AN NCS PREMIERE: MINDKULT — “INFERNALS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 082017
 

 

Time to confuse people… again. I’m speaking mainly of newcomers who take our site’s name literally and view divergences from it as some kind of fraud or traitorous misconduct, when in fact we’ve always disclosed that we would make exceptions to our rule, rare though they may be, when they’re well-earned. And Mindkult is a well-earned exception.

This band, the alter ego of a Virginia solo artist whose moniker is Fowst, first grabbed my attention more than a year ago when I heard (and wrote about) a single named “Witch’s Oath” that later became part of an EP bearing the same name. Later that same year Mindkult released an excellent two-track single consisting of Misfits covers, but all of this proved to be prelude to the main show — a debut album named Lucifer’s Dream, which Transcending Obscurity Records will release on September 20. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SLAUGHTBBATH — “CONTEMPT, WAR AND DAMNATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

In 2013 the Chilean black/death desecrators Slaughtbbath released their debut album, Hail To Fire, after a lengthy series of shorter releases dating back to 2003 — and the album was itself widely hailed as an unrelenting assault of incinerating extremity. Since then the band have gone on to join forces in four splits — with Grave Desecrator, Ill Omen, Kill, and Hades Archer, as well as releasing a 2015 compilation entitled Further Down To the Depths that itself included a new track.

Now, in anticipation of Slaughtbbath’s first North American tour beginning this month, Hells Headbangers is today releasing a special compilation CD fittingly entitled Contempt, War and Damnation, with artwork by Daniel Corcuera. It includes seven tracks consisting of each of the Slaughtbbath songs on those post-Hail To Fire splits, the track recorded for the 2015 compilation… and one brand new song recorded this past May — “Astral Rape”. And it’s now our pleasure to bring you a stream of the new album in its entirety here on release day. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROVOROUS — “CHERISH THE SEPULTURE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

The monstrous Greek purveyors of death and destruction in Necrovorous have gouged their way back to the surface from some undoubtedly festering pit of depravity where they’ve been conjuring the sounds of a new album. Fittingly entitled Plains of Decay, this new full-length will be discharged on September 29th by their allies in depravity, Dark Descent Records. We’ve previously expressed shivering enthusiasm about a track from the album that was included in Dark Descent’s stupendous summer sampler, and now it’s our privilege to bring you the premiere of another track named “Cherish the Sepulture“.

Four years on from their last release, a split with Anatomia, the band’s resurrection from the crypt couldn’t come at a better time (because the waiting has become painful). And while it’s not always true that all good things come to those who wait, that has certainly proved to be true in this instance. Continue reading »

THE LURKING FEAR: “OUT OF THE VOICELESS GRAVE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli prepared this review of the debut album by Sweden’s The Lurking Fear, released on August 11 by Century Media.)

Let’s revisit what Swedish death metal royalty group The Lurking Fear had to say when they announced their formation:

“We want our Death Metal ugly, twisted and possessed. We miss the urgency, intensity and ‘realness’ in a lot of the modern Death Metal, therefore it is natural for us to stray away from the streamlined sounds of today, but rather focus on bringing sheer, natural weirdness and horror back to the table…””

This band has a ton of prestige-level pedigree behind it. Besides being fronted by Tomas Lindberg, the king of the mid-range vomitus bark, the members have history in bands such as The Crown, Edge Of Sanity, Marduk, Cradle Of Filth, God Macabre — the list is fucking long. I also appreciate very much TLF’s mission statement because I agree that death metal nowadays is very much lacking the urgency, intensity, and realness it speaks of. I’ve reviewed, and others here have reviewed, plenty of exceptions to this rule of course — our site thrives on the deathly arts — but trust me that what we give praise to here is a baffling minority. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UBIQUITY — “LOST PT. I”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

Pain and the torment of lost hopes have always fueled heavy music, a feedstock that has found expression in a multitude of ways, sometimes alloyed with rage, sometimes tinged with glimmers of resilience, sometimes simply plumbing the depths of pure desolation. It’s not surprising; those emotions are ever-present in the human condition, and maybe that’s why music that channels such feelings with special intensity exerts such a strong attraction, particularly in metal, where happiness and optimism have rarely been the order of the day.

The Italian band Ubiquity have summoned these sensations with impressive conviction and enthralling power in the song we’re premiering today off their new album Forever/Denied, which is set for release by Third I Rex on October 29th. The song is “Lost Pt. I“. Continue reading »

SEPTICFLESH: “CODEX OMEGA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

(DGR wrote this extended review of the new album by the Greek band SepticFlesh, which was released on September 1 in North America by Prosthetic Records.)

It’s hard to believe that three years have already passed since yours truly was given the opportunity to review Greece’s symphonic death metal arbiters SepticFlesh and their album Titan. Since then, I’ve dedicated a fair share of words to the band, as their brand of orchestra mixed in with crushingly heavy death metal scratches just the right itch, but I always wind up musing about the same subject, which is how the band’s chosen genres combine in order to form the band as it is today.

It’s interesting to me because, pulled apart, the orchestral music genre and metal genre are two gigantic beasts in their own right, so the thought of combining them makes sense. It’s been done for years, of course, but the gentlemen in SepticFlesh have developed a unique mastery of it. Even in the hands of masters it can occasionally get a little unwieldy — because although the two combine well, in the world of SepticFlesh they are also treading a very thin line, and depending on what side of that line they land on is the version of SepticFlesh you’ll be getting at that point in time. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ANCIENT RITES (GUNTHER THEYS)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 082017
 

 

(Greek writer Aggelos Redneck of Rockoverdose.gr brings us this interview of Gunther Theys, founder and still vocalist of the long-running Belgian black metal band Ancient Rites, whose latest album Laguz was released after a long hiatus in 2015. The interview was conducted in anticipation of Ancient Rites’ performance at the Arcane Angels Festival, which will take place in Athens on September 16-17, 2017, alongside such bands as Primordial, Taake, and Zemial.)

 

First of all, we’d like to know your thoughts on the latest album of the band Laguz”. It’s been two and a half years already since its release. How did the fans react to it? Are you fully satisfied with its sound? 

I think Laguz is our most complex album so far from a technical point of view, consisting of many layers. It’s an album that has to grow on the listener, as one keeps on discovering details. On the other hand, all musical elements have intensified, it is an intense album. The fans responded positively, but of course people have their preferences, which is normal when a band exists for as long as we do and each album sounds different.

What I find important is that the essence of our work, the A.R. universe, remains intact. Like a travel through old, forgotten worlds. I still believe in every album we ever did for they all represent important eras in our band’s history. Our musical progress is a natural, organic one, but I wouldn’t mind releasing a very raw, primitive album either. We never plan our sound, we are not influenced by any current trends or external situations. We simply create what we feel, regardless of any commercial feedback. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ACEPHALIX — “EXCREMENTAL OFFERINGS”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Sep 072017
 

 

I latched on to the music of Acephalix back in 2010 after discovering their Interminable Night demo and have been greedily following their output ever since, though I began fretting over the years of silence that followed 2012’s masterful Deathless Master. But then they reappeared on stage in the summer of 2015, and I eagerly made the trip to Portland the following February to see them perform at Famine Fest.

I had some inkling of what I was in for before Acephalix played, but I’m not sure anything could have prepared me for the reality of it. It was like being caught up in the midst of a tumultuous force of nature. I transformed from a merely drooling fan to a rabid fanatic, with the rabies strengthening to poisonous dominance in my organs after witnessing their explosive stage show twice more since then.

And so I confess I’ve been panting hard over the prospect of their new album, Decreation, which will soon be released by 20 Buck Spin. And while it’s conceivable that I’ve thrown my own objectivity into serious question already, I must say… it’s the best of Acephalix yet… and that puts it very high on the list of the best death metal albums you’ll find this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLOODWAY — “MIDLIGHT SCOUT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 072017
 

 

in 2014 the Romanian band Bloodway launched a conceptual trilogy of planned releases with an EP named Sunstone Voyager And The Clandestine Horizon and then continued the story the following year with the band’s debut album, Mapping The Moment With The Logic Of Dreams. In early November, with assistance from the esteemed I, Voidhanger Records, Bloodway will draw the trilogy to a close with their new album, A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues.

The names of each of these three releases are signs themselves that the music is off the most well-beaten of metal pathways, and the song “Midlight Scout” that we’re premiering today (along with an accompanying video) gives us no reason to believe that Bloodway had any intention of altering their own idiosyncratic course and suddenly embracing convention when they wrote and recorded this new album.

To the contrary, the music challenges the listener, will throw you off-balance, yet pin you in place, eyes wide, shaken by the strange, head-spinning intensity of the experience. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WORWS — “STANDING IN PLACE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 072017
 

 

WORWS come our way from Portland, Oregon, just down the interstate from our own HQ. Their second album Truth To Power is due for arrival on September 22nd. Based on its sound, that will be sort of like the projected date for a hurricane making landfall, though without producing the human misery of the real ones that now seem to be weekly fodder for our news feeds.

There is tangible fury and elemental power in this band’s brand of hardcore, fueled by anger at the toxic stew of injustice and ignorance that permeates our social fabric. “Standing In Place” is an example of how they channel that rage into a bruising sonic experience. We have the premiere of that track below. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries