AN NCS PREMIERE: ZARAZA — “WULKAN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 172017
 

 

2017 marks the 20th anniversary of Slavic Blasphemy, the first groundbreaking album by Zaraza, a duo now divided between Québec and Ecuador. Six years after their full-length debut they released a second album, No Paradise to Lose. And now, a long fourteen years later, they have brought forth a third one, Spasms of Rebirth, a name that could be considered a description of their own reemergence.

The new album is being released today — July 17th — and to celebrate this dire occasion we’re premiering a song from the album named “Wulkan“, a track that entwines and mutates elements of sludge, doom, and industrial metal into a nightmarish shape capable of thoroughly chilling the blood. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): BELPHEGOR, SEPTICFLESH, INANIMATE EXISTENCE, AMON AMARTH, INCANTATION, THE LURKING FEAR, ABHORRENT DECIMATION, THENIGHTTIMEPROJECT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jul 172017
 

 

(DGR takes over round-up duties again, with this collection of new songs and videos from eight bands.)

The end-of-the-week news flood was insane, as we have settled well into summer now and a lot of bands are either gearing up to hit the road or are already out making numerous loops on the festival circuit. Of course, this also means that there are a lot of albums in the hopper, getting ready to come out within weeks, or you’ll start seeing a lot of press for albums set to hit when the first leaves of fall drop.

That’s how you wind up with posts like this SEEN AND HEARD that helped kick off the weekend — not even counting our own fuel that we added to the fire, and the one that you’re reading now, which is basically just a gigantic dragnet for bands that had premieres elsewhere throughout the tail end of last week, or just blasted that thing right out to the world to see.

This episode of SEEN AND HEARD is eight (!) bands deep and skews death-metal heavy, so prepare yourselves for a lot of gigantic grooves, growled vocals, enough blasts to reach gunfire status, and enough chainsaw guitar destruction to fuel the planet. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET — GOROD: “KISS THE FREAK”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 162017
 

 

(In April the French band Gorod released an EP that they had prepared for distribution on a European tour. DGR finally caught up with that EP, and now turns in this detailed review.)

Heavy metal is often at its most fun when it feels like the artists behind it have lost their minds. There’s something about a musical genre oft-described as an explosion of catharsis having a creative explosion of its own and going nuts.

It’s not easy to stay reserved when you know that a band has set out to try something that is completely out of the norm for them, and such is the case with France’s frenetic tech-death titans Gorod and their recent thrash experiment EP, Kiss The Freak, which the band wrote and recorded in a very short window before going out on a European tour that saw them hitting the road with the likes of Havok, Warbringer, and Exmortus. Gorod themselves described it this way: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NEVERENDING WINTER — “XИУC” (HEEUS)

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 152017
 

 

I’m sure it’s obvious to most people who visit us, and perhaps painfully obvious, that I listen to a lot of music, flitting like a hummingbird amidst the fecund and constantly flowering garden of metal in search of nectar, nightshades, and sharp thorns. And although dark new delights never seem far away, some of them are so arresting that they freeze me in my flight, locked into the embrace of what I’m hearing. That was the effect of Хиус (Heeus), the new album by Neverending Winter, which is being released today.

The album is so creative and so captivating that it caused me to reflect again on the happenstance of location as it affects the global reach of a band or an album.

Neverending Winter are located in Tomsk in Siberian Russia. They lack the visibility that a substantial label or professional PR representation might provide. Because of their remote location and low public profile, it’s unlikely they would be able to mount tours across Europe, much less North America, and that in turn will likely make it even more difficult for them to attract the backing of organizations that could help expand the global reach of their music — although I have no idea whether they even have such ambitions. Continue reading »

THE PARADOX OF PIRACY

 Mosh Pit  34 Responses »
Jul 152017
 

 

(Andy Synn’s band Beyond Grace released their debut album, Seekers, one week ago, and almost immediately it became available for download on pirate music sites. In this post, Andy shares some reactions to those events and questions what to do about it.)

As some of you may be aware, my band recently released our debut album (I’ll stop going on about it eventually, I promise).
What you might not be aware of is that fact that the album leaked online for illegal download the same day it was released… something which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence these days.

The thing is, I’m really not sure how to respond to this unfortunate turn of events. There’s several options available to me/us right now, but I’m just not certain what the right move is. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: POISON BLOOD, JUSTINHATE, MOLOCH LETALIS, DEATH’S COLD WIND, INCINERATOR, CRAFTEON, MADROST, BLK OPS, CAVE BASTARD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 142017
 

 

Well, that didn’t last long. Two days ago, when I posted the last SEEN AND HEARD round-up, I announced a plan to post other shorter-than-usual compilations of new music both yesterday and today. Having failed to post one yesterday, that means I’m now back to serving up a more typical groaning smorgasbord of new stuff, enough to challenge the most gluttonous of listeners. Et voila, music from nine bands!

POISON BLOOD

Poison Blood is a collaborative effort by Jenks Miller (Horseback) and vocalist Neill Jameson (Krieg), the latter of whom is a valued contributor to NCS. We’re told that these two came together as fans of each other’s work and a mutual appreciation for Beherit’s classic Drawing Down the Moon LP and the experimental deathrock of cult UK act Rudimentary Peni“.

I confess that I haven’t yet listened to all of their self-titled debut EP — which will be released on August 11 by Relapse — but I’m really enjoying the two tracks that have surfaced so far in the run-up to the release date. The first of those is “The Scourge and the Gestalt” and the second is “Deformed Lights“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLOSON — “ANTLERS”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jul 142017
 

 

“Antlers” is one of the staggeringly good songs on Grimen, the most recent album (released by Art of Propaganda earlier this year) by the Swedish sludge/post-metal group Gloson, and it’s the subject of a live performance video that we’re premiering in this post, a video that’s just as riveting to watch as “Antlers” is to hear.

This is the second live Gloson video that it’s been our privilege to premiere; the first one (for the song “Cringe”) debuted here in April. Like that one, this new one was also filmed and edited by Gustav Bondeson (whose web site is here) at Kajskjulet in Halmstad, Sweden, on February 25th 2017. And as was true of the video for “Cringe”, the sound in this one is the live audio, recorded during the performance (mixed and mastered by Christian Larsson). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCVLT HAND — “HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS”

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Jul 142017
 

 

Winnipeg’s Occvlt Hand chose one of the year’s best titles for their new album: Not Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending. And who could argue with that? In fact, one of life’s great, infuriating ironies is that so many people who don’t deserve a happy ending get one anyway. It would be so much sweeter if the assholes could all be subjected to the righteous ministrations of Occvlt Hand, from which they would emerge beaten, bruised, and broken.

Occvlt Hand didn’t exhaust their storehouse of bleak, memorable titles after they named the album. They’ve got a song on the record called “Total Fucking Absence of Light” and another one named “Smash My Bones, Inhale the Dust“, which my comrade DGR wrote about in a round-up at our site not long ago, describing it as “a harsh track that seems to drain the color out of the room, absolutely blatant about its stomping disregard and hopelessness”.

More good song titles are to be found in this punishing new release, including the track we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s September 13 release by Possessed Records: “He Who Walks Behind the Rows“. Continue reading »

VESICANT: “SHADOWS OF CLEANSING IRON”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 142017
 

 

(New Zealand-based writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises) joins us again with this review of the new album by NZ’s Vesicant, which is being released today by Iron Bonehead Productions.)

 

New Zealand black/death metal duo Vesicant have only played a handful of shows, and their 2014 Edict demo was originally released in limited numbers, too. But that hasn’t stopped powerhouse German label Iron Bonehead Productions from stepping in to release the band’s formidable full-length debut, Shadows of Cleansing Iron.

If you’re wondering how an obscure band from the far-flung reaches gets to enjoy Iron Bonehead’s patronage, the answer is twofold. First, and most obviously, Iron Bonehead were clearly impressed by the stockpile of murderous music Vesicant have housed in their armory –– and we’ll get to those battering munitions soon. But it’s also well worth pointing out that Iron Bonehead’s shown a marked interest in NZ’s extreme metal scene over the years. Continue reading »

ALIEN WEAPONRY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jul 132017
 

 

(Our friend and long-time NCS supporter Booker from New Zealand prepared this guest post about an unusual new band from NZ named Alien Weaponry.)

New Zealand is a strange place; trust me, I live here. It refers to itself as “God’s own” country, and sees itself as an idyllic little egalitarian (supposedly) land at the edge of the earth, filled with natural beauty, and sparsely populated with easy-going sports-loving people. And yet, behind this idyllic facade it hides a dark past – and hides it well. But as readers of this site know, the hidden, darker side of human nature just happens to be something of a favourite theme for metal. All too often society seems to act like the evil queen in Snow White, only wanting the mirror it holds up to shower it with platitudes and reflect the good. But metal holds up the mirror which flatters not.

Not surprisingly, then, eventually a New Zealand metal band would come along which would dare speak openly of the country’s past. But what would be a surprise, is that it would take a band whose members are still in high school to do it – and in what seems to be a world first, do it with lyrics in Te Reo, the language of the indigenous Māori people. Welcome to Alien Weaponry. Continue reading »

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