NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SORDIDE — “FUIR LA LUMIÈRE”

Oct 052016

The title of the new album by the French black metal band Sordide — Fuir la lumière (escape the light) — is ironic, because the album is a musical bonfire. I was unfamiliar with Sordide before this, and so the album blindsided me like a bolt from the blue. In short order it has become one of my favorite discoveries of this year. The full run through the album is an absolutely exhilarating experience, yet each track in isolation lights its own fire. Today marks the album’s official release by Avantgarde Music, and we have the full album stream at the end of this post. I hope you’ll put it on your listening list without delay.

I’ve already written about the first two advance tracks from the album, one of which we premiered only yesterday. If you think of the album as a magnetic field (and it is damned magnetic), those songs could be considered the opposite ends of its polarity. “Révolte” is a breathtaking race, with a fireball guitar performance that just gets more exuberant and electrifying as the song rushes ahead. On the other hand, “L’ombre” begins at a crawl — a combination of a slow, grim bass riffing and unnerving guitar dissonance — and then becomes a bleak, mid-paced, stomping rocker; it’s hallucinatory and deranged, but no less enthralling than the jet-fueled “Révolte”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATH FETISHIST — “ASTRAL DARKNESS”

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Oct 052016

We’ve been paying close attention to Death Fetishist since we premiered the band’s first single in December of last year (which became part of the band’s debut EP Whorifice) and continuing through the release of a single-song EP named Lucifer Descending last February. Now, Debemur Morti Productions is approaching the October 28 release of the first Death Fetishist album, Clandestine Sacrament, and we have for you the first excerpt from that sacrament, a track called “Astral Darkness“.

The principal creator behind Death Fetishist is the prolific Matron Thorn, who is also the main driving force in Ævangelist as well as the protagonist in a large number of solo projects, including Benighted In Sodom. He is the vocalist in Death Fetishist and performs all the instruments other than drums and percussion, which are handled by G. Nefarious (Panzergod, Daemoniis Ad Noctum).

For this album Thorn also enlisted an array of notable international guests to help realize Death Fetishist’s musical vision, including guest vocalists D.G. from Iceland’s Misþyrming, Doug Moore of NY’s Pyrrhon, and Julia Black, with synth orchestration created by Jürgen Bartsch (Bethlehem) and Mories (Gnaw Their Tongues). Continue reading »

THE BOOK OF BLASPHEMOUS WORDS

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Oct 042016

(We’re turning off our usual beaten paths — but just going parallel to them — as we present the following piece by NCS contributor Grant Skelton. If you’re a writer of fiction, this may interest you. And there’s music in here, too.)

I love writing about metal. I love discovering new music and sharing it with others. I love discussing current favorites and ancient gems. I love metal. And while I am not a musician, metal inspires and influences my own specific creative passion – writing fiction. Especially horror fiction. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: VASHNA — “KNOW THE WAY TO EMBRACE THE DARKNESS”

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Oct 042016

Metal is such a diverse form of music that the inspirations and objectives of its legions of creators are too numerous to count — but exploring and embracing darkness has undeniably been both a guiding force for many bands and a source of attraction for many fans from the beginning. As the title of the debut EP by Italy’s Vashna suggests, they have quickly proven that they know the way to embrace the darkness — or at least one especially harrowing and ruinous way to do that.

The first strike by this one-man band will be released on tape in just a few days (October 7) by Eternal Death. Know the Way To Embrace the Darkness includes three songs as well as two “hidden” bonus tracks, and today we’re providing a chance for you to hear the full EP in advance of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR — “I MEAN YOU HARM”

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Oct 042016

The infernally creative music of Hail Spirit Noir is very hard to pin down, which is a part of the band’s multifarious charms. Anyone who has delved into the wonders of their first two albums, Pneuma and Oi Magoi, are well aware that HSN march (and scamper) to the beat of their own drummer. You might fumble around with combinations of words that include “black metal”, “psychedelic”, “progressive”, “occult”, and “retro” in an attempt to describe the sonic potions they have brewed, but an all-encompassing description remains elusive. There is a dark animating spirit and an ingenious intelligence behind the songs, but no two of them sound quite alike.

And so, apart from the impressive and distinctive quality of those first two albums, one big reason to be eager for their new album Mayhem In Blue is the excitement of an unpredictable new discovery. We’re very happy to pull back the curtain on the new album — albeit only far enough to provide a tantalizing glimpse — by providing the premiere of its first single, a song called “I Mean You Harm“.

It’s not a very friendly song title, and the music doesn’t greet you with a warm embrace either. It includes some of the distinctive, recognizable elements of Hail Spirit Noir’s previous releases, but it’s also more aggressive and malicious than what you may be expecting. But of course, confounding expectations is obviously a big part of the fun that Hail Spirit Noir find in making music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEVANGELIC — “ABOMINATED IMPURITY OF THE OPPRESSED”

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Oct 042016

2014 brought the release of the debut album Resurrection Denied by the Roman brutal death metal band Devangelic. They followed that near the end of last year with an EP named Deprecating the Scriptures. And now the band are moving into a new phase in their architecture of destruction, working toward the release of their second full-length in 2017. To provide a a glimpse of this new edifice of sound looming ahead of us, the band have recorded a promo track called “Abominated Impurity of the Oppressed” that will become available for free download today — and we’re bringing you its premiere in this post.

The word “brutal” understates the impact of this new song. It delivers massive, planet-busting riffs operating at maximum efficiency and with maximum destructive impact, in close coordination with titanic grinding lead guitar work and a supremely militaristic drum attack. The near-atonal quality of the song’s enormous grooves, coupled with the vocalist’s ugly gutturals, give the song a cold and merciless feeling that grows increasingly chilling as the minutes pass. The song begins at a furious pace, but slows briefly to ignite a determined bit of pile-driving before resuming laying waste to everyone within earshot. Continue reading »

DORMANT ORDEAL: “WE HAD IT COMING”

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Oct 042016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Poland’s Dormant Ordeal.)

Don’t you just hate it when someone steals your thunder? Case in point, I’ve been jamming We Had It Coming, the second album by Polish brutalisers Dormant Ordeal, for a good while now, waiting for the right time and the right opportunity to write about it, only for the ne’er do wells at Invisible Oranges to sneak in and feature the album at the top of their most recent From The Bandcamp Vaults column. The blaggards.

Still, I suppose it actually might save me some time and effort in the long run, as their write-up – particularly the phrase “influenced by fellow Polish legends Decapitated with a touch of Ulcerate” – is pretty much entirely on point, and I’m not sure exactly what else I can add.

But, then again, there’s every chance that many of our readers won’t also be IO readers, and I do so love to pontificate about albums that I love… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SORDIDE — “L’OMBRE”

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Oct 042016

Two days ago, in one of our regular Sunday posts about black metal, I raved about a song (“Révolte”) I had come across by a band from Rouen, France, named Sordide. One thing led to another, and today we’re bringing you the chance to listen to another new Sordide song named “L’ombre“. Like “Révolte”, it appears on the band’s new album, Fuir la lumière (escape the light), which will be released tomorrow by Avantgarde Music — and if you come back to our site tomorrow you’ll have a chance to hear the whole album, because we’re premiering that, too.

The new album comes a bit less than two years after Sordide’s debut album, La France a peur, and after two French tours as well as gigs in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I’m going to resist the temptation to write about the album as a whole — or I’ll having nothing more to say tomorrow when we present a full album stream. So for now, I’ll just spill a few words about “L’ombre”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BRUTALLY DECEASED — “SATANIC CORPSE”

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Oct 032016

Armed with a hellish imagination and the artistic talent to bring his nightmares to life on canvas, Paolo Girardi has executed an extensive array of album covers in his career, but none more monstrous than the one that’s savaging your eyeballs right now. And what’s more, this grotesquery is a perfect match for the strikingly savage music that lies within this particular album. And that album is Satanic Corpse by a group of Czech death dealers named Brutally Deceased. It’s being released by Doomentia, and we have for you a full stream of the album right here, right now.

We have some history with this band. Our first post about them appeared back in January 2011, with a review of their debut album Dead Lover’s Guide, decorated with photos of gigantic chainsaws — because the HM-2 force is strong with these ones, and has remained so through today. Continue reading »

INSOMNIUM: “WINTER’S GATE”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Oct 032016

(DGR reviews the new album by Finland’s Insomnium, which is out now.)

A few times over the course of my time here I’ve been able to function as an NCSstrodamus of sorts, and when it came to Insomnium’s recently released album Winter’s Gate, that time came once again. Winter’s Gate is Insomnium’s seventh full-length release and one of those albums where we could not possibly have been more prepared for it, almost like a couple of the reviews we’ve done this year were prescient glimpses into the future, so that when the band announced that Winter’s Gate would function as one strict over-forty-minute-long song, we were ready for it. Continue reading »

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