AN NCS PREMIERE: HORDE CASKET — “UPRISING”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 052017
 

 

Now more than a decade into their career, Oklahoma City’s Horde Casket are back with their fourth album, Xenopocalypse, which will be released later this year by Sevared Records. What we’ve got for you today is a piece of all-out obliteration from the album called “Uprising“.

There have been changes in the line-up of Horde Casket since their last album, 2015’s Bloodfiends. This time, founding guitarist (and former vocalist) Steve Giddens is joined by Shane Fallon (drums), Micah Smith (vocals), and Justin Perry (bass). They make a fine pack of monsters. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LAVA INVOCATOR — “BLACK DAWN”

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Mar 052017
 

 

Mörk is the debut album of the Ukrainian black metal duo Lava Invocator. It will be co-released on March 27 by the Russian labels Satanath Records and More Hate Productions. Two songs from the album have premiered previously, and today we bring you a third — a track called “Black Dawn“.

“Mörk” is the Swedish word for “dark” and shares its origins with the English word “murk”. We’re told that Lava Invocator was conceived in the old Swedish town of Lund near Malmö, under the shadow of dark storm clouds passing above the Øresund strait. And “Black Dawn” is itself cloaked in gloom. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DOEDSVANGR, JOHN FRUM, FANGE, CULT OF EIBON, INFERNAL MAJESTY, SUFFERING HOUR, TELEPATHY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 042017
 

 

It’s been one of those weeks. As usual, I accumulated a big list of new songs and videos I wanted to recommend, but just didn’t have time to post any round-ups. And now I don’t have time to play catch-up either. I’ve made some fairly random choices from my list to include in this post, and will have some others in tomorrow’s weekly SHADES OF BLACK installment (we have a couple of Sunday premieres lined up as well).

I say “fairly random”, because in making these choices I did try to provide a variety of metallic sounds, and I also decided (with one exception) not to write about new songs that I think have already gotten plenty of attention elsewhere around the web this past week. And so, for example, other than the following links, I won’t be writing about the new songs and videos by Solstafir, Wolfheart, Svart Crown, Havok, Valborg, Vanum, or Windswept (among others) — though they’re all worth checking out if you haven’t done that.

DOEDSVANGR

Doedsvangr is yet another group formed and fronted by Norwegian artist Doedsadmiral. His other groups include Nordjevel, Svartelder, and Enepsigos. For Doedsvangr, he is joined by Finnish guitarist Shatraug (Horna, Sargeist, ex-Behexen, Nightbringer) and drummer Anti-Christian (Tsjuder, Beaten To Death). Their debut album Satan Ov Suns will be released by the Belgian label Immortal Frost Productions on March 27. Continue reading »

THE OMINOUS CIRCLE: “APPALLING ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Mar 032017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Portugal’s The Ominous Circle.)

Let’s be clear about one thing straight away. As band names go, “The Ominous Circle” is… not great.

Oh, it could undoubtedly be worse, and I’m sure that, when growled with sufficient gravitas from the stage, it probably sounds nice and evil, but when you consider that other, equally valid names might be “The Terrible Triangle” or “The Sinister Parallelogram”, well…

But, as the saying goes, a rose by any other name would still be as horrifically heavy, and I’ll be damned if these guys don’t deliver the goods on Appalling Ascension. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PAIN TANK — “DRIVING BACK THE OCCUPIER”

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Mar 032017
 

 

If you’re not disgusted and furious about the world we’re living in, then you’ve done a much better job than I have in numbing, distracting, or blinding yourself to what’s all around us. Living in a perpetual state of fury and disgust isn’t the best recipe for mental health, of course, but trying to suppress it or completely salve it over with a delusional balm isn’t healthy either. It needs to be expressed, and indulging those feelings through music is at least better than some other ways I can think of.

Which brings me to Pain Tank. And man, there’s a name that’s tailor-made for the music they’ve created on their debut album, 97,901,726 Confirmed Kills, which will be released on March 17th through their own independent label Edgewood Arsenal Records. They express pain — and make you feel the pain — with the assaulting force of a tank attack. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NORDLAND — “A BURNING OF IDOLS”

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Mar 032017
 

 

I would guess that most of us have favorite metal labels whose releases we check out, and maybe even buy, automatically. We’ve figured out over time that certain labels tend to sign quality bands whose music lines up well with our own tastes. Especially over the last year, and for precisely that reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of reflexively checking out new releases by Russia’s Satanath Records and its Belarusian affiliate, Symbol of Domination (e-mail alerts from Bandcamp make that easy). And so when I got a Bandcamp alert about two weeks ago concerning a new Satanath release by the UK’s Nordland, I visited the page without delay — and it wasn’t long before I included the song I found there in an NCS feature on new music.

That song, “Rites of Dawn”, is one of three on a Nordland album named European Paganism, which Satanath will be co-releasing with More Hate Productions on March 25. I’m happy to tell you that we’ve now been given the opportunity to premiere a second song from the album, “A Burning of Idols“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: APOTHESARY — “ELIZABETH”

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Mar 022017
 

 

When we last devoted attention to San Francisco’s Apothesary in these pages it was Christmas Day 2015, and the occasion was our premiere of a single by the band named “1976”, which later appeared on the band’s killer 2016 EP, Sensory Overload. And now we have the pleasure of premiering a video for another song from that EP — “Elizabeth“.

The song itself is a barn-burner, a rushing, pulsating death/thrash blast that gets the blood pumping, with ferocious vocals, battering grooves, fret-burning guitar work, a blistering solo, and a melody that rings in the head well after the song ends. And the video is an unpredictable head-spinner, too. Continue reading »

VIOLET COLD: “ANOMIE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 022017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the wonderful new album by Violet Cold.)

The phenomenon of the “one-man Black Metal band” is certainly an interesting one.

On the one hand it really does mean that the band’s music will always be the product of a singular creative voice, and often results in said band maintaining a highly prolific writing/recording schedule, as there’s no need to arrange multiple schedules or to balance the writing process among a number of competing ideas.

But just because you CAN string together some hissy riffs, programmed blastbeats, and low-fi vocals about hating the world into a semblance of a song, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD, and just because you *love* Black Metal it doesn’t mean that you have anything original or interesting to offer the genre.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some truly phenomenal examples out there of solitary artists who possess the necessary vision and distinctive voice to stand out from the pack – such as Leviathan, Infestus, and The Clearing Path, to name but a few – but, by and large, the relative ease with which anyone can put together their own “one-man Black Metal band” has led to a glut of mediocre albums and EPs which do little more than recycle the same old sounds and the same old stories.

And then… there’s Violet Cold. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CURSE OF DENIAL — “PAWNS IN CHESS”

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Mar 022017
 

 

In mid-January we brought you the premiere of a video for “Tower of Silence”, one of the tracks on The 13th Sign, which is the debut album by Cleveland’s Curse of Denial. Now we bring you another video for another powerful track from the record — “Pawns in Chess“.

The 13th Sign was released on February 3 by Redefining Darkness Records, and the video for “Pawns in Chess” is a reminder of what a viscerally powerful album it is. And like the video for “Tower of Silence”, this new one is a fitting visual match for the music — which pulls no punches. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ANOMALIE — “VISION I: TOWARDS THE SUN”

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Mar 022017
 

 

Visions is the third album by Anomalie, set for release on March 17th by Art of Propaganda, and it is the most distinctive, the most ambitious, and the most engrossing and enthralling Anomalie album yet. It’s our pleasure today to bring you the premiere of a video for the album’s opening track, “Vision I: Towards the Sun“.

Something about a wood-burning fire under a night sky is spellbinding, perhaps because it invokes ancient memories from our most distant and primitive ancestral past. The sight of flames draws us in, and sends our minds wandering. Time passes, without our even realizing it. The experience can be mystical. It’s thus entirely fitting that the video you’re about to see puts the song in such a setting — because the song itself draws the listener in, fires the imagination, and becomes a mystical experience. The time passes without realizing it. Continue reading »

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