NO CLEAN SINGING

A DOOMED DESCENT (PART 3): TEMPLE OF VOID, VÖLUR, SHAPE OF DESPAIR

Oct 172017

(We present Part 3 of a series of reviews by our Russian connoisseur of all things doom, Comrade Aleks, and today he shares impressions of, and music from, three more 2017 releases. Go here to check out Part 1 and here for Part 2.)

The Doom Cult reveals its brutal nature tonight…

First of all, I’d like to remind you of the well-known ghouls from Temple Of Void. Next is the heathen coven Völur with their latest record Ancestors. And the third stage of this doom descent is Shape Of Despair, in case you missed the reissue of their monumental demo Alone In The Mist. Continue reading »

SKINEATER: “CEREBRAL RELICS”

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Oct 162017

(Norway-based metal writer Karina Noctum returns to NCS with this review of the new EP by the Swedish death metal band Skineater.)

In addition to contributing to NCS, I do like to post music on two fairly big Facebook pages (Death Metal Institute and Viking, Folk, Black Metal and more). We get hundreds of post requests weekly and I keep on opening them because at times I stumble across something as good as Skineater’s Cerebral Relics.

This Death Metal band has members from acts such as Wombbath, In Thy Dreams, Pale King, Geist, Infernaeon, Ninety Minute Reflex, The Absence, Defiatory, Feared, and Wachenfeldt. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: V — “SOULS OF THE NEARLY DEPARTED”

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Oct 162017

An elegantly dressed old man sits at a table in a mansion perched on a craggy cliff above the ocean, writing out his last will and testament. Disease eats his body from the inside out. Black bile froths from this throat. He staggers outside to the cliff edge beneath a storm-wracked night sky. Arms wide, illuminated by the flash of lightning, he launches himself toward the wave-crashed rocks below. But death resists his embrace… or does it?

And that’s all I’ll tell you about the attention-riveting music video you’re about to see, a claymation-styled rendering of a tortured and nightmarish tale in which the border between what seems real and the horror of our worst fears is dissolved.

But I will tell you something more about the staggering, soul-shaking music that the video accompanies — a new song called “Souls of the Nearly Departed” from Pathogenesis, the first music in a decade from the Swedish band V. It will be released on November 8 by Suicide Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: RETORTION TERROR AND INVIDIOSUS

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Oct 162017

(Austin Weber presents our premiere of a new split release by Retortion Terror and Invidiosus.)

We’ve got a special early stream of the new split release from grinders Retortion Terror and longtime NCS favorites Invidiosus for you today.

While the name Retortion Terror may not ring any bells, knowing that legendary grindcore guitarist Takafumi Matsubara (Gridlink, Mortalized) is the main person behind it should pique your interest.

For those who don’t know the story, in 2014, shortly after the critically lauded release of Gridlink’s Longhena, Takafumi suffered a crippling and tragic brain infection that made it seem like he would never be able to play guitar again. But his tireless spirit fought against all odds to come back, and his material here with Retortion Terror is his first musical creation to come out since his incredible recovery. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLDCELL — “TAINTED THOUGHTS”

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Oct 162017

“ColdCell is the musical manifest of the modern individual’s prison: The modern new world, the globalized, digital society, a virtual designed image. Humanity as a sick species without consciousness, arbitrarily exchanging its gods, its ethics, its principles, isolated within the anonymous masses. The only benchmark is mammon, the individual is lost within stimulus satiation and shallow-brained social networks.”

The bleakness of this Swiss band’s worldview is manifested again in the name they chose for themselves, reflecting both the idea of “a constructed, bred human cell, produced and used for industrial purposes: human being as a single wheel within the system”, and as “a metaphor for the isolation arrest of the individual, lost within the masses, needing no connections”.

And it is further reflected in the music, as you shall see. What we have for you now is a track called “Tainted Thoughts” from ColdCell’s new album, Those, which will be released on November 3 by Czar of Crickets. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TENGGER CAVALRY, AETHERIAN, OUTER HEAVEN, DYPHTÊ, FRAMEWORK, DREAMSHIFT

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Oct 162017

You may have noticed that my posts have been scarce over the last few days — nothing at all over the weekend (Andy’s Best of British kept us from going dark altogether) and only one post on Friday and one on Thursday. The reason is that last Thursday my employer hosted its annual retreat, which was in Montana this year.

As usual, it has a very good time. But between the travel, the work-related meetings, the staying up late while getting hammered with co-workers, and the watching of some playoff baseball, NCS temporarily fell far down the ladder of my life. I wasn’t even been able to keep up with our e-mail traffic or my usual daily searching through statuses of friends, bands, and labels on Facebook.

Needless to say, I’m way behind. So what I’m doing here is collecting some music I actually had planned to post last Thursday, but ran out of time before leaving Seattle — though I have added two more songs I became aware of since then. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF BRITISH, 2017 (PART 8): HORRIFIED / OVEROTH / THE KING IS BLIND

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Oct 152017

(Here’s another edition of Andy Synn’s series of reviews focusing on sonic extremities from his homeland.)

So it turns out that it’s been over two months since I last put together one of these columns.

That doesn’t mean that there’ve been no good albums issued from these green and pleasant lands in the meantime of course (as a matter of fact I’ve reviewed albums by Dvne, Vacivus, Paradise Lost, and Dawn Ray’d in the intervening period), just that I haven’t had the time or the wherewithal to collate the right candidates for a proper “Best of British” collection.

That all ends today though, with this Death Metal focussed feature on three of the UK’s brightest and fastest-rising stars. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BATRAKOS AND AISNA — A SPLIT RELEASE

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Oct 132017

Xenoglossy Productions is making its first appearance today at our site, and so a word of introduction is in order: Xenoglossy is an Italian label formed by a collective of underground musicians who specialize in black metal, noise, experimental, and extreme music. On October 20, the label will be releasing a split by two Italian bands who are also making their first appearance here — Batrakos and Aisna.

Batrakos is a trio consisting of Heliogabalus (vocals, noise), F. (guitars, programming, noise), and Stilgar (effects, noise). Their motto is “Ugly Music For Ugly People“. However, although everyone who visits our site is, by definition, beautiful in every way, their music is for you too. Maybe. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NEPHREN-KA — “LA GRANDE GUERRE DE L’EPICE”

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Oct 122017

Nephren-Ka, a group of French brutalizers with a welcome thematic devotion to the universe of Frank Herbert’s Dune, made a very impressive full-length debut with 2013’s The Fall of Omnius. Four years later, they are returning with a new opus named La Grande Guerre de L’Epice, which will be released on October 13 (tomorrow) by Dolorem Records. And although it’s predictable that people may wonder whether the band will fall prey to the dreaded sophomore slump, fans can rest easy. With this new album, Nephren-Ka have moved from strength to further strength.

The new album, which includes French lyrics for the first time on some of the tracks, is a concept record consisting of nine chronological phases based on the Houses prequel stories written by Frank Herbert’s son and deals “with the attempt to create synthetic Spice and the ensuing imperial war”. We previously hosted the premiere of a slaughtering track named “Watch and Learn“, but now we have a full stream of this breathtaking album on the eve of its release. Continue reading »

HUMAN EXCORIATION: “CELESTIAL DEVOURMENT”

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Oct 122017

(Our friend from the Dominican Republic, Vonlughlio, who loves brutal death metal more than food, prepared this review of the first album in a decade by Human Excoriation.)

So today I wanted to do a small write-up about a band whose music I was familiar with only through a couple of songs from their first album. The band is the US BDM act Human Excoriation, and this past June they released their sophomore effort entitled Celestial Devourment via Pathologically Explicit Recordings. The fact that this label released the album and that Justin Downs (Purulent Necrosis, Vituperate, Scatology Secretion) was in charge of vocals, peaked my interest in this project.

The band was formed back in 2006 by Travis Cook and Nate Turpin after Methadone Abortion Clinic. The purpose of this new project was to remove the skin of humanity, and with the release of their 2007 debut album Virulent Infestation you can witness that. It has all the BDM standards (lyrics and all) and it has become among my favorite debuts. Continue reading »

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