NO CLEAN SINGING

SATURN’S DAY: KYPCK, OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE, DEFECRATOR, NAAT, SECOND TO SUN

Sep 032016

Yesterday, to end the work week, I picked new (or newish) songs from five bands to recommend out of a much bigger group of new stuff I thought was good. To celebrate Saturn’s Day, I’ve picked four more from that original group and added one older EP that I finally got around to checking out.

KYPCK

Formed back in 2007 and naming themselves after the Russian city of the same name, KYPCK (pronounced “kursk”) are Finnish but led by a vocalist (Erkki Seppänen) who is fluent in Russian and sings in that language. His bandmates include two former members of Sentenced: guitarists Sami Lopakka (who uses a six-string guitar made from an AK-47 assault rifle) and Sami Kukkohovi, along with bassist Jaakko Ylä-Rautio and drummer Antti Karihtal. Their discography, such as it existed at the end of 2014, was the subject of the 53rd edition of THE SYNN REPORT at our site. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BRUTALLY DECEASED, MAGOA, BALANCE INTERRUPTION, HELLWAFFE, TAIGA

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Sep 022016

Last night and this morning I listened to all or parts of 21 new songs. Most of them I found in e-mails we received over just the last 24 hours, others from browsing my Facebook feed. Most of the bands I knew nothing about. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, I enjoyed 16 of them. What to do?

This is why these posts are tagged “Random Fucking Music”, because little more than chance determined what I chose to include here (as is often the case) — plus a desire for a bit of variety in the sounds while including some of those bands I’d never heard of before.

BRUTALLY DECEASED

This first band I have heard of before, but haven’t thought about in years. In fact, the last time I wrote about them was January 2011 in a review of their debut album Dead Lover’s Guide, which I accompanied with photos of gigantic chainsaws. Instead of massive chainsaws, this time I have an image of one of Paolo Girardi’s most monstrous artistic creations, which appears on the cover of this Czech band’s new album, Satanic Corpse. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DRAGONAUTA (LUCIEN KURGAN)

Interviews No Responses »

Sep 022016

all photos by Gimena Cuenca

(Comrade Aleks has been interviewing again, and brings us this new conversation with Argentina’s devilish Dragonauta.)

Dragonauta is a satanic extravaganza band from the edge of the world – Buenos Aires to be precise. They’ve been doing their evil deals since 1999 but after four full-length occult works only one founding member is left – the guitarist Daniel Libedinsky. He’s the author of most of their sinister riffs.

Three years have passed since Dragonauta released the Omega Pentagram album, a collection of savage and satanic stoner doom tracks. Today Daniel with renewed and a strengthened lineup continues to do his work finishing the fifth album, and Lucien Kurgan (vocals, bass) brings the news about it. He promises further mutations of Dragonauta’s sound, so let’s hear some details of it. Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON: “PROPONENT FOR SENTIENCE”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Sep 022016

(Here we have Andy Synn’s review of the much-anticipated new album by Colorado’s Allegaeon.)

So I’ve already seen a few reviews for this album eking their way out onto the interweb, several of which have gone down the desperate, obsequious route of “OMG guys! This is the best album ever! It’s perfect! Allegaeon are the future of metal! Please pay attention me!”

And don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a great album, and I’ve been a big fan of the Colorado quintet myself for quite some time now, it’s just that I fail to see the value in such shameless fawning and bootlicking. Do these people really think there’s some sort of value in blowing smoke up a band’s ass like this? When everything is written about IN BLOCK CAPITALS HYPERBOLE!!! and when every album is given a 10/10 rating… what’s the damn point?

Heck, as much as it must be nice to be praised for your work, the majority of the bands I’ve dealt with and spoken to over the years have told me that they’d rather read one well-thought-out review that offered a balance of creative compliments and constructive criticism than ten sprawling screeds written by people who either clearly have their own agenda to promote, or who are simply unable to write something that isn’t just gushingly saccharine and sycophantic.

Anyway, now that I’ve got that little rant out of my system we can get down to the business of reviewing (and praising) Proponent for Sentience, Allegaeon’s fourth full-length album, and their first with new vocalist Riley McShane. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IN THE WOODS… — “MYSTERY OF THE CONSTELLATIONS”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 022016

Two months ago we had the honor of premiering the first new song by Norway’s In the Woods… in 17 years. The name of that song was “Cult of Shining Stars” and it appears on a a new album entitled Pure that will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on September 16. Since then Debemur Morti has revealed another song (accompanied by a beautiful music video), “Blue Oceans Rise (Like A War)”, and we have published our review of the album (by Andy Synn), who called Pure “as unique and enigmatic a musical experience as you could wish for” and “one of the most compelling, captivating, and truly complete musical masterpieces of the year”.

Today it’s our pleasure to bring you a third song to hear in advance of the album’s release, and the name of this one is “Mystery of the Constellations”. When Andy reviewed the album, he wrote that “some of [the songs] rock a little harder, and some of them err a little more sombre. Some of them brood, some of them swagger, and some of them drift in a dreamless languor – at times all within the same song – but each and every one of them has something special about it, something magnificent that truly lets it soar… its own particular identity, its own particular brace of distinctive hooks and melodies.” And “Mystery of the Constellations” is further proof of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BANISHER — “ONIRIC DELUSIONS”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 012016

On September 3rd, Deformeathing Productions will release Oniric Delusions, the third album by the Polish death metal juggernauts in Banisher, and today we’re giving you a chance to hear the entire album before its release.

For those who are only now discovering (or re-discovering) Banisher, their current line-up includes members of such bands as Decapitated, Redemptor, Darzamat, Nuclear Vomit, Shodan, and Ketha.

Until the band ease back on the throttle somewhat in the closing track, they fly like the wind on this album — if the wind were capable of changing directions at the speed of thought. And that’s not the only metaphor that springs to mind in listening to this intricate, inventive, technically eye-popping collection of savage assaults. Continue reading »

BOOKS WORTH READING: A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIST FROM NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

Off Topic 12 Responses »

Sep 012016

EDITOR’S FOREWORD: We’ve had a few posts over the nearly 7 years of our existence that have focused on works of literature, but very damned few. That’s not shocking, because this is first and foremost a blog about music. But for some musicians who dare to talk about it, and for many ardent fans, there are connections between these two forms of art.

Beyond those connections, some of you (maybe even the majority of those who visit this putrid site) spend as much time reading for pleasure as you do battering yourselves with violent sounds. For those in that group, and for those who are open to finding new inspiration, we bring you a very different kind of list from Neill Jameson of Krieg. I selfishly hope this will spawn both comments on this post and more features on our site about written works of art that dovetail with our interests in metal.

Our thanks to Neill for the following words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DARKRYPT — “DARK CRYPT”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 012016

Darkrypt are a death metal quartet from Mumbai, India, whose debut album Delirious Excursion is set for release on October 15 by Transcending Obscurity India. An impressive array of extreme metal luminaries have applied their talents to the album: Rogga Johansson makes a guest vocal appearance (as does Nitin Rajan of Primitiv); Greg Chandler of Esoteric and Lychgate mixed the album; Dan Swanö mastered it at Unisound Studios; the artwork was created by Turkka G. Rantanen, who has also created covers for the likes of Demilich, Adramelech, Demigod, Paganizer, and many others.

But of course the music must stand or fall primarily on the strength of what Darkrypt themselves have accomplished. As a measure of their accomplishments, we present a song from the album named “Dark Crypt“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STENCH PRICE — “PRESSURE”

Premieres No Responses »

Sep 012016

(We have Austin Weber to thank for this premiere of a new song from a band named Stench Price, accompanied by his introduction. We have Stench Price to thank for forcible re-wiring our brains, because they weren’t much good originally.)

Grindcore in 2016 has reached an interesting division, one present in the past but prevalent even more so now than ever. As we all know, grind is one of the metal sub-genres most difficult to fuck up — all you need is to be caustically loud, have your music consist of brief raging sonic bursts, and throw in a bit of passion (or ideally, a lot).

But more than that, to rise above the majority of garden-variety grind in the modern era, it seems to take one of two things: Either a group’s willingness to take things in a more technical and complexly written direction, or to go the avant-garde route and deliver something super-weird and out there.

I enjoy both approaches equally, and even more so when a new grind group like Stench Price combines both of these schools of thought to create modern, highly adventurous grindcore. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HELCARAXË, ORAE, HANGING GARDEN, ARKAIK EXCRUCIATION, NOTHGARD

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Aug 312016

I followed a different course in this round-up of new music than I usually do. Instead of focusing almost entirely on new advance tracks from forthcoming releases, this time I’m including three complete new albums or EPs for your listening pleasure, but only writing about one track from each of them. I truly wish I could write stand-alone reviews of those three, and I might still, but they are far too good to risk doing nothing to help spread the word.

I’m also including two new videos for individual songs that appeared within the last 24 hours, both of which I enjoyed. I’ve arranged the order of the music in this compilation in a way designed to keep you off balance, because an unbalanced mind is the devil’s playground. So without further ado, let’s play!

HELCARAXË

I was greatly surprised to discover that in our nearly 7 years of existence we have never posted anything before about New Jersey’s Helcaraxë. I’ve now added that failing to the list of things for which we’ve scheduled our monthly submission to a vigorous horse-whipping. Even now, only mentioning one song from the band’s amazing new album is pitifully inadequate. Continue reading »

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