OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): DISENTOMB, WESTON SUPER MAIM, HYPERDONTIA

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  No Responses »
Jan 242025
 

(written by Islander)

Welcome to Part 17 of this still-expanding list, which ends this week’s rollout and paves the way toward one final sequence next week. I again had an idea of why I thought these three songs would fit together. It’s not that they’re all the same (far from it), but I still detected some kinship among them: an amalgamation of brute-force brutishness and other manifestations of head-scrambling extravagance.

In case you haven’t explored the songs in the preceding 16 Parts, you can find all of them via this link.

DISENTOMB

We didn’t get a new Disentomb album last year, but we did get a very arresting EP named Nothing Above. It was the subject of an Andy Synn review, and another review by DGR in the context of him putting the EP on his year-end list. I’ll excerpt from both: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INSANITY CULT — “WHISPERING DEPTHS”

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Jan 242025
 

(written by Islander)

After a long six years or so, we at last have a chance for a reunion with the aptly named Green black metal band Insanity Cult. That’s roughly the extent of time that has elapsed since their last album, All Shall Return to Chaos, and their subsequent split (Contemplation in Discordance) with Void Omnia.

The occasion for the reunion is a new Insanity Cult album named Κάθοδος, which will be released on February 28th by the Chilean label Tragedy Productions, in collaboration with Order of Antinomianism, the circle of which Insanity Cult is a member along with such bands as Isolert, Sørgelig and Sores.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a song from the album named “Whispering Depths.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SHAGOR — “HERSIELINGH”

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Jan 242025
 

(written by Islander)

In 2020 the Dutch black metal band Shagor made their recording debut with an album named Sotteklugt. I was bowled over by it. As I wrote in my review: “This is one of my true favorites among all the black metal albums I’ve heard this year, and I don’t think my affection for it will fade, even a little, as time passes.”

Roughly five years later Shagor are returning with a second album named Lyksalver, which will be co-released by Vendetta Records and Swarte Yssel on February 8th. They have floored me again, and I think will floor many of you too – though the better metaphor would be more like getting hurled into the Sun. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): PAYSAGE D’HIVER, MERRIMACK, AKVAN

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Jan 232025
 

(written by Islander)

The unifying theme that explains the grouping of today’s three selections for this list is… black metal… but although they all fit under that large and ever-expanding genre tent, each is quite different from the others.

To explore the songs laid out in the preceding 15 Parts of the list, go here.

PAYSAGE D’HIVER

In Part 6 of this list I included a song by Calcarata that I was confident was the longest song I’ve ever picked for one of these lists in the 16 years I’ve been doing them. That song was 17 minutes long. But today I’m starting with one that’s even longer, the 18+ minute opening track from Paysage D’Hiver‘s monumental 2024 album Die Berge. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OOBRIS IOS — “DOSTRATIS SATOD DUVON XAGAN”

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Jan 232025
 

(written by Islander)

Many people, including people at this site (witness these six articles going back to 2015), have had many good things to say about the music of the Canadian atmospheric black metal band Wilt, and that is reason enough to pay attention to Vospat, the forthcoming debut EP of Oobris Ios, because its three-person lineup includes two members of Wilt. Those two people are vocalist Jordan Dorge and drummer Jordan Sanderson, and the third member is guitarist/bassist Ryan Forsyth (from the death metal band Dissolution, among others).

It’s fair to say that Oobris Ios represents a departure (perhaps fair to say an experimental departure) from the members’ previous bands. Among other things, the songs on Vospat represent the telling of a dire and daunting science-fictional or fantastical narrative, related to us in an ancient alien language but prefaced in English this way:

Before light, there was darkness. Almost 14 billion years ago, the entity known as the singularity was slain, and its followers scattered across what is now known as the universe. Their chants within the dark matter echo in the light, constantly trying to diminish its power. Oobris Ios is the dimensional reverberation that those in the light can hear. Bring hate. Bring the dark out of the light and extinguish it once and for all. Continue reading »

CONCRETE ICON: “VORACIOUS STREAMS”

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Jan 232025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile has brought us (and you) the following review of a new album by Finland’s Concrete Icon, released just a few days ago by Memento Mori and Fetzner Death Records.)

Maybe the dark, frozen months of the winter and the thick snow cover are not the right time to think about the reasons why there are not more death metal records played at the summer barbecue parties, but here we are. Just think about it, for it’s a perfect match-up, as both deal in the themes of dead, carved tissue, the eternal flames of charred remains, and the cult-like gatherings around those very flames, and are normally a whole lot of fun. Now only to find the place where this idea falls on fertile ground.

Not trying very hard, we turn our gaze towards Finland, the most metal-bands-per-capita country in the world, so if you’re going to make it anywhere, you can make it there with these random ideas. Anyway, all of this brings us today to our guests in Concrete Icon who, you might have guessed it, are indeed Finnish and play death metal. As if the spiky band logo and the toxic, green-tinged cover art by the brilliant Juanjo Castellano didn’t inform you enough, then heed these words. It really is a death metal album through and through. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 15): KANONENFIEBER, BLOODCROSS, DARKENED

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  No Responses »
Jan 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Continuing on with my plan to group songs in most of the remaining installments of this list in ways that make sense to me, today’s Part 15 includes three tracks from three very good 2024 albums that are highly propulsive, and all of them would fit into my weekly SHADES OF BLACK column, even though the last band is usually classified as death metal.

Also, all three album covers gives places of prominence to… skeletons.

The albums that house these songs are also records from which I easily could have picked different tracks for the list, which is one reason (among others) why they were so good. So I won’t be surprised if any of you would have made other picks; on a different day, I might have too.

To explore the songs in the previous 14 Parts of the list, use this link. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: BARSHASKETH / GRIEF RITUAL / MUTAGENIC HOST

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 222025
 

(Andy Synn once more sets out to share a few of his favourite home-grown exports)

My main hope, for all of these “Best of British” articles, is that they encourage people to check out some of the grass-roots talent from this dark, Satanic isle that they might otherwise have overlooked.

After all, I know from bitter, personal experience how hard it can be to break through and get yourselves noticed when there’s so many other bands vying for attention and exposure at the same time.

Not, it must be said, that this seems to be an issue for any of the bands in today’s piece – Barshasketh are one of the most respected bands in the UK Black Metal Scene, Grief Ritual have played multiple festivals and are about to release their much-hyped debut album on Church Road Records, and Mutagenic Host have already been pegged by some as the “next big thing” in British Death Metal – but hopefully this article can still play a role in bringing them all to an even wider audience.

Continue reading »

THE HALO EFFECT: “MARCH OF THE UNHEARD”

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Jan 222025
 

(Not long ago Nuclear Blast released the second album by the Swedish melodic death metal band The Halo Effect, and today we have DGR‘s review of the record.)

We are now a couple weeks removed from the release of The Halo Effect‘s newest album March Of The Unheard and the one thought that keeps rattling around the ole’ brainpan is a discussion of what exactly you might come to music for.

This can seem repetitive of course because everyone has a chosen purpose that music might fulfill for them, whether it’s simple enjoyment or some deeper resonance with the artist. I am more often part of the second club, which is why you’ll see many screeds penned that spend more time pontificating about why a specific piece of art might have arisen versus the actual general quality of it. Yet in the case of a group like The Halo Effect I’ve found myself firmly in the former camp.

When it comes to The Halo Effect, I’m not seeking anything deeper and I’m present for the simple enjoyment of whatever the band are creating, and it seems that largely, the band feel the same way. There’s nothing deeper here. No inner quest, nothing revealing itself, and no long-lasting message with which we can walk away from March Of The Unheard feeling fulfilled, with our lives changed. March Of The Unheard is musical red-meat at its finest and, for lack of better term, a perfectly fine ‘pop’ album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SACRIFICE

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jan 222025
 


photo by Kelly Clark Fotography

(On February 21st Cursed Blessings Records and High Roller Records will release Volume Six, a new album by the ’80s-era Canadian thrash metal band Sacrifice — their first one in 16 years and with their original lineup intact. Yesterday we published Wil Cifer’s review, and today we bring you Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Sacrifice vocalist/guitarist Rob Urbinati.)

It’s always cool to know that there are veterans of the metal scene who keeps its fire burning, who are able to give it hot and strong. Sacrifice is one such band.

They started in 1984 as one of the first Canadian thrash/speed bands and evolving at the same time as bands like Anvil, Exciter, and Razor did. Torment in Fire (1986), Forward to Termination (1987), Soldiers of Misfortune (1990), and Apocalypse Inside (1993) left their impact on the world’s scene, but Sacrifice disbanded in 1993 on the peak of their activity, as one may say.

The band returned in 2006 in its original lineup, and they keep on rocking until today. Scott Watts (bass), Joe Rico (guitars), Gus Pynn (drums), and Rob Urbinati (guitars, vocals) haven’t forgotten how to do aggressive, technical, and highly tense metal. Their new album Volume Six easily proves it, as well as this interview. Continue reading »

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