AN NCS PREMIERE: NÒTT — “WHITE. COLD. DEATH.”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 282017
 

 

Those of you who’ve been visiting us for years are quite familiar with our continuing admiration of the Minnesota band Amiensus, whose releases we’ve followed closely and written about frequently ever since the appearance of their debut album Restoration in 2013. And so we were intrigued when we learned that Amiensus frontman (and Fail to Decay bassist) James Benson had started a separate solo project named Nòtt as a vehicle for creating music that combines bleak and progressive elements of black metal.

We can now reveal that Nòtt’s debut album is nearing completion and is projected for release in January of the new year, and we can go further than that — because today we’re premiering the first single from the album, a song called “White. Cold. Death.“, which is now available for free download at Bandcamp. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: BLASHPEMOUS FOUNDATIONS (A YEAR-END ROUNDUP BY THEMADISRAELI)

 LISTMANIA 2017  13 Responses »
Dec 282017
 

 

(We present here the lists of 2017 releases that proved to be the favorites of NCS writer TheMadIsraeli.)

2017 was a fucking great year for metal of all kinds, but most particularly the extreme kinds. Keeping it short and sweet again this year, I’ve decided to call this list Blasphemous Foundations. I picked a Top 6 of thrash, black, and death metal, the central pillars of extreme metal (heuhueheue 666 get it!?) followed by a miscellaneous Top 10 of stuff either not in those categories or was its own thing to the extent I didn’t think it fit into them. This will probably be my year-end list format going forward, although there will be differing amounts of exposition and me generally being an overly verbose fuckhead.

But first, some hot takes, and not-so-hot takes I’d like to offer: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MYSTAGOS — “DROWNING IN THE SEA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Dec 282017
 

 

Roughly three months we premiered a remarkable debut album named Ho Anthropos Tes Anomias by the Spanish band Mystagos, which was subsequently released by Clandestine Faith. In an accompanying review, I wrote about the way in which spiritual inspiration and distinctive musical talent had come together in an unusually successful way: “The music itself has an otherworldly and occult resonance, channeling the exploration of dark mysteries, the exaltation of sinister forces, and the delirium of madness”.

Given the rare appeal of that album, we were excited to learn that Mystagos has prepared a new collection of songs, an EP entitled Pvrvsha, which is projected for release on February 1, 2018, by BlackSeed Productions., with great cover art by Opposition Artworks. It includes three black metal songs and four dark ambient songs, and today we have the good fortune to bring you the premiere of one of the black metal tracks: “Drowning In the Sea of Unconsciousness“. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: THE GRAND TOME OF ALBUMS THAT DGR ENJOYED IN 2017 (Part 2)

 LISTMANIA 2017  5 Responses »
Dec 282017
 

 

(This is the second part of DGR’s massive year-end list feature. Part 1 (here) included Honorable Mentions and albums ranked 30-21. Today he presents the next 10 selections for the album list, ranked 20-11. Tomorrow we’ll have the concluding segment.)

 

There are few things that I enjoy each year more than the yearly list roundup here at NCS – including taking the time to write out my own personal favorites. This is a post that I spend a large part of the year dreading, knowing that my penchant for massive verbiage in the face of all things common sense will turn around and bite me in the ass and the stress implied therein of the constant re-reading and editing that goes into the joy of crushing one’s website editor under the sheer weight of text. Were the yearly list allowed to be a book, I would deeply enjoy witnessing the ever increasing size of the roll of toilet paper mine would have to be printed on throughout the year. Maybe one year I’ll actually be able to spring for two-ply and at least have some effect. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INTO THE STORM — “MURDER MURDER MURDER”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 272017
 


A little more than one year on from their 2016 album Where the Merfalo Roam the sludgy rockers in Seattle’s Into the Storm will be returning in February with a new split album with another Seattle band, Smooth Sailing, and today we have a single from Into the Storm’s side called “Murder, Murder, Murder“.

They do say it three times in the title, but you’d get the picture even if the track were untitled. Based upon the sound alone, this is musical murder with a verve fueled by wild-eyed lust for blood splatter and bone splinters, and perpetrated not with the sneaky sharpness of a stiletto but with the brutalism of crowbars and sledgehammers. It’s an invigorating bruiser of a track for sure. Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (BEST OF 2017 EDITION) BY SURGICALBRUTE

 LISTMANIA 2017  23 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

(For the 7th year in a row, I asked our old pal SurgicalBrute to weigh in with his year-end list of favorite albums and EPs. As expected, his list (presented in alphabetical order) adds names of underground releases that haven’t appeared before in our 2017 Listmania series, including some that (gasp!) include clean singing.)

 

What to say?….What to say?…What to say? I mean, was it a good year for metal…of course it was…that observation is trite and tired. It’s not 1996 any more, we’re not stuck using dial-up and getting our heavy metal information exclusively from magazines. There is a constant stream of new music to be found at your fingertips if you want it, and the chances of us ever seeing another year like 2002 (one of the weakest I can remember) are extremely unlikely.

How good was it, though? Well that depends. If you were looking for something new and unique, you were probably let down a bit, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s not what makes or breaks a year. I’m not looking for anything genre-defining, I just want to kick back and listen to some killer music, and by that measure I can’t find a single thing to be disappointed about.

So, with that said, let’s get on with the list….Enjoy! \m/ Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EUCLIDEAN, BALMOG, BHLEG, SAMMATH, BLACK KNIFE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

I’m three days late with this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK, and still woefully behind in sharing new music in a blackened vein that I’ve discovered over the last month. I’m bound and determined to do at least one more of these features before 2017 is interred in a moldy grave, as long as I’m sufficiently unbound by other distractions.

This particular collection includes one complete new album, advance tracks from two more, some new live videos, and a new single.

EUCLIDEAN

To begin this selection of music, I want to strongly recommend Quod Erat Faciendum, the debut album of the Swiss band Euclidean, which was released on December 21 and came strongly recommended to me by starkweather and by Miloš. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: THE GRAND TOME OF ALBUMS THAT DGR ENJOYED IN 2017 (Part 1)

 LISTMANIA 2017  9 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

(As usual, DGR created a year-end list of great length, devoting a great many words to each listed item. Whereas your humble editor continues to fear that the site may collapse beneath this great leviathan of words if it its bulk were caged in a single post, this year we have split it up into only three parts instead of last year’s six. This part includes Honorable Mentions and the albums ranked 30-21.)

 

There are few things that I enjoy each year more than the yearly list roundup here at NCS — including taking the time to write out my own personal favorites. This is a post that I spend a large part of the year dreading, knowing that my penchant for massive verbiage in the face of all things common sense will turn around and bite me in the ass, and the stress implied therein of the constant re-reading and editing that goes into the joy of crushing one’s website editor under the sheer weight of text. Were the yearly list allowed to be a book, I would deeply enjoy witnessing the ever increasing size of the roll of toilet paper mine would have to be printed on throughout the year. Maybe one year I’ll actually be able to spring for two-ply and at least have some effect.

2017 on this end, was an oddly paced year that moved in massive fits and starts. It seemed like there would be a tremendous flood of music and then radio silence, save for the occasional spark of life that would illuminate an ever-darkening cosmos — a new star birthed just in time to realize that it can’t see any of its neighbors anymore. Believe it or not, there was actually one point at which I thought I’d be able to keep this thing down to a nice and trim twenty albums without falling off the deep end. But as the yearly crawl back through our review archives causes one to do, there was a whole lot of “oh fuck, that actually came out this year” uttered — which is a pretty good sign, as many of these albums have slotted into the constant-play role, alongside the many other discs that I’ve dedicated words to over the years. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM BLACK METAL HQ

 LISTMANIA 2017  14 Responses »
Dec 262017
 

 

(As our 2017 LISTMANIA series continues, we are joined by a first-time list contributor who is the man behind the Black Metal HQ YouTube channel — which you can find HERE — and who we’ll allow to introduce himself further below. He presents his list in a form different from any others we’ve featured here.)

 

Welcome to my Year-End List of Black Metal related releases in 2017 (so far)! Although a bit premature — what would this world be without lists prepared as early as November? But who am I to judge, right? That might literally be the question some of you might have, so who am I? For all you antisocial misanthropists, please scroll down and get your dose of some great Black Metal; for all the others: enjoy a little introduction about Black Metal HQ.

To begin with, the person behind Black Metal HQ: Let’s just say I am your regular metal nerd who got into the genre nearly 20 years ago. To be more specific — I had my cherry popped at a small summer party by “Nightmares” from Iced Earth, which until today remains a very pleasant memory. Being instantly hooked on “metal” and drifting through a lot of metal genres with proportionally little Black Metal escalations I rediscovered the darker spheres through Spectral Lore’s III and Mare Cognitum’s Phobos Monolith in 2015. If for some reason you are not familiar with those two albums, please stop reading now, head over to Bandcamp, and come back in 2 hours after enjoying yourself (whatever floats your boat, yo). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOHAN HULDTGREN (OBITUS)

 LISTMANIA 2017  9 Responses »
Dec 262017
 

 

(For the seventh year in a row (!), I invited my friend Johan Huldtgren of the Swedish black metal band Obitus — whose new album Slaves of the Vast Machine (reviewed and premiered here) was itself one of the year’s best black metal albums — to share with us his year-end list. Once again, he agreed. This list previously appeared on Johan’s own blog.)

 

Another year has flown by, in my case quite literally, so here we are again with a new edition of “albums I enjoyed this year”. From what I’ve seen of the lists posted here so far, many of my picks haven’t made others’ lists so I guess either my taste has diverged from that of the median NCS:er or you’ve all missed out on some worthy albums; hopefully it’s the latter and this will be useful for you. Continue reading »

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