HELLRAISERS: MIDNIGHT, ANIMA DAMNATA, SOL DE SANGRE, ANTICHRIST HOOLIGANS, OXYGEN DESTROYER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 062017
 

 

From day to day, we have very few plans here at the NCS HQ, or at least very few that I know of. As the editor I rely mainly on my reflexes, which are like coils of rusted springs, ready to creak into action on a moment’s notice. Our other writers may have plans, but I usually learn of them only when our intrepid pigeon aeronauts arrive with stained scrolls of text wrapped around their legs. I do my creaky best to get their writings ready to go by the next day… or the same day… and quite often those surprises unexpectedly fill up our site with content when only the day before I might have wondered what the hell I would have for you beyond my own frenzied scribbling. Beyond that, the rest of my life occasionally intrudes with other reflex tests.

And so it was that I promised Part 2 of my latest SHADES OF BLACK column would be posted on Monday, and then got surprised… and then was surprised again on Monday… and today will also be full of surprises (at last count, we’ll have six posts today). Anyway, no SHADES OF BLACK today either, but I am going with this selection of new music from five bands, most of which I originally intended to include in that missing Part 2 and a couple that I came across since starting on it. I’m calling this “Hellraisers” because… well… you’ll find out why soon enough.

MIDNIGHT

This is one of the items I discovered most recently — last night, in fact. It’s a new release by Ohio’s Midnight, a cover of “I Don’t Need Society” by D.R.I. It’s a Bandcamp, download-only release, and all profits will be donated to the Red Cross in their efforts to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Various other Midnight CDs, LPs, tapes, patches, and t-shirts are available in bundles along with the new download, and profits from those sales will also be donated to the Red Cross. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THONIAN HORDE — “FIVE RIVERS OF HADES”

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Sep 052017
 

 

The Maryland black metal band Thonian Horde’s self-titled first album arrived last year as an independent release, and they’ve wasted no time readying a follow-on — but this time it’s coming our way via Baltimore-based Grimoire Records, with the recording and production work handled by Grimoire’s main man Noel Mueller. The new album is named Inconnu, and in advance of its September 22 release we’re bringing you the premiere of a track from it called “Five Rivers of Hades“.

For those who are just now discovering Thonian Horde, it’s a band whose members honed their chops in other groups before joining forces in this new horde, but the music of their other projects wouldn’t lead you to expect the trails they’ve chosen to blaze here. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROMANTE — “NEKROKOSMICK PENTAGRAM”

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Sep 052017
 

 

The aroma of candle wax, sulphur, and pooling blood hangs about the song we’re about to premiere, which spawns ominous visions of necromantic sorcery and the horrifying apparitions made manifest by devilish incantations. The song is “Nekrokosmick Pentagram” and it comes from the debut album of the Brazilian band Necromante. Entitled The Magickal Presence of Occult Forces, the album will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on October 6.

Necromante have already made their mark in the underground through the release of a pair of demos, an EP, and a live album, but the 41 minutes of music on this new work eclipses what they have achieved before. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): DYSCARNATE, BROKEN HOPE, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, ARCHSPIRE, VOLTURYON, FLESHKILLER, THE RITUAL AURA, SEPTICFLESH, THE HAUNTED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 052017
 


Dyscarnate

 

(DGR has again stepped forward for round-up duty and has pulled together 9 new songs and videos that caught his eye between last week and yesterday.)

Last week saw a tremendous on-rush of heavy metal news, and of course, since many people knew that we here in the States (or at least many of us) would get a long three-day weekend, a lot of it hit in the back half of the week. As the site’s resident hoover vacuum, I’ve compiled an itemized list of nine… items… that caught my interest over the course of the week that we didn’t get a chance to cover that I will now lovingly shove right into your faces.

If you’re a big fan of death metal and its chugging ilk, this roundup is mostly for you, as it seemed like a large chunk of what I found came from that sphere of influence. There’s definitely the requisite world-traveling element as well, as we go from England to Canada to Italy to the States to Greece to Sweden (twice), and you can see where this is going from here. So let’s quit goofing off and get to the fun stuff. Continue reading »

PSYGNOSIS: “NEPTUNE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 052017
 

 

(DGR prepared this extended review of the latest album by the French band Psygnosis, which was released in May.)

I tend to approach French now-instrumental band Psygnosis with something of an art-house cafe motif in mind. Over the years, the group have slowly morphed into a project that has combined quiet, minimalistic tendencies — mostly credited to small electronics usage — with fierce blasts of heavy metal, and a love of inserting movie samples into their songs so that they become something of a story that you’re only getting a partial glimpse of.

The overall picture is usually spread throughout the whole disc, but even then it often feels like something you’ve entered into in medias res so that it isn’t just the music you’re enjoying, you’re also getting the soundtrack to a series of events that you’re not witnessing. There’s no picture except the one that Psygnosis chooses to paint, and so the music takes on a dreamlike quality, in between the heavier segments — which, as they’ve gone later in their career, have become a little bit less of the focus and more the backing foundation.

Psygnosis really nailed this formula with their release Human Be[ing] in 2014, and afterward would make a drastic change in sound, which saw their vocalist bowing out in favor of becoming an entirely instrumental group, and a cellist stepping in to take the lead spot – with the extra strings now serving to take over the vocal lines. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: CORA CANNING — “UNVEILED WEBBING”

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Sep 042017
 

 

(Austin Weber presents our premiere of the debut album by the two-person project Cora Canning.)

Some of our readers may be familiar with the mind behind today’s stream of Cora Canning – Unveiled Webbing, as it was spawned by the mad scientist from a project called Nostril Caverns that I’ve been covering here at NCS since last year.

Nostril Caverns is Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Chris Balch’s one-man band, which has been active since 1999. The project’s music has covered a wide variety of styles and mergers between genres depending on the release, but often revolves around grindcore, technical grindcore, death metal, black metal, prog metal, and also improvised/experimental music. Earlier this year at NCS, I covered his latest 99-song technical deathgrind (with black metal influences) release, Spatial Lacerations, and I continue coming back to it.

In between sessions of work on his current absurdly ambitious plan for an upcoming release in which each song will be composed of 100 unique sections (instrumental demos of which are available for two of them here and here), he partnered with his friend and fellow multi-instrumentalist Dave Turnbull to create Cora Canning’s Unveiled Webbing, which we’re streaming early below. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ENTOMBMENT / IRON FLESH / SEPREVATION

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 042017
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn combines reviews of three recent EPs, with music streams of course.)

Phew, time really flies doesn’t it? I mean, somehow it’s already September and although we still have a huge number of releases to look forward to before the year’s end, I find my mind already turning towards the upcoming Listmania with an equal mix of anticipation and trepidation.

Thankfully that particular furore is still a little way off and, although work is keeping me pretty darn busy at the moment, I should be able to fit in quite a lot of reviews and features before the time comes for our annual wrap-up.

So, without further ado, get ready to wrap your earholes around three short, but succulent morsels of Thrash, Death, and Death-Thrash courtesy of Entombment (USA), Iron Flesh (FR), and Seprevation (UK). Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 25): VENENUM, SOIJL, IN REVERENCE, ATREXIAL

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 042017
 

 

(Our ally Gorger from Norway reaches the quarter-century mark in his series, continuing to shed light on underground gems that our all-seeing eyes have somehow failed to spot. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

Oh, my… has more than two months passed since my last post already? Holy fuck. I keep promising myself to make at least one of these appearances each month, but it’s as if people around me can smell it when I’ve got time to spare. Maybe it’s time for that semi-annual bath. To paraphrase Mr. J. Lennon: “Life is what happens when you sit your tired ass down”.

Oh, well. Here’s another four chunks of metallic meat that you shouldn’t miss out on. And since there was no protest last time around, I’ll attempt at shortening down on the initial overloaded writing, whilst leaving a shrouded clue of a link for the utterly nerdy connoisseurs. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): WITCHERY, NAILBLACK, ANTZAAT, THEURGIA, KWADE DROES, FACELESS ENTITY

 SHADES OF BLACK  11 Responses »
Sep 032017
 

 

As mentioned in today’s earlier post, I binged on new music yesterday after being deprived of the chance to do much at the end of last week. That led to the selection of the blackened tracks in this post (many of them recommended by friends who have a knack for spotting things that hit my sweet spots), and a second group that I’ll finish today and post tomorrow. Without further ado, on we go….

WITCHERY

I’m leading off with “True North“, a name that’s been used by other bands for other songs, but this one comes from the new album I Am Legion by Sweden’s Witchery, which features eye-catching cover art by Andreas Diaz Pettersson.

Yes indeed, a new Witchery album only one year after the band re-grouped to put out In His Infernal Majesty’s Service to commemorate their 20th anniversary. And this new one features the same line-up that recorded that last album — drummer Chris Barkensjö, guitarists Jensen and Rickard Rimfält, bassist Sharlee D’Angelo, and vocalist Angus Norder. Apparently, they were so delighted with response to In His Infernal Majesty’s Service that they dived right back into writing more new songs. Continue reading »

SUNDAY SLAUGHTERING: HAMMR, MORPHOSYS, BLOODSTRIKE, COUGHDUST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 032017
 

 

After being prevented by my day job from listening to much new music during the last half of last week, I binged on new song streams yesterday. The furnace of metal continues to pour out molten steel at a breathtaking rate. I found enough new sounds solely from the black realms to warrant a 4-part SHADES OF BLACK column, but I’ll probably throttle myself and limit it to two parts, with Part 1 coming later today. But in the meantime I couldn’t resist putting together this collection, which at a minimum will wake you up better than a flash-bang grenade and at a maximum may blow your minds to smithereens.

The first three selections are advance tracks from forthcoming albums. The last one is a complete full-length release. Different styles of metal, but all of them both highly infectious and explosively good. Let the slaughtering begin….

HAMMR

There’s enough electrifying energy in “Satanic Raid” to power a large metropolis and enough speed to lap the pack at a NASCAR race, not to mention more than enough feral barbarism to put smiles on the faces of those of you who live to slash and burn (at least through your music). There’s also some kind of immediately addictive poison coursing through the veins of this beast, which is transmitted directly into the listener’s bloodstream. Continue reading »

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