NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: GROSSTY — “GROUNDER GRIND”

Sep 112016

I have to restrain my usual wordiness or else it will take you longer to read this post than to hear the song we’re premiering today. The song is 57 seconds long, but trust me, it’s a very interesting way to spend a minute (and it’s not the only music from this band that you’ll have a chance to hear after you’ve made your way to the end of this write-up).

The band’s name is Grossty, they are from India, and their debut album Crocopter is set for release on November 15 by Transcending Obscurity India. Like the album’s eye-catching cover art by T Bare McClough, the music will catch you off-guard. And while we’re on the subject of cover art, take a look at the same artist’s creation for the album slipcase (the name of the piece is “Hexesquigglid“): Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (DISMAL LAPSE)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 4 Responses »

Sep 112016

(Our Sacramento-based writer DGR is the author of this Sunday’s edition of our series on metal from the past.)

Dismal Lapse were a Sacramento-based death metal band who were active for a brief period in the later 2000s, with their roots in an earlier Sacramento band known as Bled. During their time playing, the group would release one EP entitled The Nameless Faceless and then a 2009 album called Eon Fragmentation — which surprisingly enough this very site wrote a brief bit about long before they gave me the opportunity to set my roots down and burn this place to the ground.

Dismal Lapse played what should be a very familiar sound to a lot of our readers as they were a technical death metal band, although at the time that label hadn’t really homogenized around the sound that we currently associate with it. This fair city where I live would actually have a small hand in that though, alongside a swath of groups from the Bay Area who had been cutting their teeth for a long time on the I-5 touring run, when they were all picked up around the same time and divied up amongst labels like Unique Leader.

In 2009, that wasn’t really too much of a thought though, and Dismal Lapse were one amongst a handful playing a style that was intense and, yes, hyper-complicated. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: KRYPTS, RUINS, SPECTRAL APPARITION, TOTALITARIAN, BLOOD OF SEKLUSION, MORAL VOID

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 10 Responses »

Sep 102016

On Thursday I mentioned that I was on the verge of leaving Seattle for a trip related to my day job. I’m still on that trip, which has taken me to a mountainous region of Utah for a “retreat” hosted by the company I work for. This happens every year, and it’s always fun. This year may be even more fun than usual, because so far I haven’t subjected myself to alcohol poisoning.

Yesterday and this morning I had time to pull together some new music and one news item. Despite the title of this post, most of the following six bands either straddle the line between black metal and death metal or might be considered all the way over on the black-metal side of the line. But the title wasn’t intended as a straight genre descriptor. There are other reasons for the title, which you’ll discover soon.

KRYPTS

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the new album by the Finnish band Krypts, because their 2013 debut full-length, Unending Degradation, was damned good. The name of the new album is Remnants of Expansion, it’s embellished with artwork by Timo Ketola, and it’s coming out on October 28 via Dark Descent. Continue reading »

DEVIN TOWNSEND: “TRANSCENDENCE”

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Sep 092016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Devin Townsend.)

The man, the myth, the legend, known as Devin Townsend is certainly a creature of many contradictions. And, over the years, his various attempts to integrate and incorporate the many different facets of his nature have certainly produced some of the most compelling, creative, weird, and wacky wonders of Metal’s modern age.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t deny that he’s one of the genre’s most distinct and idiosyncratic personalities.

He’s also never been one to rest on his laurels, or try and go backwards. He’s said as much in interviews himself. And though there are doubtless going to be those who feel like he’s been playing it a little too safe recently (an accusation I wouldn’t necessarily refute, since the majority of Sky Blue felt like a poppier reworking of similar themes and ideas from Epicloud… which itself had its fair share of generic filler), he’s never consciously tried to resurrect or repeat his previous work. Each album is a unique statement reflecting a specific place and time, and a specific state of mind.

Which is why you might be surprised to learn that Transcendence is the closest thing to the Accelerated Evolution days that Devin’s produced since… well, since Accelerated Evolution! Continue reading »

COGNIZANT: “COGNIZANT”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Sep 092016

(Austin Weber reviews the new self-titled release by Cognizant from Dallas, Texas)

The rise and growth of skronky death metal and über-dissonant black metal, influenced equally by the likes of groups such as Gorguts, Deathspell Omega, and legions more, has led to the emergence of some very interesting new groups. And of those influenced by these antecedents, the most under-appreciated seem to me to be the new wave of tech-grind groups who draw elements from both schools of thought and then bring it down into a tight and concise grind format.

Some of you may be aware of my rampant obsession with tech-grind of the skronky and dissonant kind, as reflected in my coverage of groups such as Dendritic Arbor, Blurring, Okazaki Fragments, Cave Moth, Crisis Actor, and Amygdala last year — who now have been re-named as Cognizant. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SAOR AND NATTRAVNEN

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Sep 082016

As usual, I’ve accumulated a long list of new songs and videos that emerged over the last 48 hours, hoping to throw many of them your way in this Thursday round-up. Alas, I’ve been scrambling to leave on a trip this morning for my day job that will take me away until Sunday night. I figured that I had time (barely) to spew praise on maybe two songs, and I picked these two, because they’ve spiked my brain like none of the others.

SAOR

Andy Marshall ought to be declared a Scottish national treasure. Under the name Saor, he has crafted two wonderful albums in 2013’s Roots and 2014’s Aura. And on November 11, a third one will be released, with the title of Guardians. Continue reading »

THE ISOLATION PROCESS: “THE ISOLATION PROCESS”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Sep 082016

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the self-titled album by The Isolation Process from Stockholm, Sweden.)

Wow, my current slate of potential reviews for NCS is pretty packed. Alcest, Obscure Sphinx, Mesarthim, Départe… a triumvirate of awesome British bands you guys might not have heard yet… the new album by the prolific An Autumn For Crippled Children… another edition of The Synn Report on a band who not only just released their fourth album, but who ONLY sing clean… the last quarter of 2016 is looking pretty packed already, and that’s not even taking into account all the other releases – big and small – set to hit the (digital) streets in the next few months.

So why the hell am I pushing all that aside to cover an album that’s now over two and a half years old?

Because I’ve fallen head over heels for it, and just can’t stop listening to it. That’s why. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: TARDIVE DYSKINESIA — “HARMONIC CONFUSION”

Premieres No Responses »

Sep 082016

We have some history with this band from Greece, Tardive Dyskinesia, whose name sent me off googling its meaning after the first song I heard from the band turned me goggle-eyed. That was in December 2009, only one month after we launched this site. I had just discovered the band’s second album, The Sea of See Through Skins, based on a review in DECIBEL magazine which proclaimed, “There hasn’t been a group of this caliber from Hellas since Septicflesh reemerged in 2008 with the ruling Communion album.”

That first post I wrote about the band (here), which included what I found from my google searches about the origin of their name, has been followed by many others. The years have passed, and the fortunes of Tardive Dyskinesia have risen, with appearances at such festivals as Euroblast and the UK Tech-Metal Fest and praise from the likes of George Kollias (Nile), Jocham Jacobs (ex-Textures), and Kelly Shaefer (Atheist). Along the way, they’ve released a third album (2012’s Static Apathy in Fast Forward), and now they’re on the verge of releasing a fourth — Harmonic Confusion — which we’re giving you the chance to hear in its entirety in advance of its official September 9 release by Playfalse Records. Continue reading »

LIZARD PROFESSOR: “ECCENTRICITY” (REVIEW AND STREAM)

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Sep 082016

(In this post Austin Weber shares with us a full stream of the new album by Lizard Professor from Fort Worth, Texas, and excerpts from his review.)

In the world of writing about music, sometimes we have to work on a rush, and sometimes unconventional methods of delivering on time are needed. Point in case, our beloved overlord Islander is fleeing town again for reasons unknown. And in order to be able to get this post to him in time to get it ready to be posted before he leaves this Thursday morning, I figured I’d do something different to make it happen.

I say all this because today (this Tuesday, which is now the past!) I spoke with Islander about seeing if I could do a blurb and post at NCS about the Lizard Professor early full album stream I have going up at my other gig at Metal-Injection. I was asking because Lizard Professor are a fairly unknown quantity, one I felt might benefit from being cross-posted for our audience of fine readers here at NoCleanSinging. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECOMPOSED — “DRENCHED IN WOUNDS”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 072016

The cover art above, which was created by Misanthropic-Art, is what first drew our attention in April to Wither, the third album by Sweden’s Decomposed, which will be released by Chaos Records on October 3. And having been seduced by the artwork, we were then ravaged by the grisly, bone-grinding, pavement-splitting, head-hammering death metal delivered by the album’s first advance track, “By Nothingness Crowned”. Later on, a second song called “Submerged” continued the demolition job, and today we get to bring you one more chapter in this Wither-ing onslaught through our premiere of “Drenched In Wounds”.

Decomposed began as the solo project of Jesper Ekstål, and although it grew into a full band by 2010, for this album Decomposed has returned to where it began, with only Jesper Ekstål remaining. Wither, which is Decomposed’s third album, was composed and performed by him, along with drummer Emil Leijon. Continue reading »

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