AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRIMSON MOON — “ONEIRONAUT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  12 Responses »
Dec 062016
 

crimson-moon-oneironaut

 

Oneironaut is the new album by Crimson Moon, this project’s first full-length in more than a decade and only the third since its inception in 1994. The album is an imposing, hour-long work, with five of its six tracks exceeding 8 minutes in length, including the closing title track, which nears the 20-minute mark. But it’s also one of the most captivating, most multifaceted, and most compelling black metal albums you’ll encounter this year, even as it comes when 2016 is about to gasp its last breaths.

Oneironaut is being released today by W.T.C. Productions, and to help spread the word of its advent, we have a full album stream for you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CRANIAL ENGORGEMENT — “HORRIFIC EXISTENCE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Dec 062016
 

cranial-engorgement-horrific-existence

 

The song you’re about to hear bears numerous hallmarks of skull-cleaving brutality even before you hear a single note. The song’s name is “Horrific Existence“. The album’s name is Horrific Existence. The band call themselves Cranial Engorgement. And feast your eyes on that album art up there by the renowned Pär Olofsson. The message comes through loud and clear, doesn’t it?

But all of those hallmarks still may not prepare you for the traumatic effect of the music itself, which we’re bringing your way through an official music video, or for the album as a whole, which is this California band’s debut full-length, scheduled for release on February 10 by Gore House Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OMNIZIDE — “DEATHWOMB”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 062016
 

omnizide-nekroregime

 

NekroRegime is the second album by the Swedish black/death band Omnizide, and it will be released on December 16 by Carnal Records in Europe and Daemon Worship Productions in the U.S. The album’s title track has already surfaced, and now we bring you another one, a massively infectious dark beast named “Deathwomb“.

Omnizide was originally created under the name Belzen by AE and Nox in 1995. A few years later, it split up before releasing any recordings, with AE moving on in the band Avsky and Nox becoming the frontman for Craft. Years later the two joined forces again under the banner of Omnizide, and with additional allies in the line-up they released a debut album named Death Metal Holocaust in 2014. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLACK HOLE GENERATOR — “MOLOCH”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 062016
 

black-hole-generator-video

 

Ten years after Black Hole Generator released the debut EP Black Karma, they have returned with a debut album. Bearing the title A Requiem For Terra, it has now been released by Dark Essence Records, and today we are delighted to share with you the premiere of a fascinating video for the album’s third track, “Moloch“.

The song has a cold, midnight-dark, hallucinatory quality as well as an occult atmosphere of building tension and threatening peril that spills over into fusillades of violence. The video created by Romanian artist and musician Costin Chioreanu (a name that will be well known to our readers) makes a perfect match for this gripping but unnerving song, and is also an unsettling but thoroughly engrossing panorama of bleak visions all by itself. Continue reading »

SEEN AND NOT COMPLETELY HEARD: WOLFHEART, URSINNE, GLOSON, PALE DIVINE, BLACK THERAPY, THRON, HORROR GOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 052016
 

wolfheart-boneyard

 

Happy Monday. Through the miracles of modern technology, I’m writing this at roughly 38,000 feet above the earth, somewhere across the deserts of northern Utah, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and the barren panhandle of Texas. Under duress from my fucking day job, I’m bound for Houston for the next couple of days.

Actually, it’s not exactly a miracle, not something like turning water into wine, more like turning water into weak tea — because although I can get online, the service isn’t good enough to stream music or videos. So some of the items I’m including in this round-up are things I can see but can’t hear.

WOLFHEART

I’m beginning with an item that I could have heard over the weekend if I had known it was out there. Unfortunately, I discovered it only today after boarding this jet I’m on. It’s a video for a new song by Finland’s Wolfheart named “Boneyard“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: A DREAM OF POE — “A WALTZ FOR APOPHENIA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 052016
 

A DREAM OF POE - A Waltz For Apophenia

 

With the new album A Waltz for Apophenia, A Dream of Poe concludes a conceptual trilogy that began with The Mirror of Deliverance (2011) and continued with An Infinity Emerged (2015). The new album is being released today by Solitude Productions, and to help spread the word we bring you the premiere of all 8 new songs.

On the new album, composer and instrumentalist Miguel Santos (a native of The Azores islands but now living in Edinburgh, Scotland) is again joined by lyricist Paulo Pacheco and clean vocalist Kaivan Saraei, with both Santos and João Melo voicing the harsh growls. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: UNCANNY, GOHRGONE, BONE STORM, UNDEAD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Dec 042016
 

uncanny-liturgy

 

For those of you who were expecting a “THAT’S METAL!” post today (because I did say I would put one together on the first Sunday of each month), I have to disappoint you. I didn’t have time to compile a Shades of Black post either. I shouldn’t even be writing this post. My fucking day job, which usually leaves me alone on the weekends, has come close to taking over this one.

Although I should be working this very minute, I couldn’t resist the urge to quickly share some death metal with you before I go back to the project that has rudely descended on me like an anvil.

UNCANNY

The first item is a three-track EP named Liturgy released on November 18 by Sweden’s Uncanny. Since the band’s last EP four years ago, there have been some line-up departures. For this new one, original members Fredrik Norrman (Katatonia, October Tide) and Kennet Englund (Dellamorte, Interment, Centinex) are joined by new vocalist Mikael Hanni (Disrupted). The EP also includes guest solos on two tracks by Jonas Kjellgren (ex-Carnal Forge, Scar Symmetry, Centinex). Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (MORDICUS)

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  2 Responses »
Dec 042016
 

Rearview Mirror

 

I’ve already forgotten how I came across Mordicus. It was only a month or so ago, but my memory is porous and things leak out. But I didn’t forget the music. The first song I heard (“A Thorn In Holy Flesh”) wasn’t what I was expecting. It struck me as something very different from much of the death metal from that era that I’ve discovered over the last decade. As I listened to the rest of the album which includes that song, the initial impression was reinforced. And the album is really good.

Mordicus came together in Joensuu, Finland, in 1990. The members were in other bands at the time and were interested in death metal, which was still a new thing. In 1991 they recorded a couple of demos, and then the following year a U.S. label named Skindrill Records released a 7″ Morticus EP named Three Way Dissection. In 1993, after sending promos to different labels, they reached a deal with Thrash Records and recorded their debut album, Dances From Left, which also turned out to be their last album. It was released in 1993. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF THE BEST 50 ALBUMS OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  17 Responses »
Dec 032016
 

stereogum-50-best-albums-2016

 

As you probably know, part of our year-end LISTMANIA series involves re-posting year-end lists of the best metal releases as selected by what I call “big platform” web sites and print zines, i.e., publications that reach numbers of readers vastly in excess of those reached by sites like ours that are more exclusively focused on metal, and in our case the more extreme variants of the genre.

In recent days Stereogum posted its list of “The Best 50 Albums of 2016“. This isn’t a “metal only” list. It’s an impossible comparison of apples to oranges, identifying and ranking albums across a wide range of musical genres. I suppose in that respect it’s like the musical equivalent of the Westminster Dog Show. Continue reading »

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