DECREPIT BIRTH: “AXIS MUNDI”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jul 052017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Decrepit Birth.)

The ability to make comparisons between bands is a key tool in the modern reviewer’s repertoire.

As long as it isn’t abused and overused, making clear and accurate comparisons between different, but similar/complementary, acts is one of the best ways to put your audience in the right frame of mind prior to listening to a new album, and to attract the attention of potential new listeners (while also giving them some idea of what to expect).

But, although some comparisons are obvious (often painfully so), there are times when you’ll spend hours banging your head against a (metaphorical) brick wall, only to realise that the answer has been right under your nose the whole time.

And that’s exactly what happened to me mid-way through listening to Axis Mundi. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: INVOCATION SPELLS — “THE FLAME OF HATE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 052017
 

 

I became thoroughly hooked to the sulfurous, electrifying sound of the Chilean band Invocation Spells upon discovering their second album, Descendent the Black Throne (2016), from which we premiered the title track. It was a rare achievement, a galloping romp of speed metal riffs and gut-punching percussion trailing clouds of toxic smoke in its wake, capped by venomous vocals nasty enough to wake demons from their slumber, and as highly addictive as it was highly explosive. Now, in just a matter of days, Hells Headbangers will release Invocation Spells’ third album — The Flame of Hate — and we have a full stream of it for you now.

There are times when I read advance PR material about an album that’s so vivid and so accurate that I wonder, why should I even bother trying to describe the music myself?, because there’s no way I can match what I’ve already read. I had that feeling in reading these words about The Flame of Hate: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: MISTIGMA — “OMEGA MORTIS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 052017
 

 

Never underestimate the power of cover art to attract listeners. Though not a musician myself, that’s one piece of advice I would place high on a list of recommendations for metal bands if anyone were to ask me (though I’m not holding my breath waiting for the requests to pour in). For example, I was eager to hear the debut EP of the Italian death metal band Mistigma based on one look at the cover created by View From The Coffin — and now here I am helping to introduce Omega Mortis to you.

In its actual physical format, the EP looks very good as well: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ABORTED — “BATHOS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 052017
 

 

(DGR reviews the new EP by those Belgian barbarians (and old favorites of our site), Aborted.)

 

Of all of the bands nowadays who hardly seem to stop for a breath, Aborted are one who in recent years have steadily increased their output like few others. Most bands in the decade-plus eras of their careers tend to slow down; Aborted record music like the world is ending tomorrow — in terms of both aural quality and quantity.

In recent years, Aborted have also become master chameleons with their sound, re-energizing every album with just enough tweaks that although the band have clearly found a happy home in a hyperfast death-grind sound, each of the group’s releases since Global Flatline have felt different from one another. Those releases are still fairly recognizably as Aborted albums, and honestly, putting on shuffle the triptych of Global Flatline, Necrotic Manifesto, and Retrogore, along with the smattering of EPs and single releases with all their bonus rarities that happened in between those discs, pretty much guarantees a very consistent and frighteningly heavy through-line. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLASPHEMER — “JESUS IS STRIPPED OF HIS GARMENTS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 052017
 

 

Originally formed in 1998, the Italian brutal death metal band Blasphemer have released two albums so far — On the Inexistence of God in 2008, and 2016’s Ritual Theophagy, which we premiered and reviewed here last October. That last album left an especially deep mark, delivering a full-bore blaze from the beginning right up to the final track (which takes a different turn) — an utterly ferocious, unrelentingly savage, mercilessly brutal onslaught, and also an eye-popping, jaw-dropping exhibition of technical fireworks.

Since that album, Blasphemer’s line-up has undergone some change, with original guitarist and backing vocalist Simone Brigo (also a member of Beheaded) and bassist/vocalist Claudio “Clod The Ripper” De Rosa joined by guitarist and backing vocalist Nicolò Brambilla (Ekpyrosis) and drummer Davide Cazziol (Helion, Mortui Corpus). They’ve recorded a new promo single which is available today as a free download at Bandcamp, and we’re helping spread the word. The track’s name ie “Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ENSLAVED, BELTEZ, GNIPAHÅLAN, KATAVASIA, NARBELETH, UTTERTOMB, NIGHTGRAVE, PRISON OF MIRRORS, KULL

 SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
Jul 042017
 

 

This is the delayed completion of a collection of metal from blackened realms that I began on Sunday. As usual, I’ve added a few items to it that came to my attention during that delay.

I’m impaired in my ability to write as much as I would like about the music because of a headache that has battered me today, most likely the result of a battering I gave myself two nights ago when I bounced my head against concrete and put an inches-long gash in my scalp. The less said about the causes, the better. Oddly, when I saw a doctor yesterday to get the wound tended to, I had no headache or other obvious signs of a concussion. But I guess headaches can come on later, and get worse, as mine has.

Anyway, I would like to express my feelings about the music more fully, but I’ve decided not to delay the completion of this post any more.

ENSLAVED

To begin, I have a news item. This is a statement that appeared today on the Facebook page of Enslaved, which I’ll provide without comment, other than the echo of the squeeeeee sound I made when first reading it:

*** Update from the studio: Mix and mastering of our 14th studio album is now finished! ***

It is accomplished! We have finished the recording process of our 14th full-length and in the renowned Fascination Street Studios, Jens Bogren polished this new raw diamond with his mixing and mastering skills. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PAGANIZER — “FORLORN DREAMS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 042017
 

 

Rogga Johansson proclaims that Land of Weeping Souls “is the best Paganizer album, death fucking metal the way it is supposed to be done”. If you want to find a reliable authority on how death fucking metal is supposed to be done, you could hardly do better than Mr. Johansson, even making allowances for his partiality to Paganizer, which is the oldest and longest-running of the numerous groups to which he has devoted his talents over the last quarter-century.

Featuring ghastly cover art by Daniel “Devilish” Johnsson, Land of Weeping Souls is a 10-track monster, the tenth full-length in the discography of Paganizer. It will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on the 5th of August, 2017. It is also a renewal of faith — faith that even in a genre with such an old, gory history, the life hasn’t gone out of death (metal), and faith that at least for some of the earliest practitioners of the art, the creative fires still haven’t burned out but are blazing higher than ever.

Half the songs on this new Paganizer album have already been revealed in various premieres leading up to the release date, and I’ve collected all of them below. But today we have a sixth fusillade to add to the barrage — a track named “Forlorn Dreams“, which turns out to be as infectious as it is obliterating. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS — “MEGALITHIC”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 042017
 

 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth rejoins us after an extended absence, providing both an excellent song premiere and these words of introduction.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. I return from the forgotten depths to bring forth to you an exclusive listen to a new song by a band called Blood Of The Prophets.

There is, I would estimate, a better-than-average chance that you’ve never heard of this band, being that they have lain dormant for the greater part of seven years, but they are preparing for release their newest work, a concept album entitled The Stars Of The Sky Hid From Me. I will have a full investigation of said album at a date closer to its release, but for now we have a glimpse of that album in the form of “Megalithic“. Continue reading »

HOT DOGS: THE BEST METAL OF 2017 SO FAR (AN INVITATION FOR YOUR LISTS)

 Listmania  70 Responses »
Jul 042017
 

 

Today is Independence Day here in the United States, a day on which many Americans celebrate the beginning of the country’s great (and occasionally bizarre) experiment in democracy with vast quantities of cold beer, cookouts, and ardent efforts to blow off their own digits with equally vast quantities of illegally deployed explosives. Here in the metallic realms of NCS, however, it’s just another day (partly in consideration of the fact that more than half our readers are located outside the U.S.).

We have a couple of good song premieres coming your way, and maybe the second part of a SHADES OF BLACK post I began on Sunday, and who knows what else.

But to begin the day I want to talk about hot dogs, and then I want to ask our readers for your opinions about the best metal releases of 2017 so far. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BEYOND GRACE — “SEEKERS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jul 032017
 

 

On July 7, the British band Beyond Grace will release their new album, Seekers, and today we present a full stream of all the music.

As many of you know, the band’s vocalist and lyricist Andy Walmsley is also the longest-running writer at this site (other than myself), better known to our readers as Andy Synn. And as you also therefore know, he has a way with words, which he has put to good use in penning the lyrics to Seeker’s nine songs, drawing inspiration from the writings of such sci-fi luminaries as Kim Stanley-Robinson, Jeff Vandermeer (who also gave permission for excerpts from his novel Annihilation to be used in the song “Apoptosis”), Edgar Rice-Burroughs, and Jeff Noon, as well as the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. And while I could be accused of bias based on friendship, he sounds damned good expressing those lyrics too.

The music on Seekers is damned good, too, as you’re about to find out — and I say that, never having met any of the musicians who created these vibrant tracks. They are: Tim Yearsley (guitars), Andrew Workman (bass), and Ed Gorrod (drums). Continue reading »

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