ARKAIK: “NEMETHIA”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 212017
 

 

(Later this month Unique Leader will release the latest full-length by California’s Arkaik, and here we have DGR‘s review.)

Southern Californian tech-death group Arkaik have become something of a slowly gathering storm in the music world for a little while now, having remained on a fairly consistent up-swing since the start of their series of meditative science fiction concept albums with 2012’s Metamorphignition.

Over the years the band have seen a rotation of members — including various members from Deeds Of Flesh, Flesh Consumed, and Brain Drill (even more fun considering former drummer Alex Bent currently sits behind the kit for Trivium) — yet they’ve been able to keep their hybrid of tech-death musicianship, brutal-death slamming, and yes, light deathcore sense and dedication to all things groove relatively unchanged. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYOSTASIUM — “MAGNETIC”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 202017
 

 

The requests we receive to share premieres of new songs often become a source of discovery for me as well as for many of you, and this is one of those times.

Before listening to the track you’re about to hear, the name of which is “Magnetic“, I was unfamiliar with Cryostasium. Only after becoming captivated by the song did I learn that the EP which includes it — Starbound –is merely the most recent in a very long list of releases that extends back to 2003 (and possibly earlier, when the project was known as The Abhorrer). Because this is such a recent discovery, I can’t tell you how the new EP compares to the five albums or the two-dozen shorter Cryostasium releases that have preceded it.

But I can tell you that the haunting fascinations of “Magnetic” act as a powerful lure, not only into the depths of Starbound but also into Cryostasium’s previous creations. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NEKROHOWL — “BLASPHEMY STILL UNNAMED”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Sep 202017
 

 

Nekrohowl were spawned last year in Dhaka, Bangladesh, its members coming together from other local bands with the intent of dedicating themselves to “abhorrent and paroxysmal Death Metal” in the grand and gruesome traditions of the ’90s. In doing so, they become a link in what is now a very long and tangled chain (one crusted in blood) that connects back in time to the likes of Suffocation, Autopsy, Immolation, Morbid Angel, and Hellhammer (among others), from whom they’ve drawn their foul inspirations.

There are, of course, a vast number of links in that globe-spanning chain, but some gleam brighter than others. Or, since we’re talking about old school death metal, maybe it’s more accurate to say that some links are more corroded and plague-infested, more likely to cut you, leave festering wounds, and produce seizures of madness. Based upon the quality of Nekrohowl’s debut EP, Epitome of Morbid, they’re definitely one of the brighter (and uglier) links in the chain — as you’ll discover when you hear the song we’re premiering, “Blasphemy Still Unnamed“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THROANE — “ET CEUX EN LESQUELS ILS CROYAIENT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 202017
 

 

Great lashing storm gales of guitar sound assault the senses. The pulse of the drum and bass sound erratic, find a rhythm, stop altogether, detonate in massive eruptions, move in deliberate and ponderous footfalls. The melody looms and swirls, heaves and shimmers. Peals of dissonance flower and subside. A maniacal voice hurls caustic, blood-chilling shrieks through the song’s titanic movements. The effect is dramatic, unnerving, sorcerous.

And those are this listener’s impressions of “Et Ceux En Lesquels Ils Croyaient“, the second track on the second album by Throane that we’re premiering in this post. Entitled Plus Une Main A Mordre (“No Hand Left to Bite”), it will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on the 20th of October. Continue reading »

ABIGOR / NIGHTBRINGER / THY DARKENED SHADE / MORTUUS: “ANTM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 202017
 

 

(With his first appearance at NCS, Apokatastasis brings us this review of the 2017 four-way split by four black metal visionaries:  Abigor, Nightbringer, Thy Darkened Shade, and Mortuus.)

Knee-deep in the year’s third quarter, it may seem a waste to dredge up an album released in February, especially a split. Yet this album, despite its ironclad pedigree, has almost entirely evaded detection. Typical of trve kvlt black metal stalwarts, its purveyors willingly eschewed publicity and allowed 2017’s ceaseless deluge of quality releases to subsume their monumental collaboration. Together, the four bands have achieved a level of inter-artist cohesion nearly unheard of in split releases, and they’ve also just made a damn good record. In the name of promulgating greatness, let’s drag these occultists back to the forefront and bask anew in their obsidian light. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APHONIC THRENODY — “LIFE STABBED ME ONCE AGAIN” AND “ALL I’VE LOVED”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
–W.H.Auden

There is a staggering sense of desolation and hopelessness in those words. It’s not surprising that the international funeral doom band Aphonic Threnody have associated those words with the sorceries of sorrow that make up their new album, Of Loss and Grief, nor any surprise in the releasing label’s own formulation of the music’s atmosphere: “No sun shines here, nor happiness or hope … just grey, insurmountable walls”.

The album will be released on October 9 by Terror From Hell Records, and today we present the debut of, not one, but two tracks from the album, “Life Stabbed Me Once Again” and “All I’ve Loved“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MRTVI — “AS CONSCIOUSNESS IS HARNESSED TO FLESH PART 2”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

In the mind-melting song “As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh Part 2“, the Serbian, UK-based solo artist MRTVI tells you “Reality is not to be believed“. And in case you don’t believe him, he also makes a determined effort through this music to fracture reality into a shower of sharp shards and splinters, to plow madly through the constrictive channeling of experience through our perceptions, in search of an inner cosmos.

We premiered this song once before, in advance of the late-July release of Negative Atonal Dissonance, the eye-popping album that barely contains its unpredictable energies. I advised you then, “whatever you do, don’t pass this by”. But some people may not have been paying attention, and so I’m quite happy to provide a reminder. Plus, this time the music is accompanied by a lyric video that’s almost as abrasive, bewildering, and neuron-rearranging as the music. But not quite. Continue reading »

METHCHRIST: “NOMADIC WAR MACHINE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

(New Zealand-based writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises) joins us again with this review of the debut album by NZ’s Methchrist, which has just been digitally released on Bandcamp.)

Methchrist are a belligerent, hate-driven war metal trio from Dunedin, New Zealand. And the band’s Nomadic War Machine debut is the third album from a New Zealand war metal band that I’ve covered here at No Clean Singing in recent times.

To be honest, it’s not the easiest task coming up with fresh ways to unpack more bestial metal from the southern reaches. But that’s not because Nomadic War Machine is uninspiring. The album’s actually a skull-cracking riot –– it’s as fuelled by pure fucking spite as it is any creative ambitions –– but I inevitably feel like I’m repeating myself talking about war metal, because the subgenre’s somewhat of a stylistic cul-de-sac.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a criticism of war metal’s established characteristics. I mean, I love crust punk and d-beat to death, and they’ve got a limited range of musical hallmarks and potential descriptive options too. It’s simply that war metal’s parameters are so resolutely set in stone. There’s only so much you can say about the subgenre before you’re reiterating the same points or uttering the same phrases. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IN TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE — “VANITAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

Almost exactly two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering the third album by In Twilight’s Embrace. True to its name, The Grim Muse was vicious, but also electrifying, bursting with magnetic guitar melodies that were given room to shine in even the most turbo-charged and barbaric of the songs. It proved to be one of 2015’s highlights, and something of a breakout release for a band who were demonstrating a new level of both songwriting and performance skill.

And here we are two years later, fortunate again to premiere a new full-length by this Polish band. This fourth album is named Vanitas, and it’s set for release on September 22nd by Arachnophobia Records. And to waste no time answering the question that most fans will be asking, it is at least a match for the quality of The Grim Muse, and in this writer’s opinion even better. Continue reading »

PYRRHON: “WHAT PASSES FOR SURVIVAL”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

(Austin Weber wrote this review of the new album by Pyrrhon, which was released on August 8 by Willowtip Records and Throatruiner Records.)

Pyrrhon occupy a unique place in the death metal landscape. From their inception on, they’ve only gotten stranger, darker, weirder, and more unorthodox, after beginning as an already outside-of-the-norm band but one still recognizable in most ways as a purely death metal group in their early years.

The real turning point was 2014’s The Mother of Virtues, a release that really saw them dive into the deep end of madness and experimentation paired with searing and uncomfortable heaps of dissonance. It was an album that even I struggled to comprehend initially, though countless repeat listens helped, as did seeing them play the material live in 2014, which really helped it click for me even more.

After that, they embarked on a series of EPs, simultaneously pushing the improv. and experimental aspect harder, while also returning to a more “digestible” form of death metal for some of the songs. Given that, I had high hopes and a lot of questions as to what their newly released album, What Passes for Survival, would have to offer. But above all, I went into it knowing not to place expectations on it, since Pyrrhon are an amorphous and ever-shifting beast — and this album holds true to that established maxim. Continue reading »

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