AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): I AM — “LIFE THROUGH TORMENT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 022017
 

 

“No games, no bullshit, just straight in your face heavy metal. We wanted this to show who we are and what’s next. A direct reflection on each of our personal lives and what we see. This is Life Through Torment. We hope you enjoy.”

That is the invitation presented to you on a blood-encrusted platter by the hard-knuckled hands of I AM from north Texas, offering their new album to your ears. We have a full stream of the album down below, in advance of its release on February 10, preceded by these mangled thoughts about the music. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP ON 2016: RIFTWALKER / GOD SYNDROME / WASTEWALKER

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 022017
 

 

(Andy Synn catches up with three releases from 2016, by Riftwalker, God Syndrome, and Wastewalker.)

You may have noticed, if you’ve been paying sufficient attention that is, that I’ve spent the last month digging my way through a veritable heap of releases from last year – Phantom Winter, Zao, Wolves Carry My Name, Partholón, Deviant Process, The Drowned God – that were otherwise overlooked here at NCS.

And, even though I’ve finally been able to start covering new stuff in the last week or so, there’s still a bunch of albums from last year that I have yet to write about.

So to speed up the process a little bit, I’ve decided to amalgamate a few different entries together. And hopefully, by the end of the week (or, at the latest, by the start of next week) I’ll be pretty much done with 2016, and able to shift my focus fully to 2017. Continue reading »

INTO ORBIT: “UNEARTHING”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 022017
 

 

(New Zealand-based writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises) returns to NCS with this review of the new album by New Zealand’s Into Orbit, which will be released on February 3 — and we have a just-released full stream of the album as well.)

Countless bands try to grab our attention with an enticing vocal hook. Hell, even in the world of extreme metal, where vocals are frequently an indecipherable blur, words and lyrics still play a crucial role in imparting meaning. At the other end of the spectrum though, instrumental bands seek to convey meaning without any lyrical or vocal cues, and that’s obviously a tougher task. When it all goes well, audiences can decipher meaning from moving songs, and that forges a connection between fans and bands. But when it all goes wrong, because a band is technically proficient but emotionally sterile, instrumental music is simply tedious background noise. Elevator music, at best.

It’s rare to find an instrumental band that manages to transmit its message evocatively. But the music of New Zealand instrumental duo Into Orbit has received rousing applause at home for doing just that. In some ways, Into Orbit are building on a legacy established by New Zealand bands such as Jakob or Kerretta –– both guitar-led instrumental groups with fan bases in Europe and the US. Jakob and Kerretta have gained international recognition because they make truly gripping music, and there’s no question that Into Orbit’s superb new album, Unearthing, is filled with captivating music too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRIEGSZITTERN AND MINENFELD — A SPLIT

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 012017
 

 

In August 2015, I came across the debut demo of a German band named Kriegszittern that proved to be a huge — and terrifyingly good — surprise. As I expressed in a review: “This is ghastly, primeval death metal mixed with punk rhythms that generates a corrosive aura of indefinable horror while at the same time making you want to helplessly bang your head. It’s raw, raucous, and ravenous — and highly recommended.” Now, the same Caligari Records that released that demo on tape is bringing out the band’s new release — and this time it’s an LP-length split that includes not only new material by Kriegszittern but also the debut recordings of another very impressive German death metal band, Minenfeld.

What we have for you is a stream of the new tape in advance of its release this Friday, February 3. The song stream plays just like the tape would play (at least in its formatting), with all the Kriegszittern songs streaming as a single track (Side A) and all the Minenfeld songs streaming as a second track (Side B). Here are a few introductory thoughts about what you’re about to hear, to prepare you for the onslaught if nothing else. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAMSKARAS — “FUELSCAPE” (AND AN INTERVIEW)

 Interviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 012017
 

 

(Austin Weber brings us this premiere of a new music video from Samskaras, along with an interview.)

Last we covered Montreal-based progressive death metal duo Samskaras, the band had just completed a new single, “Red Hill”, and we premiered the lyric video for it alongside an interview with the band’s vocalist, guitarist, and bassist, Eric Burnet (Unburnt, Derelict) in 2014. Just recently, the band dropped Asunder, a fantastic four-song EP, which shows the band experimenting with a lot of new ideas including the integration of tasteful clean singing in some of the songs.

In the spirit of keeping up with artists we’ve covered before, we’re happy to premiere a new music video today for “Fuelscape”. Eric asked if we’d be interested in pairing it with an interview like last time, and this one features some additional answers from their drummer Alexandre Dupras (Teramobil, Unhuman) too. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  3 Responses »
Feb 012017
 

 

Yesterday I ended the roll-out of our annual list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. As I’ve explained, it was more of an arbitrary halt than an orderly conclusion. When I began the rollout back on January 2 I had a big group of songs I knew would be on this list, but I hadn’t finished the selection. I started the rollout, and then continued to make up the list as I went along. I’m still not finished, but decided that we shouldn’t be continuing with a 2016 year-end list past the end of January in the new year.

Although many more songs could easily still be added, I do think the list, as it is, provides a decent snapshot of both the quality and the diversity of metal in 2016. And I think that’s true even though we only focused on the most “infectious” songs (some of the best songs and albums released in 2016 weren’t really “infectious”, but were stunning listening experiences nonetheless).

Of course, the list is a reflection of my own tastes, though I did try to cover a broad spectrum of genres and sub-genres. As we always do around here, I also made sure that lesser-known underground bands were represented along with the higher-profile groups. But of course I didn’t listen to every album released last year, or even to all of the roughly 800 songs that were recommended by our readers (though I listened to the majority of them). Continue reading »

IMMOLATION: “ATONEMENT”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 012017
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Immolation.)

Immolation are the godfathers of the minimalist dissonant heavy brand of death metal. I think in many ways they are the pre-cursors to the Portals, Ulcerates, and latter-day Gorguts of the world. However, those bands have all taken on a more technical, more ornamental approach, while Immolation has remained the absolute king of effective minimalism.

In the last five or so years, death metal in the underground has reveled in attempts to mimic the cavernous mixes and alien sense of melody of Immolation, but from where I sit, few have come close to getting it. In a nutshell, Immolation are one of those untouchable bands. All the major death metal players of the ’90s are, but very few bands have taken influence from Immolation and made it work convincingly. The original remains original. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 21): WOMAN IS THE EARTH, DEATH FORTRESS, UPRISING, SKELETONWITCH, BEYOND GRACE, WINTERFYLLETH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  2 Responses »
Jan 312017
 

 

Welcome to the 21st — and final — installment in our list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Is the list complete? No, it isn’t. I could easily continue doing this for another month or more, and it pains me to leave so many other infectious songs lingering on my giant list of candidates. But it’s time to shift our focus more intently to what’s coming out this year.

After agonizing over the last 24 hours about what songs to select for this final edition in the series, I cut that Gordian knot in a fairly impulsive way — by simply picking the six songs on a playlist I made for myself in December.

I made that six-track list in December mainly, but not exclusively, because I had just been reading through the year-end list from Panopticon’s Austin Lunn that we were going to publish and was reminded of some addictive tracks I hadn’t listened to in a while. I put those on the playlist along with a couple of others that I wanted to hear again and thought might work well in the flow of the music.

As it happens, before today I hadn’t yet included any of these songs on this Most Infectious list, and so today I decided, why the hell not make all of these into the final Part of this series? They really are all damned infectious, and I do damn well like them. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MO’YNOQ — “FELL HEIR”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jan 312017
 

 

It’s not often that we reach out to a band and ask for permission to premiere a song, but that’s how this premiere came about. I had the opportunity to listen to the new EP, Bardo, by Mo’ynoq from Raleigh, North Carolina, which is scheduled for release on February 7, and I was tremendously impressed. I was anxious to write a review of Bardo, but we always like to include streams of music with our reviews to give visitors a more immediate sense of the sounds than mere words can convey — and in this case, neither of the tracks from Bardo had become publicly available for listening. So I contacted the band, and here we are.

Bardo includes two songs — “Fell Heir” (which you’re about to hear) and “Celestial Rebirth” — and it’s the band’s second release after their debut EP Anguish and Atonement last June. The new EP’s themes are centered on ideas of intermediate states, as a transition between forms, and the dynamism of the music vibrantly captures an urgent sense of change, though not necessarily for the better. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BARBARIAN SWORDS — “PURE DEMONOLOGY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 312017
 

 

The album Worms by the Spanish band Barbarian Swords was a late-year discovery for us made possible by a request from Satanath Records and Cimmerian Shade Recordings that we host a premiere of the album stream. Not knowing what awaited me, I explored the music before giving an answer — and was blown away. In an attempt to describe the music in the review that accompanied the premiere, I wrote:

“In its predominant forms, Barbarian Swords traffic in a twisted but very compelling hybrid of doom and black metal — nihilistic and barbaric, moldering and mesmerizing, and frequently unnerving. And there are massive headbang triggers lurking like landmines in the album, too.”

I put one track from the album, “Outcast Warlords”, on our list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and today we’re happy to premiere the lyric video for another potent (and addictive) track from the album — “Pure Demonology“. Continue reading »

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