AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: URSINNE — “SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 132017
 

 

Almost one full year has passed since my roving eyes were struck motionless by the news that Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Just Before Dawn, Ashcloud, Henry Kane) and Dave Ingram (Echelon, Down Among The Dead Men, ex-Hail Of Bullets/Bolt Thrower/Benediction) had joined forces in a new death metal band named Ursinne.

And now three months have passed since the release of their stupendous debut album, Swim With the Leviathan, through Transcending Obscurity Records. No true devotee of old school death metal should have missed that signal event, but now is a good time for a reminder for those who might have.

The reminder comes in the form of a music video that we’re premiering today for the album’s 10th track, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” — and yes, yes it does. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PISSBOILER — “CUTTERS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 132017
 

 

There’s a kind of “fuck off” attitude conveyed by the name Pissboiler, a way of saying, this music isn’t your friend. It won’t buy you a beer, give you a hug, or kiss you on the neck. It also made me think the music might be crust or maybe grindcore. I was wrong about that latter guess, but not wrong about the first one.

I might have made a better guess about their new album, In the Lair of Lucid Nightmares, if I’d listened to this Swedish trio’s 2015 demo, but still not a completely accurate one, because there’ve been some changes in their sound since then. A better clue would have come from the 26-minute side of Pissboiler’s split release this year with Develkuth, a track aptly named “Monolith of Depression” (available here), but even that wouldn’t have been a complete forecast of the amalgam of funeral doom, drone, and sludge that lies in wait on the new album.

We have part of what lies in wait today, a track named “Cutters“, which will disturb your days between now and the album’s release on December 25 by Third I Rex. Christmas Day. These dudes clearly have a gallows sense of humor. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: UFOMAMMUT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 132017
 

 

(Our contributor Wil Cifer usually brings us album reviews, but today he provides a most interesting interview with all three members of the distinctive Italian band Ufomammut.)

Back in September this Italian trio released 8 on Neurot Records, which has proven to be one of the year’s more interesting releases in heavy music with their blend of psychedelic sludge. I managed to catch up with them when they got off their most recent jaunt on the road to pick their brains about the creative process and what makes this band tick. The result is as follows.

******

The hardest part of being in a band can be interaction between other members over the years, so what has been the key to keeping the band together?

Urlo: A good dose of stoicism for sure… ahaha. I must say that we found a good alchemy between us. Poia and me are always together, we see each other every day, being 2/3 of the poster art collective Malleus. We’ve known Vita since a lot of years before we started the band. So… we three had great moments and bad moments, obviously. We all believe in what we’re doing, in one way or the other, so Ufomammut is what kept us together. And, at the end, after so many years, it’s been fun 🙂 Continue reading »

THE FACELESS: “IN BECOMING A GHOST”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Nov 132017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new fourth album by The Faceless, which will be released on December 1 by Sumerian Records.)

Talk to any writer worth their salt and they’ll tell you that, no matter how long they’ve been writing, the temptation to be the first to review something, to get your opinions out there before anyone else, never fully goes away.

But while there are certainly times where first impressions can be useful, it’s often better to let your thoughts marinate for a little while before committing them to paper (or, at least, to digital ink).

Now I’ve been lucky enough to have this album in my possession for a few months, meaning that I’ve had more time than most to digest the music contained therein. And while this doesn’t necessarily make my opinion “better” or more authoritative than anyone else’s, it does mean that I’ve been able to take a bit more of a long-term perspective, and so you can be sure that what you’re about to read is much more than just my first, fleeting impressions of an album that comes laden with a heck of a lot of baggage and some serious expectations to live up to. Continue reading »

DOOM METAL LEXICANUM

 Metal News  No Responses »
Nov 132017
 

 

Regular visitors to our site will recognize the name Comrade Aleks, the Russian writer who brings us such fascinating interviews (and occasionally reviews), focusing on bands within the broad genre of doom. Simply reading his interviews reveals that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, and so it might not be shocking to learn that he has written… an actual encyclopedia of doom.

And it is a formidable accomplishment — 300,000 words spread across 300 large-format pages and including articles on more than 350 bands (with 400 photos). The name of this tome is Doom Metal Lexicanum, and it will be released on December 1 by Cult Never Dies and Crypt Publications. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: TAAKE, DEVOURING STAR, CAECUS, JUBAL, MARE, MÛSPELLZHEIMR

 SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
Nov 122017
 

 

Time once again to blacken the Sabbath. It was another savagely exciting week for the release of advance tracks from forthcoming albums, and five of those are in this post. I also had time to explore a few EPs and albums that came out recently, and I’ve included one of those here, too.

I nearly called this “Part 1”, because I have some other discoveries I’d like to recommend. I hope I’ll soon have time to write about those, too.

TAAKE

A new Taake album is always a welcome event, and the seventh one — Kong Vinter — will be released by Dark Essence on November 24. Last week Taake released the album track “Inntrenger“, which proved (to me at least) to be an interesting surprise.  Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AETHERIAN, BLOODSHOT DAWN, GATECREEPER, OF WOLVES, DECAYING, WASTEWALKER, VOIDCEREMONY, ULVER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 112017
 

 

You can go long or you can go short. You can pound your musical erogenous zones or you can shrivel up and go dry from something far outside the rim of your bullseye. You can fragment your mind or feel it coalescing in configurations that become receivers of new visions. Every day there are new opportunities.

I’m speaking of metal, of course. I got doses of all those experiences this week, but bit off almost more than I could chew with this week’s flood of premieres, and got squeezed by my fucking day job on top of that, so I failed to compile a round-up until now, and hence it’s a big one.

Catching up is an impossibility, of course, and this time it happens that my choices (all the way up to the last one) are mainly indulgences in a particular mood rather than my usual effort to throw darts all over the metal dartboard. The one thing I haven’t done is incorporate black metal, because I have tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column for that.

AETHERIAN

We’ve been writing about this Greek band for years, beginning with their first single in 2013 and including their second one in 2015, their debut EP released the same year (and reviewed by DGR here), their amazing single and video from last year, “The Rain”, the first single (“Seeds of Deception”0 from their debut album, The Untamed Wilderness, which will be released by Lifeforce Records on November 24th, and the second one (“Shade of the Sun”). And now there’s a third, accompanied by a video. Continue reading »

VITRIOL: “PAIN WILL DEFINE THEIR DEATH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Nov 102017
 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new EP by Vitriol from Portland, Oregon, with a complete Bandcamp stream on the day of its release.)

Ted O’Neill of Oblivion tells me about this guy, Kyle Rasmussen, and his band Vitriol and says I should look into them, tells me he thinks they’re going to be a significant band to pay attention to. I get these recommendations all the time, and of course as a music journo or blogger of any sort your instant thought is to think someone’s just trying to signal-boost their friends. I still check those recommendations out, of course, because I’d be close-minded to take the cynical route. I hit up Kyle for his band’s debut EP and… it did not disappoint.

Vitriol hit a death metal note that’s not really been struck for a while now, that brand of out-of-control, rabid, and schizophrenic tech death some of us associate with the likes of Cryptopsy and Cephalic Carnage — structured delirium, organized chaos, encapsulated insanity. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LETHVM — “THIS FALL SHALL CEASE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 102017
 

 

In late September I learned of the first advance track from the album we’re about to premiere from starkweather, and still smile over his description of the music, which jammed together three references in saying it has “the Cult of NeurIsis sound”, though with even more unhinged vocals. But the music isn’t the kind that makes one smile, no matter how much you respect the band’s relentless dedication to their vision and their powerful skill in making it such an apocalyptic reality.

The album is This Fall Shall Cease, and it’s the debut full-length by the Belgian doom/sludge band Lethvm. We’re presenting a full album stream in advance of its November 24 release by Deadlight and a consortium of other labels. Continue reading »

SHOW REVIEW: EMPLOYED TO SERVE (AND SVALBARD) – NOTTINGHAM, NOVEMBER 9, 2017

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 102017
 


Employed To Serve

 

(Andy Synn prepared this review of the performances by Employed To Serve and Svalbard in Nottingham, England, on November 9, 2017.)

I’m not sure whether it’s due to my increasing age, or the regular quantities of alcohol which I consume, but for some reason I was certain – 110% certain – that we’d already covered Employed to Serve and their flabbergastingly good second album, The Warmth of a Dying Sun, here at NCS earlier this year.

So you can imagine my surprise when, as I was gearing up for this show, I discovered that we haven’t written a single word about the band all year!

For shame.

Still, at least I have a chance now to redress the balance somewhat. Continue reading »

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