AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MARCHE FUNÈBRE — “LULLABY OF INSANITY”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  3 Responses »
Jan 272017
 

 

(Today we present the premiere of a video and song from the Belgian band Marche Funebre, and Grant Skelton provides the following introduction.)

Belgian death/doom band Marche Funèbre (a name presumably derived from the Chopin composition of the same name) will release their new album Into The Arms Of Darkness on February 20, 2017 via Moscow Funeral League. Into The Arms Of Darkness was produced by Markus ‘Schwadorf’ Stock. The creepy, nightmarish cover art was created by Brooke Shaden Photography.

No Clean Singing is proud to present an exclusive premiere of a video for the album’s first advance track, entitled “Lullaby Of Insanity.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OMINOUS ECLIPSE — “THE HORDE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 272017
 

 

The Ottawa death metal band Ominous Eclipse are working toward the release their second album Sinister later this year, but today they’re releasing a single aptly named “The Horde“, and it’s our poisonous pleasure to bring you a stream of the song.

As the evolution of Ominous Eclipse has progressed, the band have hybridized a seething core of death metal sound with elements of thrash, black metal, and melodic death metal. But if “The Horde” is a sign of what’s to come next, they’re reaching for new levels of monstrous and electrifying destructiveness. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 81: NIDINGR

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
Jan 272017
 

 

(In this month’s edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of Nidingr, including their new album slated for release on February 10.)

Recommended for fans of: Mayhem, Pantheon I, Dødheimsgard

 

Somehow, despite all the love we’ve shown for this band, despite all the drunken ramblings we’ve had about their awesomeness, and despite stating numerous times that Greatest of Deceivers is one of the best Black Metal albums of the last ten to fifteen years (at least), it appears that the amount of actual coverage we’ve given to Nidingr has been woefully lacking.

Thankfully, the impending release of the group’s fourth album, The High Heat Licks Against Heaven, is all the justification I need to wax lyrical about the band, making them the perfect choice for this edition of The Synn Report.

Masterminded by wandering guitarist Teloch (who cut his teeth playing with some of the Black Metal scene’s biggest names, including both Gorgoroth and 1349, and who has since gone on to serve as chief guitarist/songwriter for both NCS favourites The Konsortium and the legendary Mayhem), Nidingr originally came into being around 1996, but didn’t release their debut until 2005.

Since then they’ve cycled through numerous members (including both Tjalve and Seidemann of Pantheon I, percussive mercenary Tony Laureano, and the infamous Hellhammer himself), with Teloch and glass-chewing vocalist Cpt. Estrella Grasa serving as the band’s key linchpins, while releasing two, soon to be three, further albums of hyper-aggressive, sadistically melodic, Death- and Thrash- tinged Black Metal. Continue reading »

LATE DECEMBER AND EARLY JANUARY GEMS (PART 5): SIMULACRE AND BALANCE INTERRUPTION

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 272017
 

 

(This is Part 4 of a 5-part series by Austin Weber about noteworthy January releases and a few from the end of last year.)

 

Simulacre – La Jaiba

Simulacre is a brand spanking new offshoot of the legendary (in underground circles) French “technical/progressive black metal” band Asmodée. While it’s a pain in the ass, I’m quite thankful as usual that Facebook allows you to “follow” a band’s every post, since I would have never heard about the birth of Simulacre otherwise. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AU CHAMP DES MORTS — “DANS LA JOIE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 272017
 

 

Today is the day when Debemur Morti Productions releases Dans La Joie, the debut album by the French band Au Champ Des Morts, and we’re helping people to discover it.

That’s a worthy mission, because the album is an emotionally intense experience of rare quality. Over the course of helping to premiere two tracks from the album, I’ve already spilled a lot of words about it. So in a rare attempt at brevity, I’m going to introduce the album stream in a summing up that focuses more on the music’s emotional resonance, as I feel it, than on any kind of intricate dissection of its many facets and ingredients. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (IN THE FORM OF A VERY METAL MUSICAL SANDWICH): MANETHEREN, MISERIST, CRESCENT, QUASARBORN, MAHAKALA, LETHE, VERMIN LORD, WRATH FROM ABOVE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

As I made my way through the enormous list of new songs and videos that I’ve been compiling since last weekend, a certain shape began to suggest itself to me — the shape of a tasty metal sandwich. And with that shape in mind (and a gnawing hunger in my guts), I selected and organized the following 8 songs.

For this playlist of mostly brand new things we begin harsh and heavy, then segue into a block of Exceptions To Our Rule (the one about singing), and then move into the other side of the sandwich where total war on the senses lies in wait again. You’ll also find some very eye-catching videos in here, along with a broad assortment of music that struck my fancy — with only truncated commentary from yours truly.

MANETHEREN

According to a press release, “The End is a concept album about a human being travelling across the lands as the world begins to end…. Each song represents different events during the ending process, and as they unfold the being feels as himself is becoming god, or death itself. By the end of the album this being by all means becomes god and rules over the wasteland left behind.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEHEADED — “BEAST INCARNATE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

This is Malta, and its sister island Gozo. As you can see, they sit sort of dead center in the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its strategically important location, Malta has an incredibly rich and eventful recorded history stretching back for millennia, bearing the influences of a multitude of cultures. From photographs scattered around the web, Malta also appears to be an extravagantly beautiful place.

And it’s also home to a lethally explosive death metal band who have managed to survive and flourish for more than a quarter-century, just as their homeland has survived centuries of occupation and conquest. I’m talking, of course, about Beheaded.

Beast Incarnate is the band’s fifth album, set for release tomorrow (January 27) by Unique Leader Records, and we are very happy to host the premiere of a full album stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNDRASK — “BATTLE THROUGH TIME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through our house, all the creatures were stirring, even the mouse — because on that day we posted “Conscripted”, a song by Undrask. Further stirring of a frenzied kind will be happening today, because we now have for you a full stream of this North Carolina band’s debut album Battle Through Time, this time on the eve of its January 27 release.

The album chronicles the story of “a man lost to eternity — forced to fight and die repeatedly throughout time and alternate realities.” That sounds like my typical work week at NCS. However, the actual (glorious) sound of the music is more consistent with a saga unfolding on a grander scale. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A TRIO OF TRACKS FROM THE DISTURBING WORLD OF SLAGMAUR

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

The gestation of Thill Smitts Terror continues, but now we have a birth date: On March 30, 2017, Osmose Productions will release this new album conceived by the twisted imaginations within Slagmaur. We have for you today streams of three songs to disturb your peace of mind.

Thill Smitts Terror is the third album by these masked Norwegians, separated from its next-oldest sibling Von Rov Shelter by roughly six and a half years. Almost three years have now passed since I first began writing about the album. My intrigue began in the summer of 2014, when I came across pre-production versions of two songs, “The Drummer of Tedworth” and “Werewolf”, and promptly wrote about them. Two years after that, versions of two more songs appeared — “Kom Igjen Norge” and “Bestemor Sang Djevelord” — and I wrote about them, too.

Those tracks have disappeared from the place where they were once available for streaming, and what we have now are the finished album versions of three of those four tracks — “Drummer of Tedworth“, “Werewolf“, and “Bestemor Sang Djevelord“. Continue reading »

LATE DECEMBER AND EARLY JANUARY GEMS (PART 4): PLASMODIUM AND CZAR

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

(This is Part 4 of a now-five-part series by Austin Weber about noteworthy January releases and a few from the end of last year.)

Plasmodium – Entheognosis

There’s something about truly dark and disturbing metal that connects with me in a deep way, as it also does for an assortment of other odd individuals too. Trying to understand the reason for that is the more difficult part, but overall, I think it has something to do with finding some odd sense of peace in hearing sounds that reflect the bleakness and harshness of the world all around us.

Forming a cathartic energy which we can lose ourselves in, that’s exactly what the otherworldly music from Melbourne, Australia-based Plasmodium has to offer. Continue reading »

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