DEITY: “DEITY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 202017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli wrote this review of the self-titled debut album by the Canadian death metal band Deity, which was released earlier this month.)

 

I have a very hard time getting into a lot of the technical and progressive death metal that’s being released these days because so much of it misses the fucking point. It’s all plastic mixes, weak noodly riffs, with death metal as the least prevalent of ingredients. It just… isn’t death metal, man. Whether bands are fellating their fretboard with an overly digitized guitar tone and simply running through rote, stock melodic progressions or playing what amounts to really bad progressive rock with weak black metal vocals and no power, it’s no wonder I’ve tended to gravitate toward either old school death metal, or death metal that’s just straightforward and no bullshit.

Sometimes, though, I run across bands like Deity and my hope is restored. I remember the beauty, the majesty, and the putrid overwhelming crushing power that can be channeled once the musicianship and spirit are on par with each other. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 24): SKÁPHE, NETHERBIRD, IMINDAIN, MOONLIGHT PROPHECY,

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 192017
 

 

(Our friend Gorger from Norway brings us this 24th installment in his ongoing series reviewing releases we’ve overlooked. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

Four reviews in a row means quite a lot of text to ingest. I’ve been pondering on a way to decrease the amount without compromising too much on the content. I’ve come up blank save for one solution. A means that involves resorting to self-promotion. I was hoping to avoid this attention-seeking hey-look-at-me-everyone approach, but what the hell, I’ll give narcissism a shot.

Feel free to comment on this, the music or how your wife left you due to you wasting three years on a useless Ph.D. on perpendicular circular movements in vacuum. Or simply enjoy some tunes without blabbermouthing about it, if that suits you. Continue reading »

WODE: “SERVANTS OF THE COUNTERCOSMOS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jun 192017
 

 

(Andy Synn prepared this review of the new album by Wode.)

 

The absolutely stunning self-titled album by British Black Metal initiates Wode was, without doubt, one of the finest albums released in 2016.

In fact, I felt so strongly about this assertion that I even went as far as to select it as part of my Critical Top Ten albums, stating that it captured “the true spirit of classic Black Metal with unflinching, unapologetic ferocity, without ever resorting to simply aping the classics” – a statement, and a decision, which I continue to stand by today.

Clearly aiming to capitalise on the momentum generated by their debut, the Mancunian quartet (now incorporating the additional guitar and synth work of one Karl Sveinsson) wasted no time in writing and recording their second album, Servants of the Countercosmos, which finally dropped at the end of last month, and which is available right now from the group’s Bandcamp site.

The big question, however, is this – is the band’s latest slab of blackened beef as devilishly delicious as their debut, or has the short turn-around time between albums left things feeling a little… undercooked? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE FATHER OF SERPENTS — “THE AFTERLIFE SYMPHONY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 182017
 

 

Age of Damnation is the first album by the Serbian doom band The Father of Serpents, a group of six individuals from other well-known bands in the Serbian scene who united in 2015 to follow in the steps of such groups as My Dying Bride, Saturnus, Paradise Lost, and Moonspell.

Age of Damnation will be co-released on June 19 by Satanath Records (Russia) and United By Chaos (Finland). Today we are premiering a powerful song named “The Afterlife Symphony“, and providing streams of two previously released songs as well, so that you might become more fully immersed in the apocalyptic atmosphere created by The Father of Serpents. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (COLDFELLS, PURE WRATH, ROSK)

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  10 Responses »
Jun 162017
 

 

(We present another edition of Andy Synn’s three-line reviews.)

With Islander and associates currently knee-deep in the complexities and logistics of this weekend’s Northwest Terror Fest, it looks like it’s fallen to me to try and keep the lights on around here.

Honestly, the things I do for this place…

Anyway, to keep things ticking over, here’s a little something to highlight three bands who have, so far, slipped between the cracks of our usually comprehensive coverage (other than a couple of mentions in some round-ups), all of whom lean towards the darker, more atmospheric side of things. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DIVINE ELEMENT — “BEYOND THIS SEA”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 152017
 

 

The Greek band Spectral Lore, a long-time NCS favorite, is probably the best-known musical vehicle of its alter-ego Ayloss, but it’s not the only one. As those who are familiar with Spectral Lore’s releases already know, the musical interests of Ayloss and his methods of expressing them are wide-ranging, and another band named Divine Element is the method through which some of those diverse interests have been channeled. Divine Element’s first album appeared in 2010, and now a new one has finally arrived, bearing the title Thaurachs of Borsu. It’s the source of a song called “Beyond This Sea” that’s the subject of a lyric video we’re premiering today.

Despite the passage of seven years leading to the Divine Element comeback, Ayloss remains in harness with original vocalist Antonis on this new album, which was released last month by I, Voidhanger Records, but this time he has also enlisted the services of drummer extraordinaire Hannes Grossmann (Alkaloid, Blotted Science, ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist). Continue reading »

DEATH FORTRESS: “TRIUMPH OF THE UNDYING”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jun 152017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the just-released new album by New Jersey’s Death Fortress.)

Following the release of their debut album, Among the Ranks of the Unconquerable, New Jersey triumvirate Death Fortress quickly became one of my favourite Black Metal acts of the modern era.

Heck, I’d even go so far as to say that they’re one of the very best Black Metal bands ever to come out of the USA at this point.

As a result, my expectations for this, their third full-length album, are practically sky-high, and I’ve been champing at the bit to get my hands on it ever since it was announced.

So, now that the album has finally appeared online (with surprisingly little fanfare), it’s time to see whether the third time is (still) the charm. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): SEPTICFLESH, DYING FETUS, BYZANTINE, ABORTED, JACK KETCH, THE FACELESS, KREATOR, ASYLUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 152017
 

 

(DGR takes over our round-up rodeo for this Thursday, with a mix of news and new music from 8 bands.)

By the time you are reading this, I will likely be hiding like a coward underneath a fan set on incredibly high as this region of California experiences its first legit summer heatwave of one hundred plus temperatures. Considering that I am a soft wuss who has somehow survived many of these prior, you’d think that attempting to lose weight so that I may one day fit in my freezer with the door closed wouldn’t be the go-to gameplan, but alas, here we are.

You may have noticed by our recent slowdown post that a good chunk of the NCS crew plans to spend the weekend cooped up in a handful of venues in Seattle for the Northwest Terror Fest, enjoying a smattering of different groups. So in order to offset that I’ve made a hefty collection of new music and some album artwork that has slowly been cropping up on the web in recent weeks that have floated by us recently, to be caught in the patented super-porous DGR news net. At the very end I’ll even toss in an album that I came across recently for all of you to enjoy.

So let us sunder forth so that I can quickly go back to attempting to stuff myself onto the second shelf of the freezer next to the frozen lasagna boxes. Continue reading »

SLOWDOWN AHEAD (WITH NEW MUSIC FROM AKERCOCKE, SKINEATER, AND GRAVDAL)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jun 142017
 

 

Happy Wednesday. As I have mentioned before, No Clean Singing is one of the co-presenters and organizers of the first Northwest Terror Fest, which begins tomorrow and runs for three days in Seattle. As a result of my responsibilities in putting on the fest, I will have little time to devote to NCS until Monday.

I’m not sure whether our other writers will be contributing anything during my absence, but I still plan to post at least one new thing (and probably only one) both tomorrow and Friday. Not sure about the weekend. But before running off to take care of today’s festival-related tasks, I wanted to recommend some really good new metal I heard last night or this morning.

AKERCOCKE

Not long ago at the 2017 edition of Maryland Deathfest I had the pleasure of seeing Akercocke perform, and was especially taken by a new song they played. I didn’t know its name, but now I do — because it debuted today. Continue reading »

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2017 — A PHOTO ESSAY BY LEVAN TK (DAY 3)

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Jun 142017
 


DISFEAR

 

The latest edition of Roadburn Festival took place at Tilburg, The Netherlands, on April 20-23, 2017, and L.A.-based photographer extraordinaire Levan TK was there to capture the performances on film.

We are fortunate to bring you some of his amazing photos, divided among the days of the festival, with his photos from the third day in this post. To see the photos from Day One, go here, and the photos from Day Two are here. Photos from the final day of fest will be coming soon.

P.S. Levan was quick to get us these photos. The delay in sharing them is entirely the fault of our half-wit editor. Continue reading »

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