LISTMANIA 2016: A YEAR-END LIST FROM NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

 LISTMANIA 2016  6 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

Neill Jameson

 

(We’re happy that for another year Neill Jameson (Krieg) succumbed to our entreaties to share with us a year-end list of metal.)

2016 has been a strange year. Not just in terms of the cultural shifts that occurred, or the copious amounts of deaths in the arts community, or even Antifa stepping over the line and using violence towards bystanders. It’s also been an unusually shitty year for a lot of our private lives as well, it seems. We weren’t able to make it a week without news that our friends were burying someone or worse, we were planning a funeral ourselves. But this time of the year is one bound by tradition so I’m back for my yearly review of music released in 2016 that you need to check out.

For me personally I didn’t buy a lot of new records this year. I don’t have any excuse, really, I just spent more time digging into older records or following some of my favorites without really checking out anything truly new this year. Did I miss out? Probably, but I don’t really care. I also tried to use only Bandcamp links where I could so that you actually buy some of this, instead of putting it on a YouTube playlist, which’ll lose its atmosphere when you can’t skip ads for Valtrex. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE FUROR — “CAVALRIES OF THE OCCULT”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

the-furor-cavalries-of-the-occult

 

The first week of March seems so far away that it’s like a shimmering mirage on the calendar, with a vast expanse of days to cross before we reach it. That happens to be the time when Transcending Obscurity Records will discharge the fifth album by Australia’s The Furor, the title of which is Cavalries of the Occult. It’s a long wait, but after you hear the album’s title track, which we’re premiering today, you’l probably need the next few months just to catch your breath.

Seriously, you probably ought to put on a crash helmet, fasten your seatbelt, and put on some flame-retardent outerwear before listening to this song. It’s an absolutely scorching, blindingly explosive, adrenaline-triggering rocket ride. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EMPYREAN THRONE — “HAERETICUS STELLARUM PART II”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

empyrean-throne-single-cover

 

On January 24, 2017, Empyrean Throne from Orange County, California, will release their debut album Chaosborne, which was produced and engineered by Mick Kenney. Today we bring you the premiere of an official video for an album track named “Haereticus Stellarum Part II“.

Conceptually, the album “tells the story of a hapless Templar knight in medieval Europe and his subsequent decent into the realm of Chaos”. In its sound, it powerfully combines a variety of ingredients, including orchestral and cello music — and they are on full display in the song and video we’re presenting today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR, MESARTHIM, VENEFIXION, CENTENARY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

the-flight-of-sleipnir-skadi

 

There are more total minutes of new music in this round-up than usual, and that’s because this compilation includes five EPs, one of which is a single 21-minute track. There are two individual songs in here, too. I thought I’d make up for the fact that my meager weekend posts included a grand total of one song. On the other hand, there’s so much music in this collection that I decided to divide it into two parts, with Part 2 coming a bit later today.

Sadly, I don’t have time to write decent reviews of those five EPs and will only froth at the mouth about them briefly, hopefully just enough to induce you to listen to them for yourself. But before getting to those, let’s start with the first of those two individual songs.

THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR

Skadi is the name of the new sixth album by Colorado’s genre-bending The Flight of Sleipnir. It will be released on January 20 by Eisenwald. The first advance song from the album was released a couple of days ago, and its name is “Awaken”. Continue reading »

2016 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE DISAPPOINTING ALBUMS

 LISTMANIA 2016  73 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

listmania-2016

 

(This is the second installment in Andy Synn’s series of year-end lists, which began last week with a list of favorite EPs and splits. The opinions represent those of the author rather than the site as a whole, especially in the case of one of these 10 “disappointments”, the selection of which is an invitation to pistols at 20 paces come the dawn.)

…and so it begins.

For this year’s listravaganza I’ve decided to change things up a little by kicking off with the “Disappointing” albums, rather than the “Great” albums. It’s a small change, but it means we can build up towards the best of the year, rather than spiral downwards.

Now although we don’t do negative reviews here at NCS, I still feel like there’s a place for reasoned criticism in what we do.

That doesn’t mean tearing bands down or belittling their efforts, it simply means acknowledging that not every album is a 10/10, and that sometimes even the best bands slip up.

Ultimately this isn’t a list of “bad” albums. It’s just a bunch of releases from bands who could (or should) be able to do better. Continue reading »

BLOG BREAK (WITH SOME MUSIC BY AZELISASSATH)

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 112016
 

azelisassath-total-desecration-of-existence

 

The last two days have been crazier than usual in the not-blog part of my life, the part that I usually succeed in squelching down into a tiny thing that whines for attention but doesn’t get it. Beginning two days ago, it became the mouse that roared.

The nastiness started when the web hosting service we use for NCS (Bluehost) somehow crashed their entire system around mid-day on Friday just as I had posted one premiere, with one more that I had still planned to post. I’m calm about it now, but I was punching walls for a few hours after that happened. Once it became clear that this debacle wasn’t going to be fixed any time soon I just said, Fuck It, and started drinking.

Ten hours later, Bluehost still hadn’t fixed the problem, NCS was still inaccessible, and I was pretty well hammered. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  40 Responses »
Dec 102016
 

rolling-stone-20-best-metal-albums-2016

 

No, we’re not being repetitive. Yes, we did post a year-end list by Rolling Stone magazine earlier in our LISTMANIA series, but that one was the magazine’s list of the top 50 albums across all genres of music that they care about. This, however, is a list in which metal isn’t elbowed aside by the likes of The Monkees, Elton John, and Brandy Clark, leaving only Metallica standing as the lone metal recognition.

This is Rolling Stone’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2016”, which appeared yesterday. And here it is: Continue reading »

CALL OF THE VOID: “AYFKM” (A REVIEW AND THE PREMIERE OF A SPECIAL VIDEO TRAILER)

 Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Dec 092016
 

call-of-the-void-ayfkm

 

This post is divided into three parts. It includes a review of the new EP, AYFKM, by Colorado’s Call of the Void, which will be released by Translation Loss on December 16. You’ll also find a brief interview of the band that offers some insights into the music, the EP’s title, and the cover art.

But first, I’d like to ask you to watch the following video trailer for the EP, which we’re debuting here. I’m going to stifle my usual tendency to give away the game and spoil surprises. I think after you see it, and hear it, you’ll be even more interested in the other two parts of this post — or at least you’ll want to hear more music from the EP. I can help you with that, too. Continue reading »

2016 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE EPs

 LISTMANIA 2016  29 Responses »
Dec 092016
 

NCS The Best of 2016 graphic

 

(So far, our LISTMANIA series has mostly been devoted to year-end lists from other sites and print zines, but today we begin rolling out our own lists. As has become customary, we start with the first of six year-end lists that Andy Synn is preparing. Every day next week we’ll post his remaining five — along with other staff and guest lists.)

Somehow another year seems to have passed by, which means it’s almost time for my annual, week-long round-up of the year’s best and brightest (and most disappointing) releases.

For those of you unaware of how this whole thing works, I split my assessment of the year into three categories initially:

The “Great” albums, the ones which I honestly consider the true cream of this year’s crop, regardless of fame, fortune, or style.

The “Good” albums, which vary between solid (but not necessarily stunning) morsels of metallic goodness and those which (arguably) come within a hair’s breadth of greatness.

And the “Disappointing” albums of the year, the albums which, while not necessarily bad, I feel don’t live up to the standards which the band(s) have set for themselves, or which their listeners have come to expect.

Then, finally, I put together my two Top Ten lists. The “Critical Top Ten”, where I try to be as objective as possible in selecting ten of the year’s finest albums to serve as a representative sample of the best which 2016 has to offer, and my “Personal Top Ten”, which are simply the ten albums which have tickled my fancy the most over the past twelve months.

But first, how about we have a little round-up of some of the best EPs of the year? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LOCK UP, DODECAHEDRON, ALLFATHER, HADAL MAW, UR, CODE, VARAHA, XENOTAPH, CRURIFRAGIUM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 092016
 

lock-up-band-2016

 

I’ve been immersed in compiling LISTMANIA features the last few days, but at the same time I’ve been noticing the appearance of new songs, many of them from albums headed our way in the new year. I’ve rounded up 9 of them here that I’ve enjoyed, with a range of metallic styles. I organized them sort of like a bell curve, with things starting hard and then getting more melodic in the middle, and then descending again into increasing ugliness and violence by the end.

Also, serious question: Should I divide collections of this length into smaller parts and spread them out over the day? Or does it matter?

LOCK UP

I’m afraid that if I googled “lock up” these days, I’d get stories about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The world obviously needs to grind again, and the real Lock Up is here to help us do that. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries