LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOSEPH SCHAFER — PART II

 LISTMANIA 2017  9 Responses »
Dec 212017
 

 

(Joseph Schafer, the ex-editor of Invisible Oranges and current writer for Decibel, was one of this site’s earliest regular writers under the pseudonym BadWolf and has been a steadfast friend of all of us ever since. This week he returns to NCS once again with a year-end list. This year it comes in two parts. In this Part 2, Joseph lists his Top 10 albums of 2017. Yesterday’s Part 1 (here) named 25 albums that narrowly missed his top slots.)

 

Picking a ranked selection of ten records to represent the best metal in 2017 presented an unusual challenge. As I outlined in my previous list of runners-up, narrowing in on a single trend or trajectory of the genre proved untenable. Of course, metal globally is at what seems like peak production. Literally every week of the year produced at least one record in the genre worth revisiting.

Moreover, focusing on anything, least of all music, seemed difficult. Much of this has to do with the trouble international and domestic political climate. How are we supposed to appreciate the nuanced aesthetics of a record when for a while there every morning news update seemed like a potential nuclear air raid siren. Metal ought to comment on and illuminate these affairs. At least the best metal of the ’80s and ’90s accomplished that feat while delivering great tunes as well.

Instead, metal seems unable to agree on what its own identity is. Instead of the music reflecting the world at large, the culture around that music exhibits the same symptoms of our global culture’s disease. Partisan dogfighting. An unwillingness to think beyond the short term. A total breakdown in shared moral consideration. Fuck picking a record, how are we supposed to pick one problem to fix first? Or at least to write a song about? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MICHAEL ERDODY (ACID WITCH / TEMPLE OF VOID)

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Dec 212017
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us one more interview for 2017, and it’s a big one — an extensive discussion with Detroit-based vocalist/guitarist Michael Erdody, who is a key part of two distincive bands who released excellent albums this year — Acid Witch and Temple of Void.)

 

Michael Erdody is a perfect interlocutor. He plays in a bunch of bands, including two outfits which represent the stronger side of US extreme doom bands and has a lot to tell.

In 2010 he joined a lunatic psychedelic death doom carnival known as Acid Witch; he plays guitar with these monsters, and the release of the band’s third full-length Evil Sound Screamers on October 31st was a big event in the underground metal scene. Besides that, since 2013 he has run the bloodthirsty Temple Of Void, who are well-known for their uncompromising and aggressive death doom works; Michael is responsible for growls in the Temple, and their sophomore album appeared a few months ago on Shadow Kingdom Records.

I’ve tried to shoot two hares with one round and asked Michael about both bands. It took some time but I’m glad to say that he provided answers patiently and in detail. Continue reading »

BLASTEROID: “UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 212017
 

 

(Andy Synn prepared this review of the new EP by Blasteroid from Athens, Greece.)

 

List season may be over (for me at least), but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop covering new music, so you can expect to see a bevy of new reviews – some from 2017, some from 2018 – popping up here and there over the next couple of weeks.

And what better way to begin than with the debut EP by progressive Tech Death fret-wizards Blasteroid – a band with simultaneously the greatest and worst name of any band ever. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PERPETRATÖR — “ALTAR OF THE SKULL”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

André Coelho has done a fine job rendering the artwork for Altered Beast, the forthcoming second album by the Portuguese thrash marauders in Perpetratör, which will be released by Caverna Abismal Records on January 31. The cover art captures both the entirely appropriate title of the album and also a sense of the music’s own rampaging ferocity.

However, although the music has the kind of wild and berserk energy as those mutant barbarians depicted on the cover, it’s fiendishly clever music as well — as catchy as chlamydia and executed with razor-sharp skill. And you’ll see what we mean when you kneel before “Altar of the Skull“, which is the song from Altered Beast we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOSEPH SCHAFER — PART I

 LISTMANIA 2017  8 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

(Joseph Schafer, who was one of this site’s earliest regular writers under the pseudonym BadWolf and has been a steadfast friend of all of us ever since, returns to NCS once again with a year-end list. This year it comes in two parts. Part 2, which we’ll post tomorrow, is a Top 10 list. In this Part 1, the focus is on 25 albums that narrowly missed Joseph’s top slots.)

 

This list will mark my return to No Clean Singing after three years editing Invisible Oranges, and now six months as a dedicated freelance writer. I got my start here at NCS and this time of year I always return. The holidays, after all, are about setting a light in the dark and navigating home, if only for a moment. Now as ever, NCS remains a light in the deepening internet dark, and will always be home.

I can think of many ways to summarize 2017. One could call it a year of reconciliation. Storied and well-traveled bands easing into their twenties and thirties did their best to flex and please after 2016’s glut of great new and super-underground acts. To their credit: 2017 has to be the best year for ‘mainstream’ metal in over a decade. The disappointing tripartite belly flop of Emmure, Suicide Silence, and Winds of Plague’s limp new records hopefully put that subgenre in the dirt for the time being, but otherwise the old Big-little labels, Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Metal Blade, and Relapse delivered some polished surprises: Obituary, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Satyricon, Dying Fetus, Trivium, Belphegor, Vader, Danzig (what?), Exhumed, The Black Dahlia Murder, and Unsane all released their best albums in years. Special accolades must go to Cradle of Filth, who have somehow come out of their maybe-worst-band-in-metal tailspin and released a front-to-back rager with Cryptoriana – the Seductiveness of Decay. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: XAEL — “APATHY OF THE IMMORTAL”

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Dec 202017
 

 

Xael is a new band from North Carolina, and they are nothing if not ambitious. Their debut album The Last Arbiter, which will be released next year by Test Your Metal Records, is a musical narrative organized around a sci-fi/fantasy saga created by Xael that takes place on a distant planet and whose protagonist is an immortal wayfarer chained to demonic entity.

The music itself has a theatrical, operatic quality with a scale and scope that matches the drama of the story line. And the band are planning to release two songs from the album each month as well as a series of videos that provide a rich visual depiction of the story as well — the first of which we present to you today.

Before we get to that video — for the song “Apathy of the Immortal” — some background information may prove useful. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLOSSO – “REBIRTH”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

The fourth album by the Portuguese death metal band Colosso is entitled Rebirth, a title that could be understood in more than one way. Aside from the album’s lyrical themes, it marks a transformation of the band from a five-piece group to the studio project of Colosso’s founder, Max Tomé, who is supported on Rebirth by guest drummer Emídio Alexandre (The Autist, ex-Shadowsphere).

Rebirth will be released digitally and on tape and CD on February 25, 2018, and today it’s our pleasure to premiere the first single from the new album, which itself is entitled “Rebirth“. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 30): AEGRUS, HEIR, CAÏNAN DAWN, STAHLSARG, LUNA, SAR ISATUM

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

(This old year is gasping its last breaths — and even fewer are left than the last time we welcomed our friend Gorger from Norway — but he has found time for one more collection of 2017 releases that we haven’t previously reviewed before the death rattle. To find more of his recommendations, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

 

Welcome to Part XXX in this here attempt at filling the gaps left by the runaway NCS high-speed rail. Last time around, I wrote about “four new picks” in the ingress. I obviously can’t count for shit. Also, Islander’s prequel indicated that BtNCSR pt.29 was my last endeavour to finish off 2017. Well, I never told him that I was hoping for one more, and truth be told, I wasn’t betting on it either.

I do have more 2017 metal to share, but that’ll have to wait ’til next year. In the meantime, my top 20 will emerge amidst the Listmania® madness. I’ve narrowed down my candidates from more than 60 to 30 at the time of writing. The finals will be tough as hell. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST BY NEILL JAMESON (PART II)

 LISTMANIA 2017  3 Responses »
Dec 192017
 

 

(For the fourth year in a row, Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) kindly accepted our invitation to share with us his list releases from the past year that meant the most to him. It comes in two parts. In this second part, Neill’s list is devoted to splits, reissues, and “non-metal odds and ends”. Part I, which includes albums and EPs, is HERE.)

 

Still with me? Thanks, I promise this won’t be as wordy. 2017 was also a great year for splits, reissues, and dark music that doesn’t fall into the “metal” category but is worth your attention just the same. That seems like enough of an intro, let’s dive right in. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NETER — “THE PILLARS OF HERACLES”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Dec 192017
 

 

At almost the precise mid-point of this year our own Andy Synn wrote a column in which he discussed the never-ending moan (and shriek) of people who complain that metal is dying and that nothing new under the sun compares favorably to “the good old days”, As a means of responding to such points of view (which obviously none of us here shares), he recommended that we do more than simply tell such complainers they’re dead wrong; instead, we should expose them to music from newer bands which proves that “we don’t need to make Metal great ‘again’, we just need to make more people aware of how great it already ‘is’”.

And Neter is one of the bands he gave as a prime example of metal’s current greatness.

Referring to the band’s last album, Idols, Andy described the music as “punishingly tight, hellishly hooky Death Metal from Spain”. And now a new Neter album named Inferus is nearly upon us, set for release on January 15th through the cooperation of Satanath Records (Russia), Cimmerian Shade Recordings (USA), Murdher Records (Italy), and Black Plague Records (USA). Two songs from the album have premiered previously, and today we deliver a third one: “The Pillars of Heracles“. Continue reading »

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