AN NCS INTERVIEW: CASTLE (MAT DAVIS)

 Interviews  No Responses »
May 082017
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview with guitarist Mat Davis of the North American heavy doom band Castle.)

Castle is one of the most powerful bands of the States’ heavy scene. They’ve combined doom and heavy metal since 2009, and each of their four albums is an impressive and focused work filled with concentrated energy.

The recording lineup hasn’t changed since the band’s founding: Elizabeth Blackwell on vocals and bass, Mat Davis on guitars, and Al McCartney on drums. Liz’s voice is thick and charged; each line she sings and each chord Mat produces really count.

Their latest album Welcome to the Graveyard was released in July 2016 by Ván Records and since then Castle has played a damn lot of shows, so I wondered if they’ve had time to compose some new tunes. Are you wondering this too? Okay, then this interview with Mat will shed some light on the band’s past, present, and a bit of future. Continue reading »

BLOG BREAK

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 072017
 


Artwork by Adam Burke

 

For those of you visiting NCS this weekend expecting to find one of the Saturday round-ups of new music or a Sunday SHADES OF BLACK feature, sorry to disappoint you. As I mentioned last week, I’m on a short vacation with my spouse and taking a break from blogging, in part so that my spouse won’t break me into tiny pieces.

We’ll be back home by late tonight, as long as the airplane doesn’t fall out of the sky, and NCS will revive on Monday morning. In the meantime, enjoy some new music by Triumvir Foul: Continue reading »

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT: OUR REVIEW OF “VERSVS 1” AND OUR PREMIERE OF “DIE GLOCKE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
May 052017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by The Monolith Deathcult, and we also present the premiere of a song from the album after the review. We apologize in advance to all our readers.)

Dedicated readers of the site will no doubt be aware of my long-running relationship with The Monolith Deathcult, dating all the way back to 2011 and encompassing, in the intervening years, numerous reviews, interviews, and tour dates (the most recent only a few weeks ago).

Heck, I even ended up helping the band rewrite the press release for this record simply because I didn’t think the original materials were up to scratch!

As a result you might be wondering whether this review is going to be full of bias, favouritism, and partisan hyperbole, to which I’d answer… of course it is.

In fact you’re probably better off thinking of this as a paid advertisement on behalf of Deathcult Inc.

Except I’m not getting paid…

And I’m actually going to be a bit critical in places… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRAVEN IDOL (S. VRATH)

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 052017
 

 

(Argentinian writer Matías Gallardo presents this interview with S. Vrath, guitarist/vocalist of Craven Idol, whose savage new album The Shackles of Mammon was released in April by Dark Descent Records.)

 

Four years ago, Craven Idol’s debut Towards Eschaton put the London four-piece among the most insane and relentless heirs of old school extreme metal. This year the band takes its blackened metal one step forward with The Shackles of Mammon, an album where the influences of Poison (Ger), Bathory, Manilla Road, and Deströyer 666 resonate in an impressive landscape of filthy and addictive noise.

Guitarist/Vocalist S. Vrath spoke with NCS to share his thoughts about Craven Idol’s new masterpiece. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HORIZON OF THE MUTE (JANI KOSKELA)

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 042017
 

 

(We present the interview by Latvian music writer Evita Hofmane with Jani Koskela, the man behind the Finnish band Horizon of the Mute.)

Finnish one-man doom/industrial metal act Horizon of the Mute has announced more live dates in support to its debut album release Trobar Clus. These shows will take place in Baltic countries, Romania, Slovakia, and France in May. Trobar Clus was released digitally and on CD in November 2016 by Death Shrine Offerings.

I had a chat with Jani Koskela (also or previously of Cynabare Urne, 0xíst, Let Me Dream, and Saattue) to hear all about his new project. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTRAILS, AU-DESSUS, KOLLAPSE, QRIXKUOR, SATANARCHIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 042017
 

 

Things are going to slow down here at NCS until early next week. As of this morning I’ve left Seattle with Ms. Islander for a short vacation, and blogging isn’t part of any planned activities. Any attempts by me to do any NCS stuff besides hurriedly post whatever I might receive from other contributors would be met with severe punishment, or at least a cold shoulder.

I thought I’d pull together a round-up of new music before we left, but found myself with too little time to write impressions of the songs I chose. So this will be more bare-bones than usual.

ENTRAILS

The last time I wrote about this band, almost exactly two years ago, I began by saying that, “By my lights, Sweden’s Entrails can pretty much do no wrong”. Back then the context was their new album Obliteration. Now they have a new one named World Inferno, which will be released by Metal Blade on June 16th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEITY — “SACRIFICIUM”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
May 042017
 

 

I usually try to describe what happens in the songs we premiere. I’m not positive why I do that, since the whole point of a premiere is to provide a platform where people can immediately listen for themselves. I suppose it’s fun for me, even if it doesn’t contribute anything important to listeners. But in the case of this new song by the Canadian death metal band Deity that we’re premiering today, I was on the verge of giving up completely.

You see, “Sacrificium” is so blindingly fast and so technically jaw-dropping that attempting to provide even a rough linguistic map of its course is a fool’s errand. It’s a truly breathtaking rocket ride, a non-stop jolt of adrenaline, so blazing in its exuberance that trying to nail it down with words seems unjust, even if that could be done. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KALOPSIA — “SCORCHED EARTH AND BLACKENED SKIES”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 032017
 

 

May 19th is the date set by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions for the release of Angelplague, the third album by the New Jersey death metal band Kalopsia. And if you have no good idea what the music will be like, take a close look at that jolting cover art and contemplate the flames, the agony, the mutated horrors, the skyscrapers themselves transformed into demonic monsters.

The cover art is a real grabber, and so is the song from Angelplague that we’re bringing you today, fittingly entitled “Scorched Earth and Blackened Skies“. Continue reading »

GOATWHORE: NEW ALBUM DETAILS AND NEW TRACK REVEALED (“VENGEFUL ASCENSION”)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 032017
 

 

Rather than save this news and new music for our next round-up, I decided to strike while the iron is hot. It is Goatwhore, after all, and their consistency both on record and on stage has always been impressive. Plus, we’re huge fans.

First, here’s the news, announced not long ago: The band’s new album (their seventh) is named Vengeful Ascension. It’s a ten-track, 41-minute record, featuring eye-catching cover art, and it will be released by Metal Blade on June 23rd. The press release we received also included this description of the album’s lyrical themes: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RAPHEUMET’S WELL — “GHOST WALKERS EXODUS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 032017
 

 

Many metal bands have embraced science-fiction themes for their music, some of them building entire albums around concepts and story lines rooted in the genre, some original and some taken from existing novels or short stories. But Rapheumet’s Well have dedicated themselves to their own science-fictional narrative arc in a way that’s unusually thorough and immersive.

The last time we premiered a song by these storytellers from Hickory, North Carolina, was in early 2016. At that point they were about a month away from releasing their second album, The Exile, which continued an interdimensional, worlds-spanning tale of conflict and perseverance that the band started with their 2014 debut album Dimensions. And now they’re continuing their grand narrative with a third album, Enders Door, which is set for release by Test Your Metal Records on May 26th.

And from that album we bring you another premiere, in the form of a 360-degree video. The song’s name is “Ghost Walkers Exodus“. Continue reading »

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