One week ago Islander published a list of upcoming albums expected to be released over the course of the next twelve months, and also solicited comments and recommendations from our readers concerning which albums (and EPs) they were most looking forward to.

Well, as successful as that endeavour was, now it’s my turn to talk up some of my most anticipated album scheduled for release in 2018. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): SEPTICFLESH, TEMPLE OF VOID, ACEPHALIX

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  4 Responses »
Jan 132018
 

 

No sooner than I started this series and quasi-promised that there would be a new installment every day than I missed the second fucking day. Let it serve as a reminder that this NCS gig isn’t a job for any of us here, just a passion that occasionally gets de-railed by other obligations and distractions.

Anyway, welcome to the second installment of our list of Most Infectious Songs from 2017, the length of which is now unknown, but which I hope will be fun for you to experience, even if neither I nor you quite knows where it’s going.

SEPTICFLESH

“Portrait of A Headless Man” was the first song I heard from the 2017 album from SepticFlesh. Since I’ve made a point of not showing my own head in social media photos, the title had a certain immediate appeal. But the appeal of the song went well beyond its title. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017 WRAP-UP

 LISTMANIA 2017  6 Responses »
Jan 122018
 

 

There’s a possibility that at this late date I might still receive a year-end list or two that I’ve forgotten were coming, but with those possible exceptions our 2017 edition of LISTMANIA has concluded — or at least close enough that I’m ready to provide this wrap-up.

Once again, we had an extensive series of year-end lists. As usual, some of them were re-postings of lists that appeared at “big platform” web sites and print magazines, and others were prepared by our own stable of stable geniuses. But once again the largest group of list posts came from invited band members and assorted other guests, including fellow metal bloggers/writers. Plus, we’ve also received valuable, extensive lists in reader comments on THIS POST (and new lists are still being added there).

In this article I’m collecting links to all of the 2017 year-end lists that we published, divided into categories and listed within each category in the order of their appearance. For people who are looking for the best metal that 2017 had to offer, these lists provide a tremendous resource, as they have in past years.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to 2017 LISTMANIA and to everyone who made time to read what we pulled together. Continue reading »

PANPHAGE: “JORD”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 122018
 

 

(The solo artist behind the Swedish black metal band PanPhage has declared that the new album Jord will be the last Panphage record (for reasons discussed in this interview). It is being released today via Nordvis Produktion, and here we present Norway-based Karina Noctum’s review.)

 

Panphage is a Black/Folk one-man band from Sweden. Jord, the latest album, and the last one, comes two years after the release of the full-length Storm. The cover picture of Jord is from some Swedish autumnal landscape. The title of the album translates to “soil”. Most of the song titles are related to the soil/earth theme, e.g. (as translated), “Silent mountain ridge”, “Unsown shall the fields grow”, all revolving around heritage and the earth’s cycle of life and death.

The beginning of “Odalmarkerna” (cultivated fields) reminds me a bit of Iron Maiden actually. But as the album develops, the folk elements become more and more blackened. The album has an atmosphere, an old one. Especially the guitar and drum sound bring the ’90s black metal feeling back quite often. The Bergen scene comes definitely to mind here. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM STARKWEATHER (RENNIE RESMINI)

 LISTMANIA 2017  4 Responses »
Jan 122018
 

 

Editor’s Note:  starkweather vocalist Rennie Resmini is not only a very talented music-maker, but also a man with tastes that match up unusually well with may own inclinations… and he has a way with words. I’ve been following him on Facebook (here) for a while and I see what he recommends, and he also sends me recommendations from time to time. As you know if you read my round-ups of new music regularly, he has been a source of great discoveries.

For all those reasons, I asked him if he would be willing to provide a year-end list for publication here. For those who follow him on FB, you know that he posted extensive separate lists of albums, EPs, demos, and splits. For us, he whittled those down considerably to the 15 titles you will see below, using as one factor what he listened to the most. As he told me, “Here it is, quick and dirty so I don’t overthink… though by tomorrow I’ll have changed my mind”.

If you’re not familiar with starkweather’s music, go here — and get ready for something new from them in a few months’ time… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SCAPHISM — “MALAPROPOS CARDIECTOMY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 112018
 

 

A medical dictionary tells us that a cardiectomy is an excision of the heart, while “malapropos” refers to something that’s untimely or inappropriate. And so now perhaps you have a bit of introductory insight into the ripping new song from Boston’s Scaphism that we’re premiering in this post.

“Malapropos Cardiectomy” is one of eight tracks on Unutterable Horrors, the new Scaphism album that’s headed our way with an imminent January 12 release via Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. It’s the band’s first album since their 2012 full-length debut, Festering Human Remains, and it’s apparent that during this five-year interval between releases Scaphism have become, if anything, even nastier and more savagely adept at their chosen form of death metal butchery. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): DYSCARNATE, POWER TRIP, DUMAL, KAWIR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  4 Responses »
Jan 112018
 

 

And so it begins. Just as we’re approaching the end of our 2017 LISTMANIA series, we’re beginning another list — and it’s the only one for which your humble editor is personally responsible. I don’t have the mental ability or emotional maturity to make my own list of best albums, but I do force myself to make the list that begins today, though as you’ll discover, it’s not an easy process for me (though it does make for a lot of fun listening).

In fact, as in every year when I’ve done this, I’m starting the rollout of this Most Infectious Song list without having finished it — which means I don’t know how long it will be or when it will end. As in past years, I’m making it up as I go along. I’ll do my best to post 2 – 4 songs every day until I arbitrarily decide to stop, though I might miss a day here and there. My goal is to finish by the end of January, but no promises.

If you think this is a ridiculously inept way to make a list, you might consider that between the list of candidates I sporadically made for myself as 2017 rolled on, plus the lists provided by our readers (here) and by my NCS colleagues, I have a master list that includes almost 700 songs. It’s a mix of big names and very obscure ones from across virtually every metal sub-genre you can think of. Continue reading »

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