DAWN RAY’D: “THE UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 112017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the UK’s Dawn Ray’d, which will be released on October 2nd.)

Despite what some people might have you believe, Black Metal is not, nor has it ever really been, a monolith.

In fact if you look back at the early days of the scene, and in particular those responsible for laying its foundations, you’ll quickly become aware of the variety of personalities, approaches, and opinions which, collectively, contributed to the genesis of the nascent genre, while also planting the seeds for the variety of different styles and sub-genres to come.

Of course while the guiding principle of Black Metal may well be “do what thou will”, this doesn’t mean you can claim that anything is Black Metal. There are certain markers you still need to hit, certain rules you might say, that apply even here.

But within these (relatively loose) confines you’ll find a world of different approaches, different beliefs, different ideologies – from nihilism to humanism, asceticism to Satanism – all clashing and coalescing in a tumultuous display of pure passion and unflinching intensity.

Which is why, regardless of what you might think about their personalities or their politics, I have little hesitation in declaring The Unlawful Assembly to be one of the best Black Metal albums of the year. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERGE, YELLOW EYES, MALOKARPATAN, ZIGGURAT, WITCHCRAFT SADOMIZER, STRODA, DEATH ICON, DÉPÉRIR, SATOR MALUS, JOYLESS EUPHORIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Sep 102017
 

 

As you can see, I have music from 10 bands from the blackened realms in this post. I thought about dividing it into two parts to make it more easily digestible, posting the first 5 as soon as I finished writing about them and then beginning on the second 5. But then I remembered what happened last weekend, when the rest of life intruded and I didn’t finish Part 2 before the typhoon of Monday made landfall. So I forced myself to defer posting this collection until I had completed all of it. Though I guess I could have divided it then. Oh well.

Doesn’t mean you have to consume all of this at once. You can pretend there’s a dividing line after Witchcraft Sadomizer and come back later… just don’t forget, or let the rest of life get in the way.

VERGE

Finland’s Verge are fascinating on many levels. Wholly apart from the evolution of their music into increasingly distinctive shapes, the lyrics of their songs are also engrossing and thought-provoking, though in their unsettling poetry you must be prepared to experience despair and hopelessness in a search for self-becoming that seems perpetually elusive, always challenged and usually defeated by our own wretched flaws and misunderstandings. Continue reading »

SELLING OUT, OR, HOW TO MAKE FANS AND KEEP YOUR INTEGRITY

 Mosh Pit  14 Responses »
Sep 092017
 

 

(Andy Synn is the author of this thought piece, and as always, we welcome your own thoughts in the Comments.)

I/we recently received a pair of promos here at NCS that couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed in style, Deus Salutis Meae by Blut Aus Nord and Will to Power by Arch Enemy.

The former is a return to the oppressive, industrialised soundscapes of The Work Which Transforms God and Mort, whose purposefully unsettling nature practically epitomises the idea of “art for art’s sake”, while the latter is a collection of shamelessly catchy, if predictably formulaic, tunes, designed with one eye firmly on increasing the band’s popularity and mainstream (in Metal terms at least) appeal.

And though the two bands/albums have very little in common on the purely musical side of things, their very nature means they can still be compared as representing the two polar extremes of the modern-day Metal spectrum. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MINDKULT — “INFERNALS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 082017
 

 

Time to confuse people… again. I’m speaking mainly of newcomers who take our site’s name literally and view divergences from it as some kind of fraud or traitorous misconduct, when in fact we’ve always disclosed that we would make exceptions to our rule, rare though they may be, when they’re well-earned. And Mindkult is a well-earned exception.

This band, the alter ego of a Virginia solo artist whose moniker is Fowst, first grabbed my attention more than a year ago when I heard (and wrote about) a single named “Witch’s Oath” that later became part of an EP bearing the same name. Later that same year Mindkult released an excellent two-track single consisting of Misfits covers, but all of this proved to be prelude to the main show — a debut album named Lucifer’s Dream, which Transcending Obscurity Records will release on September 20. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SLAUGHTBBATH — “CONTEMPT, WAR AND DAMNATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

In 2013 the Chilean black/death desecrators Slaughtbbath released their debut album, Hail To Fire, after a lengthy series of shorter releases dating back to 2003 — and the album was itself widely hailed as an unrelenting assault of incinerating extremity. Since then the band have gone on to join forces in four splits — with Grave Desecrator, Ill Omen, Kill, and Hades Archer, as well as releasing a 2015 compilation entitled Further Down To the Depths that itself included a new track.

Now, in anticipation of Slaughtbbath’s first North American tour beginning this month, Hells Headbangers is today releasing a special compilation CD fittingly entitled Contempt, War and Damnation, with artwork by Daniel Corcuera. It includes seven tracks consisting of each of the Slaughtbbath songs on those post-Hail To Fire splits, the track recorded for the 2015 compilation… and one brand new song recorded this past May — “Astral Rape”. And it’s now our pleasure to bring you a stream of the new album in its entirety here on release day. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROVOROUS — “CHERISH THE SEPULTURE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

The monstrous Greek purveyors of death and destruction in Necrovorous have gouged their way back to the surface from some undoubtedly festering pit of depravity where they’ve been conjuring the sounds of a new album. Fittingly entitled Plains of Decay, this new full-length will be discharged on September 29th by their allies in depravity, Dark Descent Records. We’ve previously expressed shivering enthusiasm about a track from the album that was included in Dark Descent’s stupendous summer sampler, and now it’s our privilege to bring you the premiere of another track named “Cherish the Sepulture“.

Four years on from their last release, a split with Anatomia, the band’s resurrection from the crypt couldn’t come at a better time (because the waiting has become painful). And while it’s not always true that all good things come to those who wait, that has certainly proved to be true in this instance. Continue reading »

THE LURKING FEAR: “OUT OF THE VOICELESS GRAVE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli prepared this review of the debut album by Sweden’s The Lurking Fear, released on August 11 by Century Media.)

Let’s revisit what Swedish death metal royalty group The Lurking Fear had to say when they announced their formation:

“We want our Death Metal ugly, twisted and possessed. We miss the urgency, intensity and ‘realness’ in a lot of the modern Death Metal, therefore it is natural for us to stray away from the streamlined sounds of today, but rather focus on bringing sheer, natural weirdness and horror back to the table…””

This band has a ton of prestige-level pedigree behind it. Besides being fronted by Tomas Lindberg, the king of the mid-range vomitus bark, the members have history in bands such as The Crown, Edge Of Sanity, Marduk, Cradle Of Filth, God Macabre — the list is fucking long. I also appreciate very much TLF’s mission statement because I agree that death metal nowadays is very much lacking the urgency, intensity, and realness it speaks of. I’ve reviewed, and others here have reviewed, plenty of exceptions to this rule of course — our site thrives on the deathly arts — but trust me that what we give praise to here is a baffling minority. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UBIQUITY — “LOST PT. I”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

Pain and the torment of lost hopes have always fueled heavy music, a feedstock that has found expression in a multitude of ways, sometimes alloyed with rage, sometimes tinged with glimmers of resilience, sometimes simply plumbing the depths of pure desolation. It’s not surprising; those emotions are ever-present in the human condition, and maybe that’s why music that channels such feelings with special intensity exerts such a strong attraction, particularly in metal, where happiness and optimism have rarely been the order of the day.

The Italian band Ubiquity have summoned these sensations with impressive conviction and enthralling power in the song we’re premiering today off their new album Forever/Denied, which is set for release by Third I Rex on October 29th. The song is “Lost Pt. I“. Continue reading »

SEPTICFLESH: “CODEX OMEGA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

 

(DGR wrote this extended review of the new album by the Greek band SepticFlesh, which was released on September 1 in North America by Prosthetic Records.)

It’s hard to believe that three years have already passed since yours truly was given the opportunity to review Greece’s symphonic death metal arbiters SepticFlesh and their album Titan. Since then, I’ve dedicated a fair share of words to the band, as their brand of orchestra mixed in with crushingly heavy death metal scratches just the right itch, but I always wind up musing about the same subject, which is how the band’s chosen genres combine in order to form the band as it is today.

It’s interesting to me because, pulled apart, the orchestral music genre and metal genre are two gigantic beasts in their own right, so the thought of combining them makes sense. It’s been done for years, of course, but the gentlemen in SepticFlesh have developed a unique mastery of it. Even in the hands of masters it can occasionally get a little unwieldy — because although the two combine well, in the world of SepticFlesh they are also treading a very thin line, and depending on what side of that line they land on is the version of SepticFlesh you’ll be getting at that point in time. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ANCIENT RITES (GUNTHER THEYS)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 082017
 

 

(Greek writer Aggelos Redneck of Rockoverdose.gr brings us this interview of Gunther Theys, founder and still vocalist of the long-running Belgian black metal band Ancient Rites, whose latest album Laguz was released after a long hiatus in 2015. The interview was conducted in anticipation of Ancient Rites’ performance at the Arcane Angels Festival, which will take place in Athens on September 16-17, 2017, alongside such bands as Primordial, Taake, and Zemial.)

 

First of all, we’d like to know your thoughts on the latest album of the band Laguz”. It’s been two and a half years already since its release. How did the fans react to it? Are you fully satisfied with its sound? 

I think Laguz is our most complex album so far from a technical point of view, consisting of many layers. It’s an album that has to grow on the listener, as one keeps on discovering details. On the other hand, all musical elements have intensified, it is an intense album. The fans responded positively, but of course people have their preferences, which is normal when a band exists for as long as we do and each album sounds different.

What I find important is that the essence of our work, the A.R. universe, remains intact. Like a travel through old, forgotten worlds. I still believe in every album we ever did for they all represent important eras in our band’s history. Our musical progress is a natural, organic one, but I wouldn’t mind releasing a very raw, primitive album either. We never plan our sound, we are not influenced by any current trends or external situations. We simply create what we feel, regardless of any commercial feedback. Continue reading »

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