WARCRAB: “SCARS OF AEONS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 062017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the latest album by the British band WarCrab.)

Over the course of 2016 I managed to successfully cover a host of fantastic bands from the UK (often, but not always, under the “Best of British” banner) spanning a wide variety of metallic sub-genres, from the pitch-black perfection of Wode and the doomy proggery of King Goat, to the unfathomable brutality of Unfathomable Ruination, the knee-cap shattering aggression of Venom Prison, and the grandstanding gallop of Wretched Soul… and beyond.

But even with all these, there were still several bands whose works went uncelebrated, and chief amongst them were the mighty WarCrab and their titanic second album Scars of Aeons. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DDENT

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Feb 062017
 

 

The Parisian band DDENT began as the creation of multi-instrumentalist Louis Lambert and drummer Marc Le Saux. They released their debut EP Chien Noir in 2014. With Louis Lambert continuing as the sole composer of the music and the guitarist, DDENT has now expanded into a full four-person band, and on February 13 will release a debut full-length with a title in Arabic — آكتئاب — which means ektiheb, referring to melancholy, depression. Today we bring you a full stream of this new album in advance of its release.

The names of the eight album tracks are derived from Arab psalms, with words such as “Habouz”, “Arzel”, and “Houri” describing “the melancholy and depression of a horseman, a poet”. Continue reading »

MECHINA: “AS EMBERS TURN TO DUST”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 062017
 

 

(Chicago’s Mechina released a new album on January 1 and, continuing a long tradition, DGR reviews it.)

The idea of a band creating their own lore occupies a special place in my heart, a place where admiration and hilarity co-exist in the case of Mechina. The ambitiousness of trying to set up a universe and tell a multiple-release-spanning story is incredible, in an age of music that is quickly devoured and disposed of, reserved exclusively for streaming and set up to run in the background. Going beyond the usual goal of “let’s make a really good disc” and into one that seeks to create a musical space opera that pulls from equal parts miltiary sci-fi and exploration segments, that is where my admiration comes to fruition.

That the Mechina crew have doggedly sought to create this saga on a yearly release schedule, with the occasional single release ahead of time, has felt like an exercise in insanity. The hilarity, for me at least, has been in the part where year afer year I have to describe this to what may be a new audience not feel like I’ve fallen into a feedback loop of repeating myself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PERFIDIOUS — “ANCIENT VOICES OF THE PAST”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 052017
 

 

In less than 10 days Death Metal Industry will release Malevolent Martyrdom, the debut album of the death metal band Perfidious, whose members are based in Milan and Novara, Italy. Today we bring you the premiere of a track from this vicious album named “Ancient Voices of the Past“.

With a cavernous voice roaring and howling like an unearthed monstrosity that has been storing up hate for centuries, the rest of the band deliver an intensely infectious battery of jolting riffs and punishing rhythmic grooves. With guitar leads that seethe, slash, and shriek, the music has a sinister aura that becomes increasingly poisonous… even as it gets the listener’s head moving even more forcefully as it charges ahead. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, FIRESPAWN, WOLFHEART, FUOCO FATUO, ZEAL AND ARDOR, EXOCRINE, SEPULCHRAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Feb 042017
 

 

It’s been a crazy week for this half-witted editor. Interferences by my fucking day job coupled with interferences by my non-blogging personal life prevented me from posting any news and new-music round-ups all week. That means I’ve accumulated an enormous list of things since last weekend. Unfortunately, I still won’t have time to catch up this weekend.

I’ve got work I need to do today for an annual event I’m attending tonight with my spouse, and based on past experience, I’ll be in no condition to write anything on Sunday morning. I’ve agreed to post one premiere tomorrow, which I’ll get ready today, but there probably won’t be anything else on the site tomorrow. Maybe the coming week will be less crazy and I can do a delayed Shades of Black thing and/or a “That’s Metal!” post after the new week begins.

Okay, enough with the excuses. On to a regrettably small but diverse collection of new things I noticed last week.

HIDEOUS DIVINITY

When I first started using the title “Seen and Heard“, it was because I intended to include both news about, and artwork from, new albums, even when there was nothing yet to hear, as well as streams of new songs. And I have items in both categories to recommend today in this large collection, beginning with the artwork at the top of this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOLYCIDE — “ANNIHILATE… THEN ASK!”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 032017
 

 

The slaughter of all faiths… and the law… and greedy cash-hoarders. Open vats of radioactive slime. Flame-throwing tank attacks and skulls burned clean to the bone… and a tooled-up mutant coming for you next. The artwork by Andrei Bouzikov (Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Toxic Holocaust, etc.) sends a message, and the album title reaffirms it: Annihilate… Then Ask!

This is the debut album by Spain’s Holycide, a band originally conceived in 2004 by Avulsed’s Dave Rotten that eventually came to include guitarist Miguel Bárez, bass-player Dani Fernández, drummer Jorge Utrera, and guitarist Salva Esteban. They released their first EP, Toxic Mutation, through Xtreem Music in 2015, and now comes this new full-length with the war-torn artwork. Does the music live up to the carnage emblazoned on the cover? In a word, hell yes.

Okay, that was two words. Here are some more words, as an introduction to the album stream that we’re helping spread around today. Continue reading »

KRYSTHLA: “PEACE IN OUR TIME”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 032017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Krysthla from the UK.)

So let’s address the big Polish elephant in the room straight away, shall we?

If, after listening to Peace In Our Time, the second album from British bruisers Krysthla, I were to tell you that these guys really like Decapitated, have been on tour with Vogg and co., and probably own several Decapitated shirts between them, I doubt you’d be surprised, as the presence of the Polish groovemongers looms large over pretty much every track on this album.

It would be wrong to write the band off as simple copycats, however, as, although their major influences (primarily, though not exclusively, latter-day Decapitated and late-2000s period Meshuggah) are certainly very prominent, the songs which make up Peace In Our Time are delivered with a level of energy and belligerent intensity which makes them impossible to dismiss. Continue reading »

DIABLERIE: “THE CATALYST VOL. I: CONTROL”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 032017
 

 

(Our long-time supporter and occasional contributor Booker returns to NCS with this review of the new album by Finland’s Diablerie.)

Music goes through phases, some of them short-lived trends. And let’s face it, metal is no different. But there’s always some stallion musos that keep true to their hearts and let fly with the rhythms and sounds that light their own fire, regardless of the changing moods around them. Like those stalwart bands that kept cranking out solid thrash throughout the ’90s and 2000s, while grunge and nu-metal captured hearts and minds, only to see the hunger for riffs and blazing solos come back full circle into fashion again.

Strangely, one branch of metal which the world seems to have shied away from in recent times is industrial. I say strange, because given it’s got solid, heavy rhythms, the fusing of “traditional” metal instruments with experimentation – in the form of electronica, synths, and samples – and often bleak and dystopian lyrics and themes, you’d think it would fit right into a cover of “these are just a few of my favourite things” sung by a true kvlt metal fan.

But for reasons beyond my comprehension, the world’s gaze has shifted elsewhere, and industrial has largely been left to fade into the background. Well, if you’re like me and have a penchant for riffs that slam like concrete sledgehammers and aren’t afraid of synths that would fit in an ’80s soundtrack, fear not: because Finland’s Diablerie are one of those bands who have been toiling away in the shadows and quietly following their own industrial compass. And now they bring us their second full-length album The Catalyst Vol. I: Control via Primitive Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AU CHAMP DES MORTS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Feb 032017
 

 

(Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum brings us this interview with members of the French band Au Champ des Morts, whose new album Dans La Joie we premiered and reviewed here.)

After I listened to the La Jour Se Lève EP last year and then heard an album was in the making, I started anticipating it. Besides, Au Champ des Morts are from France, and I like the French approach to Black Metal.

The new album is really a fine piece of dark art. The anguish and despair of the good old days is totally there. The contrast in the titles is interesting. I really like it! It invites you to take stuff for what it is, the dark and fearful mythology that culminates in the vision of the end of the world. ACdM play a bit with the ironical modern sanitization of religion that is just an attempt to put a nice package around something that actually withholds lots of darkness. Continue reading »

PRIMAL ATTACK: “HEARTLESS OPPRESSOR”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 032017
 

 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the new second album by the Portuguese band Primal Attack.)

Primal Attack are an instance where the name absolutely tells you everything you need to know about the music. This is the first album this year that I can call an absolute balls-to-the-wall, no frills, uncompromisingly brutal metal album in its sheer intensity. Heartless Oppressor is exactly the sound of all the world’s major powers nuking the fuck out of each other. It’s a pretty fitting post-inauguration “I need to vent my rage at ignorance, white supremacy, and anti-intellectualism” album.

Primal Attack started out as a thrash band with their debut album, but Heartless Oppressor is a mean obsidian slab of thrash, death metal, and metallic hardcore. Think Marco Aro-era The Haunted, Gojira, Merauder/Hatebreed, and I’d say that’s a pretty fair encapsulation. Continue reading »

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