AN NCS PREMIERE: ROZAMOV — “WIND SCORPION”

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Feb 212017
 

 

With two EPs and a split to their credit, the release of Rozamov’s debut album This Mortal Road is now fast approaching through the joint efforts of Battleground Records and Dullest Records. In advance of the March 3 release date, Revolver magazine has already premiered the title track, and now we have another one for you to stream, a soul-crusher named “Wind Scorpion”.

Rozamov have explained, “We wrote the album during the snowiest winter in Boston history, making life in the city just a constant draining struggle. It was a really intense time to live in New England, and the cold and isolation of that winter worked its way into the riffs and the lyrics, giving the record the feel of a long and intense journey.” There’s certainly no shortage of intensity in “Wind Scorpion”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: REAPING ASMODEIA — “IMPURITIZE”

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Feb 212017
 

 

What you’re about to experience is a full stream of the new album Impuritize by Minneapolis-based Reaping Asmodeia, which will be released by Prosthetic Records on February 24.

As you approach the album it may help to imagine yourself being strapped into some futuristic road machine with a deranged yet precise artificial intelligence of its own, one that rockets ahead with all the turbochargers and afterburners wide open, veering and careening with abandon, leaving the road (and the surface of the earth) with no warning, plunging into ravines, crashing through stands of timber like they’re blades of grass, scattering combatants in an active war zone, jamming on the brakes one minute, flooring it the next, and shaking your skeletal structure to pieces at the same time as it scrambles your brain over high heat into a foaming froth. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ULSECT — “FALL TO DEPRAVITY”

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Feb 212017
 

 

With good reason, the new album by the Dutch band Dodecahedron (Kwintessens) has been drawing a lot of attention around metaldom leading up to its release next month by Season of Mist, but two of that band’s members are participants in another project that has a new album on the way, and early signs are that it will be worth just as much attention.

Ulsect is the name of this second group, and its line-up includes not only guitarist Joris Bonis and drummer Jasper Barendregt from Dodecahedron but also former Textures bass-player Dennis Aarts, guitarist Arno Frericks (ex-Encircled), and vocalist Dennis Maas. Their self-titled debut album, also being released by Season of Mist, is due to arrive on May 12, 2017, and we have an advance track named “Fall To Depravity” that should kindle your interest immediately. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FIN, LAVA INVOCATOR, FJOERGYN, TERROR THRONE

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Feb 212017
 

 

Sundays are the days usually reserved for SHADES OF BLACK posts, but by coincidence most of the new songs I discovered yesterday that I thought I’d include in a round-up were in a black vein. So I’ve collected those here, and I’ll defer the others to a SEEN AND HEARD post tomorrow.

I really like the music of all four of these bands and hope you will, too. The first three items below are advance tracks from forthcoming releases and the last one is a new demo the band wrote us about.

FIN

I’ve been following this Chicago band since May of 2013, when I scribbled some enthusiastic thoughts about their 2012 demo, Fated By Will and Iron. In February 2015 I loosed another flood of enthusiastic verbiage about their third album The Furrows of Tradition (along with a track premiere). And then last year I gushed about one of FIN’s songs for a split with the Austrian band Totale Vernichtung — which still hasn’t been released yet. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP ON 2016 -– BEDOWYN / KORONAL / MELDING PLAGUE

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Feb 202017
 


Bedowyn

(Andy Synn contributes three more reviews of releases from 2016, focusing on the music of Bedowyn (North Carolina), Koronal (Poland), and Melding Plague (Finland).)

Ok, last one. Deep breath. Big finish.

Here are the final three albums from 2016 which I have handpicked for your listening pleasure.

I hope you enjoy them, and I sincerely hope you’ve all discovered a gem or two over the last few weeks of these “catch-up” posts.

I’ll probably be following up on a few of my personal favourites over the next month or so, so we’re not quite done with 2016 just yet, but, for the most part, I’m now going to be switching my focus to albums and EPs from 2017, as I’ve built up quite a backlog over the last several weeks.

In the meantime, however, why not get stuck into the cavalcade of humongous riffs, ear-catching melodies, and badass grooves provided by this triumphant triptych of bands? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRAVEN IDOL — “A RIPPING STRIKE”

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Feb 202017
 

 

Sometimes, song titles turn out to be examples of truth in advertising — no puffery, no exaggeration, just the truth and nothing but the truth. When London’s Craven Idol named the song we’re premiering “A Ripping Strike“, they weren’t fooling, and they’re not fooling around on the song either. It really is a ripping strike — a non-stop primal rush of electrification straight to the brain stem. And it proves to be damned infectious as well.

“A Ripping Strike” is the second track on Cravel Idol’s second album, The Shackles of Mammon, which will be released by Dark Descent Records on April 14. It follows the band’s eye-popping debut album Towards Eschaton, released in 2013. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIGHTBRINGER — “MISRULE”

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Feb 202017
 

 

Over the course of four albums and a handful of split releases since 2001, Nightbringer have established such a prominent presence in the shadow realms of arcane black metal that every new release must now be regarded as an Event, with a capital E. Their fifth full-length is named Terra Damnata, and it’s scheduled to appear via Season of Mist on April 14. We’ve previously praised the first single from the album, “Serpent Sun“, and now it’s our privilege to help premiere the second one — a track named “Misrule“.

Nightbringer described “Serpent Sun” as the “theme for a god, solar soliloquy, incubated to rise for the fall.” That song is a barn-burner — fiery, immense, dramatic, casting an aura of ominous and savage majesty. The sweeping keyboards and sparkling guitar melody are as gripping as the giant boom of the drums and the wild ferocity of the vocals. It’s enough to make normal humans cower like mice beneath the swooping shadow of a great raptor overhead. The newest song also takes no prisoners. Continue reading »

PALMER, PALE KING, NORDLAND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 202017
 


Palmer

I admit that I went berserk posting about new music this past weekend. Pretty sure that I set a weekend record for our site in the number of releases I included in those five posts between Saturday and Sunday. You’d think I would have exhausted what I found last week that got me excited — but no, not even close.

I really like all three of the songs I’ve collected here, and I also think they complement each other when heard one after the other, even though the genre styles are different.

PALMER

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery”.

Those words, written by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy almost 700 years ago, begin the video that you’re about to see. Powerful words, and profoundly true. There’s also tremendous power in this video, and in the song for which it was so beautifully made. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FALLS OF RAUROS, KATAKOMB, STREAMS OF BLOOD, NONE, UERBEROS, PROJECT OMEGA

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Feb 192017
 

 

In this Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK I’ve collected advance tracks from four albums plus two full recent releases, all of which I hope you’ll find are worth your time.

FALLS OF RAUROS

I’ve been immensely enjoying the new Falls of Rauros album, Vigilance Perennial, though berating myself for not yet collecting my thoughts in a review. With luck, I’ll get that done in the coming week. For now I’ll just offer a few words about the first advance track from the album, “White Granite“, which premiered at DECIBEL on Friday. Continue reading »

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET: EXPANDER, WOUNDVAC, KEITZER, THE DEVIL WANTS HER SWAGGER BACK

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 192017
 

 

We usually begin Sundays here on our metallic island with a REARVIEW MIRROR post, but I decided this week I’d rather use the time to spread around some more new music — even though I did a shitload of that yesterday.

I was also motivated by the fact that the music of the following four bands — three of whom I discovered in the last 48 hours — seemed like it would all go together pretty well, because they’ve all got varying degrees of punk or hardcore in their DNA (though they’re all metal as hell, too). By the time you get to the end of this post, you’ll be smiling through broken teeth.

EXPANDER

First up is Expander. They’re ensconced in my old hometown of Austin, Texas. I paused in my musical explorations to check out some music from their new album Endless Computer when I spotted the very recognizable artwork of Luca Carey on the cover. The fact that the album is being released (on May 16th) by Nuclear War Now! was an added inducement, and another nail in the coffin came when I saw that the album was engineered by Kurt Ballou and mastered by Joel Grind. Continue reading »

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