MARTHYRIUM — “BEYOND THE THRESHOLDS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

Beyond the Thresholds is the debut album of Marthyrium from Galicia in Spain. In listening to the album it becomes apparent that the thresholds being crossed are those separating this mundane mortal plane from the arcane and alien terrors of another dimension. There is virtually nothing about the music that seems human. It excites visions in the mind of immense, shape-shifting forces, but they are all nightmarish, violent, and steadfastly resistant to reason or appeals to mercy.

The music is also relentlessly intense and dramatic, and when it isn’t inflicting ruination like a cyclonic vortex, an atmosphere of grim and terrible majesty emanates from it, as if capturing the sensation of an abominable leviathan rising up from a crimson void and looming over us with ominous power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PRAYERS OF SANITY — “DEAD ALIVE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

Do you feel dead inside? Do you hate your job, and your few friends hate you? Has hope abandoned your life like an empty pack of smokes tossed from the window of a passing car? Does the future seem to hold nothing but a steep and lonely descent into scowling bitterness and a wasteland of forgotten dreams?

If the answer is yes, we’re sorry to say that we haven’t yet mastered the power to call for a re-deal on your life. But we can do one thing for you. At least for a few minutes, we can make you feel explosively alive, like you stepped on a live power line while ringing wet, with all the motherfuckers in your life cowering in fear at the fireball that your head has turned into.

Actually, we can’t do that — but Prayers of Sanity can. Just hit the play button on “Dead Alive” down below. Continue reading »

ABSCISSION : “VACUITY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the debut album by the Danish band Abscission.)

So how’s everyone doing today? All good? I’m only asking because I’ve been relatively off-the-radar doing musical stuff (and then recovering from the cumulative hangover) for the last few days, and so haven’t had much chance to catch up on the various comings and goings of the interweblogosphere.

Obviously that also means I haven’t had any time to do any real writing for NCS for a little while, with the result being that I’m now even further behind on my review schedule than I was last week.

So, in an attempt to get things back on track (though I’ve got a couple more shows to play this week still), here’s some of my vaguely informative ramblings about Vacuity, the dazzling debut album by devilishly dark Danish Death Metallers Abscission. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FRACTAL GENERATOR — “ABANDON EARTH”

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Apr 182017
 

 

Sometimes the name that a band chooses for itself can be a significant clue to the kind of music they make. The name Fractal Generator sounds kind of cybernetic and machine-like, although fractal repeating patterns across multiple scales of size are evident in nature as well as mathematics. But then consider further that the members of this band from Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, identify themselves by number: 040118180514 (bass, vocals), 040114090512 (drums), and 102119200914 (guitar, vocals). And then consider that the name of their debut album is Apotheosynthesis.

The album was originally self-released by the band in 2015, but it has now been embraced by Everlasting Spew Records, who will be giving it a CD release on May 19th. For those who may have overlooked the album in its original flowering, we have for you today a video for a multi-faceted track named “Abandon Earth” (and a reprise of another song unveiled not long ago by DECIBEL). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOLDENPYRE — “IN EMINENT DISGRACE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

You were meant to suffer, to experience the collapse of empirical foundations you thought could be relied upon, to bend before winds of pestilence, shuddering in a last paroxysm before suffocation claims you and your remains are consumed in a deluge of fire. Raise high a crown for decadence… because Yod Sabbaoth cannot save you.

Judging from the song titles in Goldenpyre‘s debut album, In Eminent Disgrace, all of which I just worked into that first paragraph above, this Portuguese band’s outlook on existence is morbid and brutal… or perhaps not… but they’ve certainly done a hell of a job capturing the ravaging horrors of insanity, disease, and death in their first full-length. The album will be released on April 20 by Signal Rex and a consortium of other labels, and today we present a full stream of its eight songs. Continue reading »

THE COVENANT MONTREAL 2017: A FESTIVAL REPORT

 Concert Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

(One of our loyal allies, Conchobar, had the good fortune to attend The Covenant Montreal festival on April 13-15, 2017, at La Salla Rossa, and was kind enough to share the following impressions of the event, along with his photos of the performances.)

 

“Ye Who sow discord, where are you? Ye who infuse hatred and propagate enmities, I conjure you by Him who hath created you for this ministry, to fulfil this work…”

Montreal is one of my favourite cities in this strange, fragmented nation of ours. After the calamity that befell the ill-fated Messe des Morts VI in November, we had an easy decision regarding a return trip after looking at the line-up for Covenant Montreal. Covenant has been active since 2015, the inner circle being composed of members of Auroch/Mitochondrion, Crooked Mouth, and other acts. Continue reading »

LUCIFER’S DUNGEON — “UNCONCIOUS FAITH”

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 172017
 

 

The Dark Army Raises is the debut album of the Russian band Lucifer’s Dungeon. It was originally released in digital form by the band earlier this year but is now slated for wider distribution on CD (and digitally) by GrimmDistribution on May 7th. Today we’re helping spread the word about the new release by hosting a stream of the album’s second track, “Unconcious Faith“. And while this may not qualify as a premiere, given the album’s previous digital release, it will probably be the first exposure to the album by many of our visitors.

For that reason, it’s also worth noting that the tracks on The Dark Army Raises do not all sound alike. While black metal shapes much of the album, even in those songs the music diverges. “War”, for example, is alternately brooding and chillingly delirious, while “Burn Your Dogma” is haunting and depressive in its slower movements and anguished in its bursts of speed and intensity.

Yet black metal is only one of this hour-long album’s faces; it also includes ambient tracks, such as the opener, “Dungeon”, in which ethereal choral voices rise up above dark, droning tones that create an ominous atmosphere, and “The Last Day of the World”, which is mystical and hypnotic, gleaming and cold. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WOLFKHAN — “CYBER NECRO SPIRITUALS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 172017
 

 

Even the most serious of musicians, across all genres of music, have been known to take whimsical digressions from their main lines of pursuit. Sometimes the results sound like a joke, and sometimes the result is less whimsical, more accomplished, and more fun than we might expect at first blush. Which brings us to the very strange but very addictive first full album by Wolfkhan, Cyber Necro Spirituals.

Wolfkhan is the side-project of Marcin Gąsiorowski, who is the male vocalist and one of the guitarists for the folk/metal band Thy Worshiper (whose most recent album, Klechdy, came out last year). Cyber Necro Spirituals will be released on April 25th by Arachnophobia Records. Continue reading »

CUT UP: “WHEREVER THEY MAY ROT”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 172017
 

 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Sweden’s Cut Up.)

As someone who is a complete fucking nerd who enjoys analyzing nuances, subtleties, patterns, and periods within art, or the examples of all those contained within a particular artist’s body of work, I find few things more fascinating within the realms of music than the phenomenon of the extreme metal sophomore album. Mostly I’m impressed by its power to either make or break bands. If you release a killer debut and then a shitty sophomore album, or just one that doesn’t capitalize on the steam of the debut, you can absolutely tank your traction and name right then and there and never recover. Some bands can release a terrible debut and get away with it, but a band who start well take a big risk if they release a sophomore album that is anything less than excellent.

This subject may be worth a digression into a deeper conversation about what a sophomore album should accomplish, and maybe I’ll do an article on that alone someday, but for now the context is Cut Up. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BESTIA ARCANA, VULPUS, LOTUS ASH, THROMOS, ARKHERON THODOL, KYRYEM

 Album Reviews, Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  13 Responses »
Apr 162017
 

 

Salutations, and welcome to another edition of SHADES OF BLACK. As usual, I have a lot of new music I want to recommend that’s mainly in a blackened vein, perhaps more than usual this time. Below you’ll find brief reviews and streams of three complete albums of significant length, along with individual songs from three other recent or forthcoming releases. No two of these bands sound alike, each of them revealing their own distinctive character.

BESTIA ARCANA

In March of last year, Daemon Worship Productions launched a YouTube video which said nothing more than “Bestia Arcana. Holókauston is coming.” After doing further research I was unable to find more details but reported the event anyway, while commenting that the excerpts of music in the video “sound like the gates of Hell have been forced open, expelling great heaving waves of dark, terrifying, unearthly sound… some of it the sound of arcane ritual, some of it the sound of civilization being put to the torch”. Continue reading »

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