PROFANITY: “THE ART OF SICKNESS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 202017
 

 

(DGR delivers this big review of the new album by Germany’s Profanity.)

If one were to play the numbers game with German three-piece death metal band Profanity and their album releases, one could say that it has been quite some time since the group’s last full-length album — and basically have it qualify as one of the understatements of the year.

The band, having sprung back into life after a decade-plus of on/off activity since their last release, put out an EP in late 2014 known as Hatred Hell Within, an EP that consisted of three songs but could’ve easily passed as an album, given the denseness of the material contained within.

Profanity like writing big brutal death metal songs. Not big in terms of bombast, but in terms of how much they can pack within the six-plus minutes many of their songs tend to take. This mentality has continued onward with the group’s newest release, The Art Of Sickness, coming in a little under three years since that Hatred Hell Within EP.

Containing a deceptive six songs within its tracklist, The Art Of Sickness leaves its listeners looking like one of those idiot TV show hosts right after ordering a gigantic meal, as the realization finally hits them that there is actually a lot on that plate, despite the overwhelming confidence with which they approached it and the initially deceptive appearance. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SOLACE (TOMMY SOUTHARD)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Apr 192017
 

 

(In this interview Comtrade Aleks checks in with guitarist Tommy Southard of New Jersey’s Solace.)

This dirty, angry and literally possessed stoner crew is known because of its charged and uncompromising delivery and damn vivid shows. They’ve shaken the New Jersey scene since 1996 and since then have achieved some recognition with three full-length albums, a few smaller releases, and a lot of live gigs.

Solace’s latest work “A.D.” was released in 2010, and that’s okay since the band’s members also play in more sinister and sludgy outfits like The Disease Concept, Social Decay, and Chrome Waves. They’re busy men, and they know well how to play loud and heavy.

I hadn’t heard anything new from Solace for awhile and was worried a bit. As result I got in touch with Tommy Southard (guitars) and he patiently answered my questions, helping with this retrospective interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JYOTISAVEDANGA — “DISINTEGRATION TO ABSOLUTE VOID”

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Apr 192017
 

 

Last fall the Indian label Cyclopean Eye Productions released the debut demo of a part-Indian, part-Russian trio who chose Jyotiṣavedāṅga for their name, a name that refers to the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa, which we’re told is one of the earliest known Indian texts on astronomy and astrology. The demo has the evocative title Cannibal Coronal Mass Ejections. Cyclopean Eye is now releasing that demo in a CD edition that includes not only the original six tracks but also one previously unreleased bonus track, which we have the pleasure of premiering today.

This newly revealed piece of audio murder is “Disintegration To Absolute Void“. Drawing upon musical ingredients that include black metal, harsh power electronics, death metal, and the dying radiations of collapsing galaxies, the song is a shattering, staggering assault on the senses. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HIGHLAND — “TOWARDS THE ABSOLUTE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 192017
 

 

Earlier this month I listened to the first advance track from Loyal To the Nightsky, the debut album by a Los Angeles-based black metal band named Highland, in part because this new album features cover art by one of my favorites, Luciana Nedelea. It turned out that the first single, “Abu Sindi“, was strikingly good. And now we have the good fortune to share with you a second song from this very promising album, “Towards the Absolute“, in advance of the album’s release on May 15th.

Highland is a trio of Armenian-Americans — Narek, Gevork, and Michael — who first began performing together in a speed/thrash metal band named Raze. But as time passed they turned their talents in a different direction, building upon the antecedents of Scandinavian black metal from the ’90s, with a self-titled EP in 2013 as their first work in this direction. They’ve performed with the likes of Absu, Vader, Bölzer, and Marduk, but I suspect this new album is going to elevate their profile even more substantially. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): JUST BEFORE DAWN, AQUILUS, REEK OF MARTYR, LYING FIGURES, DARKREVERIE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 192017
 

 

As mentioned in the first installment of this mid-week round-up earlier today, I have enough items I want to spread around, and enough time to do it, that I’ve divided the collection into multiple segments. There might even be a Part 3, but we’ll see how the day goes.

Part 1 was a sequence of songs specifically organized as a playlist because of a certain flow and mood in the music, at least as discerned by my twisted head. This Part 2 has no unifying theme, other than my own interest in everything here. There are a couple of news items at the outset, and then some very good music.

JUST BEFORE DAWN

Just Before Dawn will be a familiar name to regular NCS visitors, but for any newcomers, it has been the studio project of Swedish musician Anders Biazzi and his drumming ally Brynjar Helgetun, with a changing array of vocalists and guitar soloists. It’s one of my favorite current purveyors of old school Swedish death metal. And now JBD will be moving out of the studio in order to destroy a few stages. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): HELENGARD, NOITUMA, SOLMUND, SADNESS, NACHTZEIT, CHÊNE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 192017
 

 

Last night as I was making my way through my ever-changing list of new music to check out, I had the good fortune of finding many of the songs you’re about to hear. They were scattered among a larger collection of things I listened to, some of which will come in Part 2 of this post, but it dawned on me that these in particular would make for good companions on an interesting (and sorrowful) musical trip, especially if combined with a few others I had heard recently. I’ve arranged them in a way I think makes some sense, with a flow in the changing sounds and moods that I found appealing.

One other thing about this playlist I found appealing is that it represents (mostly) a course change in the music on the site. In recent days we’ve been heavy into various shades of black and death metal. Most of these songs represent a departure from that — and a fairly dramatic one in the case of the first three tracks below. (Thanks to my friend Miloš for sending me the links through which I found two-thirds of these tracks.)

HELENGARD

I should mention that most of the songs in this post are drawn from complete albums or EPs that have recently been released. I wish I had time to write about them more thoroughly, but I’m only going to comment about specific songs and let those guide your decisions about whether to explore the albums in greater depth. The first song comes from Firebird, the new album by the Ukrainian band Helengard, which was released on April 14th. Continue reading »

MARTHYRIUM — “BEYOND THE THRESHOLDS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

Beyond the Thresholds is the debut album of Marthyrium from Galicia in Spain. In listening to the album it becomes apparent that the thresholds being crossed are those separating this mundane mortal plane from the arcane and alien terrors of another dimension. There is virtually nothing about the music that seems human. It excites visions in the mind of immense, shape-shifting forces, but they are all nightmarish, violent, and steadfastly resistant to reason or appeals to mercy.

The music is also relentlessly intense and dramatic, and when it isn’t inflicting ruination like a cyclonic vortex, an atmosphere of grim and terrible majesty emanates from it, as if capturing the sensation of an abominable leviathan rising up from a crimson void and looming over us with ominous power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PRAYERS OF SANITY — “DEAD ALIVE”

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Apr 182017
 

 

Do you feel dead inside? Do you hate your job, and your few friends hate you? Has hope abandoned your life like an empty pack of smokes tossed from the window of a passing car? Does the future seem to hold nothing but a steep and lonely descent into scowling bitterness and a wasteland of forgotten dreams?

If the answer is yes, we’re sorry to say that we haven’t yet mastered the power to call for a re-deal on your life. But we can do one thing for you. At least for a few minutes, we can make you feel explosively alive, like you stepped on a live power line while ringing wet, with all the motherfuckers in your life cowering in fear at the fireball that your head has turned into.

Actually, we can’t do that — but Prayers of Sanity can. Just hit the play button on “Dead Alive” down below. Continue reading »

ABSCISSION : “VACUITY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 182017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the debut album by the Danish band Abscission.)

So how’s everyone doing today? All good? I’m only asking because I’ve been relatively off-the-radar doing musical stuff (and then recovering from the cumulative hangover) for the last few days, and so haven’t had much chance to catch up on the various comings and goings of the interweblogosphere.

Obviously that also means I haven’t had any time to do any real writing for NCS for a little while, with the result being that I’m now even further behind on my review schedule than I was last week.

So, in an attempt to get things back on track (though I’ve got a couple more shows to play this week still), here’s some of my vaguely informative ramblings about Vacuity, the dazzling debut album by devilishly dark Danish Death Metallers Abscission. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FRACTAL GENERATOR — “ABANDON EARTH”

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Apr 182017
 

 

Sometimes the name that a band chooses for itself can be a significant clue to the kind of music they make. The name Fractal Generator sounds kind of cybernetic and machine-like, although fractal repeating patterns across multiple scales of size are evident in nature as well as mathematics. But then consider further that the members of this band from Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, identify themselves by number: 040118180514 (bass, vocals), 040114090512 (drums), and 102119200914 (guitar, vocals). And then consider that the name of their debut album is Apotheosynthesis.

The album was originally self-released by the band in 2015, but it has now been embraced by Everlasting Spew Records, who will be giving it a CD release on May 19th. For those who may have overlooked the album in its original flowering, we have for you today a video for a multi-faceted track named “Abandon Earth” (and a reprise of another song unveiled not long ago by DECIBEL). Continue reading »

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