AN NCS PREMIERE: AVSLUT — “PESTILENS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

In 2016 the Swedish black metal band Avslut released a very promising debut EP named Vanskapt, and now comes the time for their first full album, Deceptis, which will be released on February 23rd by Osmose Productions. Two tracks from the album, “Deceptis” and “Terra Mater”, have previously appeared, demonstrating that Vanskapt was no fluke, and today we have a third one for you.

“Pestilens” is a good demonstration of Avslut’s ability to integrate moving, atmospheric melody, of the kind that fires the imagination, gripping rhythmic propulsion, and blood-rushing savagery. Osmose proclaims that “Avslut is a weapon”, and you’ll get no argument here, but they are more than that, as “Pestilens” proves Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BIND TORTURE KILL — “VISCÈRES”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

There are no tender mercies on Viscères, the new album by the French maulers in Bind Torture Kill. There is no mercy at all, no prisoners taken, no glass-half-full outlook on the future. But there is staggering power, frightening intensity, and the kind of visceral impact that usually triggers a fight-or-flight response in the average human.

Viscères will be released on January 26th by WOOAAARGH. The label describes the music as “chaotic blackened hardcore”, a charred form of Converge or Trap Them that should also appeal to fans of Baptists, Employed To Serve, God Mother, and The Rodeo Idiot Engine. You can judge for yourselves, because today we present a full stream of the album — preceded by some thoughts of my own. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): ACHERONTAS, ALGHAZANTH, BASALTE, CLARET ASH, COVERED IN FLIES, DRUDKH, GOAT SEMEN

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

Because of an event-filled out-of-town trip last weekend I wasn’t able to prepare a SHADES OF BLACK column for Sunday, or anything for Saturday. Fortunately, DGR stepped in with a 3-part SEEN AND HEARD round-up that launched on Saturday and continued through Monday. Now I’m going to do something similar, with this column’s usual focus on black metal. I’ve amassed a substantial collection of new music and a few news items that also interested me. I’ve organized them in alphabetical order and divided the list into three parts, with the goal of posting Parts 2 and 3 tomorrow and Friday.

Of course, in the meantime the odds are that I’ll find something else I’d like to include, which may necessitate screwing up the alphabetized ordering.

ACHERONTAS

I’m beginning Part 1 of this collection with the first of a trio of enticing news items I’ve included here. As announced today by Agonia Records, the Greek occult black metal band Acherontas (whose gear is pictured above) will be releasing a seventh studio album this spring. Yes, it’s true that Acherontas released an album only last year — Amarta अमर्त (Formulas of Reptilian Unification Part II) — but that’s no reason to be any less excited to receive a new one.

As for why this new one is appearing so quickly on the heels of the last one, the press release we received included this statement by the band: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PISSED REGARDLESS — “TRUST NO PULSE”

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Jan 232018
 

 

The very name Pissed Regardless tells you some of what you need to know about this San Diego band, but there’s also more going on in their music than head-battering expressions of rampant rage and disgust, as you’ll find out when you let “Trust No Pulse” run roughshod through your cranium.

That’s the name of the song we’re helping the band premiere today. It comes from a new 7″ EP named Feed the Birds, which will be released by Oakland-based Creator-Destructor Records. It follows the band’s two full-length releases, 2013’s self-titled album and 2015’s Force Fed Gods. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 10): SATYRICON, WOLFHEART, HAVUKRUUNU

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  6 Responses »
Jan 232018
 

Oslo 05072017. Photo: Marius Viken

 

I guess it’s not a bad time to take stock of where we are in the rollout of this 2017 edition of our Most Infectious Song list, since this is the 10th Part. With the three songs I’m adding today, we’re up to a total of 32 tracks. I had planned to finish the list by the end of this month, so we can finally close the book on last year (or mostly close it) and focus our time more exclusively on the flood of new metal that’s been coming our way in 2018. If I follow through on that plan, it really just means I’ll be calling an arbitrary halt… because I’m still just figuring this out as I go along.

I suppose if I really feel that calling a dead halt on January 31 would leave too many gems behind, I might edge into February, but on the other hand, that could become a very slippery slope. I do have 8 days left in the month, and if I knock out an average of three tracks per day, I can make it to 56 songs… which would be about 20 fewer than usual for this series. We’ll see. Continue reading »

CROW BLACK SKY: “SIDEREAL LIGHT: VOLUME ONE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 232018
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new album by Crow Black Sky from Cape Town, South Africa.)

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of writing about music (and that’s a big “if”), it’s that you should never completely write a band off, as they can always surprise you.

Such is the case with South African quartet Crow Black Sky, whose debut record, 2010’s Partheion, proved to be a not-unenjoyable slab of highly melodic, keyboard-inflected Black Metal in the vein of Kolossus-era Keep of Kalessin and early Dimmu Borgir which, despite its obvious merits, largely failed to set the music world on fire, and was soon lost in the shuffle.

Eight(!) years later, however, the band have returned with a new sound, a new outlook, and a brand new album which completely blows its predecessor out of the water. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CULTUS PROFANO — “UNDER THE INFERNAL REIGN, OP. 10”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 232018
 

 

Not for the first time, it occurs to me that there is a paradox in those musical strains of black metal that have their roots in the sinister, nocturnal emanations spawned in the ’90s. The new Los Angeles band Cultus Profano embraces those traditions with a fierce devotion, conjuring “a pure form of blasphemy that evokes hatred and darkness”, to quote Debemur Morti Productions, who will release this duo’s debut album Sacramentum Obscurus on February 23rd. And yet the song from the album that we’re helping to premiere today — “Under the Infernal Reign, Op. 10” — powerfully evokes other moods.

From the hate-filled scowls of their corpse-painted visages to the Satanic mysticism that inspired their song titles and lyrics, the band fuel their creations with loathing and abhorrence, seemingly guided by visions of fire and plague, and of the ascendency of evil and the triumph of sin. But the mood of the music, at least to these ears, is one of intense sorrow and desolating despair. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9): KREATOR, HELLRIPPER, CONDOR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  4 Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

I had a whirlwind out-of-town trip that consumed this past weekend, which is why I was unable to continue the roll-out of this list on Saturday and Sunday. But I’m back home in the Seattle area now, and ready to pick up where I left off on Friday.

And speaking of whirlwinds, there are three of them in this 9th installment of the list. It won’t take you much time to figure out why I grouped them together.

KREATOR

Because thrash is the core of all three songs I’m adding today, and because all three bands are so good at what they do, all three albums were loaded with hellishly catchy songs I could have picked for the list. That was certainly true of Kreator’s latest full-length, Gods of Violence. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: UNTERVOID — “UNTERVOID”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

Those of you who are familiar with our frequent premieres know that we always accompany the music with our own thoughts about what you will hear. There are times (though not often) when I think it might be a mistake to include a review, both because I fear my words will be pathetically inadequate and because even an adequate description might threaten to spoil a jaw-dropping surprise. This is one of those times.

The self-titled debut EP of Untervoid is in fact a cavalcade of surprises, an almost chaotic but ingenious conglomeration of stylistic ingredients that may in fact defy at least my own meager descriptive powers. And even in making the attempt to convey the sensations of sound and emotion, I might be reducing the impact of what you would experience by simply launching the player without further ado. But, for better, or more likely for worse, I’m forging on anyway. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSAL VACUUM — “MMXVII”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

Abyssal Vacuum’s new EP reveals a distinctive musical vision and “voice”, the three songs offering a conception of atmospheric black metal that manages to be both mesmerizing and strikingly intense. It’s described by the label that’s releasing it as emanations from a deep and cavernous abyss, “like exploring the darkest caves of Earth”, but the experience it creates might also bring to mind the mysteries of the cosmos lurking in a hostile off-world void.

Abyssal Vacuum is the solo project of French creator Sebastien B. (of Dyslumn and Ominous Shrine), and the project’s first release, which was recorded around the end of 2017, is being made available this week, both digitally and on cassette tape, by the French label Solar Asceticists Productions. What we have for you today is the premiere stream of all three tracks that appear on the EP. Continue reading »

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