AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASHEN HORDE — “THE ALCHEMIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 142017
 

 

Ashen Horde was spawned within the bleak, frost-bitten desolation of… Los Angeles. Originally the solo project of Trevor Portz, Ashen Horde has released a handful of EPs and two albums since 2013, and with an expanded line-up Ashen Horde is today releasing a new digital and 7″ vinyl EP named The Alchemist through their new label Transcending Obscurity Records. To commemorate the event, we have a stream of the two tracks on The Alchemist.

Joining Trevor Portz (who performs guitar and bass) on The Alchemist are vocalist Stevie Boiser and drummer Jeremy Portz. This new EP is a precursor to the band’s next full-length album, which will also be released by Transcending Obscurity, and it’s a mind-bending and unpredictable two-song trip. Continue reading »

ONCE HUMAN: “EVOLUTION”

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Mar 142017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the second album by Once Human, which was released in February by earMUSIC.)

As much as I like to talk shit about bands who are bad or try too hard to be edgy (though not on this site), I’m ALWAYS open to bands changing or making dramatic improvements in their sound. It’s always possible for a band to redeem themselves, and sometimes it’s possible for a band to release an album so good that the detractors have to concede the improvement lest they be convicted of perpetual intellectual dishonesty.

We all had that laugh at Once Human, a metalcore band featuring most notably Logan Mader of Machine Head fame. They released that embarrassing “You Cunt” song that not only wasn’t anything special, the name itself just lacked class and really felt like it was going for cheap nü-metal levels of shock value. We laughed this band so hard into oblivion that they removed any promotional traces of their debut. You’ve got to do some digging now to even realize that Once Human HAS a debut album. But something dramatic has happened to this band. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELIOSS — “DERNIÈRE NUIT”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Mar 142017
 

 

On March 24, Apathia Records will release Antumbra, the third album of the French duo Helioss. Apathia recommends the album for fans of Dimmu Borgir, Mirrorthrone, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Carach Angren, and Anorexia Nervosa. If you have trouble wrapping your mind around that collection of references as a clue to the music, we have a more tangible clue, a premiere stream of an album track named “Dernière Nuit“.

This new song, like the music on Antumbra as a whole, blends together elements from different metal (and non-metal) traditions, and does it in a way that produces music that’s both hard-hitting and ethereal, ferocious and panoramic. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: REPLACIRE — “DO NOT DEVIATE”

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Mar 142017
 

 

“A plethora of humongous, technical riffs, slamming, slithering drums, noodling, prog-inflected lead melodies, and vicious, guttural vocals which occasionally transform into a soulful, enigmatic croon when you least expect it” — that was a top-level description of the music on Boston-based Replacire’s new album, Do Not Deviate, written by my comrade Andy Synn in his review. He didn’t stop there, of course, because the album is so intricately plotted, so idiosyncratic in its interweaving of metallic musical styles, and so focused and razor-sharp in its execution that fairly summing it up in a few words is a task doomed to failure.

And while I do intend to repeat and paraphrase more from our review by way of introduction, and to share some perspectives from the band’s guitarist Eric Alper, the main point of this post is to bring you a full stream of the album so you can form your own impressions in advance of its March 17 release by Season of Mist. Continue reading »

ARCHIVIST: “CONSTRUCT”

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Mar 142017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the multinational group Archivist, which was released near the end of February.)

Clocking in at a formidable sixty-eight minutes in length, Construct is the second album from Austrian/English/German collective Archivist, consisting of ten intricately composed tracks of audacious, atmosphere-drenched Post-Black/Post-Metal/Post-Rock proggery designed to infiltrate and stimulate both the body and the mind.

True, occasionally the band’s ambition slightly outstrips their execution, and the album as a whole doesn’t quite have the same sense of coherence as their self-titled debut, but the sheer scope of its sound, coupled with the band’s impressive ability to seamlessly transition between breathy, ethereal ambience and searing metallic catharsis, makes it one incredibly compelling listen all the same. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: PANIKK — “DISCARDED EXISTENCE”

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Mar 132017
 

 

Discarded Existence is the second album by the Slovenian thrash demons in Panikk. It will be released on the Ides of March (the 15th) by Spain’s Xtreem Music, and we’ve got a full stream of the album for you today.

Panikk came into existence in 2008 and since then have released a first demo in 2009, a debut album (Unbearable Conditions) in 2013, and an EP in 2015 (Pass the Time).

With influences drawn from such Bay Area bands as Vio-lence, Forbidden, Forced Entry, and Exodus, Panikk unabashedly embrace an old school ethic, and a well-honed style that nonetheless sounds damned good in their capable hands. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DYNFARI — “SORGAREFNI SEGI EG ÞÉR”

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Mar 132017
 

 

In the years that have passed since the Icelandic band Dynfari released their debut album in 2011, Icelandic black metal has soared to global prominence. Since then Dynfari have expanded from a duo to a full band and have released two more albums, and now a fourth full-length entitled The Four Doors of the Mind is set for release on April 14th by Code666. It will further burnish the reputation of the band’s homeland as a source of compelling black metal.

What we have for you today is a single from the album named “Sorgarefni segi eg þér“, as well as insights about the album from Jóhann Örn, the band’s singer and one of its guitarists. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: VERMIN LORD — “VISIONS OF A CURSED WARLOCK”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 132017
 

 

This marks the third time I’ve written abut the music of Seattle’s Vermin Lord. The first time was a review of the project’s excellent 2016 album Anguish, and then I praised a new single that was released in January of this year, and now I’m happily premiering a new two-song EP: Visions Of A Cursed Warlock.

The two songs tell a story, which Vermin Lord’s sole creator explains as follows: Continue reading »

EX DEO: “THE IMMORTAL WARS”

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Mar 132017
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by the Italian band Ex Deo, which was released last month by Napalm Records. Okay, they’re really from Canada.)

One of the common narratives for a band returning from hiatus is the “boy, has it been a long wait for a new disc” lead-off, and 90% of the time these are generally correct. Usually a group returns to fans desperate for new material and the wait, after a while, no longer feels like an eternity and quickly becomes just another fun fact. Any long wait tends to do that.

This is not the case with Kataklysm mainman Maurizio Iacono’s Roman-themed symphonic death metal side project Ex Deo. In fact, Ex Deo enjoyed one of the shortest formal hiatuses (hiati? hiatus’?) I’ve heard of, with the project being put on hold in early 2014, two years after the release of the album Caligvla, and then being reactivated in late 2015 to work on the album that would eventually become their new disc, this year’s The Immortal Wars.

I generally enjoyed Caligvla, so I was one of those who was initially bummed out by the hibernation of this Kataklysm-save-for-one person project, and then just as immediately excited by the prospect of a new disc. Granted, when you look at it on paper, there is a five-year gap between albums. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CAULDRON, CORPUS CHRISTII, EPPING FOREST, GRIMFAUG, IMBER LUMINIS, ONIRIK, STREAMS OF BLOOD, VELDES, YPOKOSMOS, ZIFIR

 SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Mar 122017
 

 

I guess I’ll be surprised if anyone remembers, especially those of you who lost an hour of sleep last night, but a week ago I began what I said would be a two-part SHADES OF BLACK post. Before I could finish Part 2 for Monday I came across a bunch of new songs, and that collection became Part 2. I still want to recommend the songs that I had picked for the original Part 2. They’re all in here, a week later than I had planned, but of course I’ve added a few newer tracks, too. A whopping ten songs in all.

With one exception, all of these tracks are from albums or EPs that haven’t been released yet, and I’ve organized them in alphabetical order by band name. I have a separate collection of recent full releases, and if time permits I’ll try to pull those together before the usual tornado of the work week begins spinning tomorrow.

CAULDRON

To begin, I have “Severe Martyrdom“, a severe song from Regnum-Phobos by the Spanish band Cauldron. This is their second album and it will be released by Darkness Within on March 14th. Continue reading »

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