NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD: DJEVEL, LECTERN, TORTORUM, INNUMERABLE FORMS, MANÍACO, SPEEDWHORE, INVERNOIR, ABYSMAL GROWLS OF DESPAIR, DREADED VOID

Sep 132016

I sometimes wonder whether our putrid site is the perpetrator of sensory overload. I am wondering that today, as I shovel vicious music from 9 bands at you on the heels of DGR’s four-band round-up earlier today and nine music posts yesterday. Who can listen carefully to this much music? I mean, besides your slaves here at the NCS asylum, who clearly have some kind of metal psychosis?

I assume the answer is, Not Very Many. Normal, reasonably well-adjusted people will pick and choose. This is a satisfactory answer because it allows me to justify my indulgence in vomiting forth descriptive adjectives and metaphors that may act as guides to the picking and choosing. And with those unsolicited confessions about my state of mind out of the way, here we go again… with different shades of black, death, and doom.

DJEVEL

To begin, I want to share with you the first single from Djevel’s new album (their fourth), Norske Ritualer. The name of the song is “Vi slakter den foerste og den andre, den tredje lar vi gaa mot nord“. Continue reading »

NOX FORMULAE: “THE HIDDEN PATHS TO BLACK ECSTASY”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Sep 132016

(We welcome guest contributor Lewis Edwards, who wrote the following review of the new album by the Greek band Nox Formulae.)

Few bands in black metal manage to strike the balance between originality and familiarity, and those that do usually tend to go through the “trial-and-error” process before crafting that perfect sound. This couldn’t be any further from the truth for Greek legion Nox Formulae, however, whose debut album The Hidden Paths To Black Ecstasy is an unforgiving lesson in how to take influence from your contemporaries while simultaneously creating something genuine and distinguished.

Intro “NOXON” sets the tone for the rest of the record, with its steady, ritualistic percussion creating a sense of unease from the very start. This unease turns out to be well-founded, as “The Shadow Smoke” then rips through the air with its brittle, trebly guitars and reverberated background notes. It’s a truly memorable way to open up an album, reminiscent of the way in which Darkthrone pummel the listener after a foreboding intro in their quintessential album, A Blaze in the Northern Sky. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): WORMROT, WASTEWALKER, CARACH ANGREN, BRUJERIA

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Sep 132016

(DGR steps forward with a round-up of new songs and videos. We will have a second round-up later today as well.)

Wormrot – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Grind

If it feels like this summary is a little shorter than usual, it’s because the song itself is kind of like a car crash that you didn’t see coming. One moment, you’re blissfully unaware of anything around — then you blink, you see headlights and hear the crunch of metal, and that is the end. Such is the case with Wormrot’s new blink-and-you’ll-miss-it song.

Yes, the end of last week brought welcome news to the NCS fold in the form of new music from Singapore’s Wormrot. The newly released song, entitled “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Grind” comes off of the group’s new album Voices — due next month and their followup to 2011’s Dirge. Like many of Wormrot’s songs, “Spotless Grind” clocks in at just over a minute and is punchy as can get, having said all it needs to say in the meantime — which can mostly just be boiled down to “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH” over a series of unrelenting grind blasts. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CASKETS OPEN

Interviews No Responses »

Sep 122016

(Comrade Aleks interviewed the three men in Finland’s Caskets Open — Timo Ketola, Antti Ronkainen, and Pyry Ojala.)

Saint Vitus didn’t invent the wheel back then in the ‘80s, but the environment formed their sound and it was natural that one of the first doom metal bands had some punk influences in their songs. However, this mix didn’t turn to be a trend, and Caskets Open from Helsinki sound like a pretty original band.

This trio mix gloomy doom metal and an aggressive punk aesthetic, and it seems that after two full-length albums they’re going to go deeper down in their explorations and add more savage tunes in their songs. Their second record To Serve the Collapse was released two years ago, so I needed some fresh news from the band first-hand. I sent a request to Caskets Open, and they answered. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: SATURNO — “THOU ART ALL”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Sep 122016

Today marks the advent of Thou Art All, the debut EP by a band from Ferrara, Italy, named Saturno, and we happily bring you a full stream of this astounding new work.

Saturno’s ranks include past and present members of Unbirth, Demiurgon, Valgrind, and Hobnailed, and they have turned their talents to the creation of a concept EP about the Trimurti, a trinity of the supreme God in Hinduism formed by Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Continue reading »

BLACK METAL (PART 5): A COLLECTION CURATED BY NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Sep 122016

(Neill Jameson (Krieg) returns to our site with a further installment in his series on black metal from years past. Some real gems are collected here, and others can be found in his previous installments located behind this link.)

Without much need for exposition since this is my fifth time doing this subject, I guess all I really can say is I don’t understand why these records sit with some dust on them when so much other nonsense gets lavished with praise. It’s probably my taste and inability to think positive thoughts, but that seems like some shit for my therapist. So without further hold-ups, here’s a few more black metal records that I feel should have some light shed on them. Continue reading »

OBSCURE SPHINX: “EPITAPHS”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Sep 122016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Poland’s Obscure Sphinx.)

In my November 2015 edition of The Synn Report, I wrote about how Obscure Sphinx had been mostly “underrated and underappreciated by the metal-loving public at large.” Despite having two fantastic albums to their name (particularly 2013’s nigh-untouchable Void Mother) the Polish quintet have spent the majority of their career thus far flying under the radar of most metalheads, with only a small, but dedicated, cadre of disciples (hi Brett!) scattered across the globe who truly appreciated the band for their talents and uniqueness.

I have no idea whether their third release, Epitaphs (complete with suitably esoteric Mario Duplantier cover art), will do much to change that, but I have to hope so. Because OS are exactly the type of band – distinct, complex, captivating — that the Metal world needs more of. Continue reading »

NEUROSIS: “FIRES WITHIN FIRES”

Album Reviews 12 Responses »

Sep 122016

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Neurosis.)

The pioneers of sludge metal are back, and ironically by some of today’s standards Neurosis are no longer a metal band. This is not to say the album is not heavy. Heavy just comes in different colors.

It doesn’t take long for the band to make use of this dynamic, as it happens midway into the first song “Bending Light” when the gruff vocals kick in. They spend the first half of the song wandering around a dark and trippy landscape. This is fine with me. Neurosis had gone too far in Pink Floyd’s direction back on Honor Found in Decay, almost to the point that I thought certain portions sounded like they were from Obscured By Clouds. I am glad to hear more sonic menace infiltrated back into their sound.

I can accept that this is not going to be Souls at Zero or Through Sliver and Blood. If that is what you are looking for going into this, it’s time to face the fact they have moved on from there. The direction this album finds them on is darker and feels to me more true to who they are as a band. Continue reading »

A NEW SONG FROM GHOST: “SQUARE HAMMER”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Sep 122016

Well, for the second time today, I’m scurrying to write about a new song premiere (the first one was from Bölzer) without waiting to prepare a Seen and Heard round-up. This next one is from Sweden’s Ghost, and for now it’s exclusively streaming on the Octane music channel. It was preceded by an interview with one of the Nameless Ghouls, who said: “We’re very proud of it. We’re obviously thrilled to be able to play something new. This is a short, to-the-point little gem right at the jugular.”

And so it is. Continue reading »

BÖLZER: “I AM III”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Sep 122016

When I learned yesterday that Bölzer intended to release a new song today, I had a text discussion with DGR about where the song would premiere. We bandied about the names of certain very large online music sites who in well-calculated fashion sprinkle a few bits of extremity into their large stew of not-metal dreck… as DGR put it, sites that have “massive reach, but massive reach to deaf ears” when it comes to music like this. We had that discussion because Bölzer has become such a critical darling (on the strength of very few songs) that it wouldn’t be surprising to see their new track pop up on one of those behemoth sites, even if only .01% of their readers ever bother to listen to music like this.

We should have known better. None of that happened. Bölzer instead released the song straight to Soundcloud, relying on word of mouth to spread it around. The song is “I AM III“, it comes from the band’s forthcoming album Hero, and it’s hellishly good. Continue reading »

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