NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITHOUT MERCY — “BURN”

May 032016

Mouchido (pronounced mo-itchy-doe) is the name of the forthcoming EP by Vancouver’s Without Mercy. It’s the Japanese word for “repeat” or “to do one more time”, a title chosen for multiple reasons, in part because it is a re-recording of a previous release that now includes the band’s new vocalist. “In addition to that”, explains the band’s founder and guitarist DJ Temple, “I hold hold close ties with Japanese culture so I thought it would be the perfect time to introduce those lines into our music.” As an introduction to Mouchido, we bring you a video for the song “Burn“, which has a story of its own. Again, from DJ Temple:

“On the surface, ‘Burn‘ shows a decent into hell. The imagery and content seems to follow the rhetoric of a burning and painful afterlife. In reality, ‘Burn‘ is actually about the decent into madness. Your own personal hell while you battle your inner demons and face your own addictions. Listeners of this song can hear references to famous depictions of damnation from other literary worlds and even a very famous video game.” Continue reading »

ROADBURN 2016: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY (DAY TWO)

Metal News 3 Responses »

May 032016

The 2016 edition of the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands, is now in the history books. It was the first edition of the festival to be presented at the newly renovated 013 venue, and it boasted a typically impressive and diverse line-up of bands. While none of the NCS scribes was on hand for this year’s event, we do have beautiful photos of many of the performances, thanks to Kris T. Therrian of 17 seconds photography.

We’ve divided these photo collections into four parts, one for each day of the festival, and we’re rolling them out on successive days here at our site. You can see photos from Day One here. The remaining two installments will appear over the next two days. Many thanks to Kris for letting us share these memories with you. For more info about her work, visit these links: Continue reading »

JUDGING RELEASES BY COVERS

Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 12 Responses »

May 032016

(Our old friend from New Zealand and occasional guest writer Booker brings us a collection of new releases discovered through their cover art, along with some very entertaining words.)

“You should never judge a book by its cover”, or so the saying goes. No doubt most of us try and do the same with our approach to metal. Yet somehow, in amongst all the diversity of music out there, the community of metal musicians seems to self-organize; just like some drops of T-1000 liquid metal coming together to form a greater terrifying machine, different minds and souls from across the world end up uniting in their artistic endeavours and adorning their albums with specific, identifiable, cover themes. For the most part, seeing a cover with a certain “typical genre X” album art style can lead you to a fair idea of what aural treasures lie inside, but sometimes they can come out of left field and surprise you. We shouldn’t judge albums by their cover, but let’s be honest: we might say we don’t, but we all do. Like masturbation.

Once upon a time back in NCS history, Islander ran a series called “Eye Catchers” dedicated to albums that hooked you in with their artwork (and other tasty aspects). As I was perusing Bandcamp for delicious new audio treats, I realised that I too was basing my decisions of what to listen to by inadvertently succumbing to the artwork, like a moth to flame. So I figured, the hell with it, let’s see where this folly-filled exercise leads me…. and after a few surprises, and some fails, here’s a few highlights I’d like to share. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT. I MEAN REALLY A WHOLE LOT OF FREE SHIT. TONS OF IT. MEGATONS OF IT. “RITUAL VOL. 3” FROM THE DEATH OF A MODERNIST

Free Shit 3 Responses »

May 032016

I guess it may seem that I made my point in the headline, but I really only made part of my point. Because “free” doesn’t mean “good”. “Free” takes on real significance only when the gift makes you happy — and this one damn well should.

I’m referring to a new compilation of metal compiled by The Death of A Modernist. Though this is the third of these compilations, it’s the first one that hit my cracked radar screen. And it’s quite a remarkable line-up of fine metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ANCIENT SPELL (CONRAD VIZ)

Interviews No Responses »

May 022016

(Comrade Aleks conducted this interview with guitarist Conrad Viz of the L.A. band Ancient Spell.)

I had an idea to do an interview with Ancient Spell. It is a Los Angeles-based band that combines classic doom metal and aggressive thrash elements in their music. They were formed in August 2012 by the guitarist Conrad Viz and recorded two albums – a self-titled debut in 2013 and the sophomore Forever in Hell released by Minotauro Records in 2015. Well, you see – it’s interesting and, let’s say, an original mix, so it’s worthy of your attention.

Occasionally I’ve sent questions to the band, and at the same time received answers from both Conrad Viz and Donnie Marhefka, Ancient Spell’s frontman, so in the end I have two interviews with quite similar questions but with different answers. Here’s the interview with Conrad, you’ll be able to find our interview with Donnie a little bit later (during this or next week) on doom-metal.com. Enjoy the Ancient Spell. Continue reading »

ROADBURN 2016: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY (DAY ONE)

Metal News 5 Responses »

May 022016

The 2016 edition of the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands, is now in the history books. It was the first edition of the festival to be presented at the newly renovated 013 venue, and it boasted a typically impressive and diverse line-up of bands. While none of the NCS scribes was on hand for this year’s event, we do have photos of many of the performances, thanks to Kris T. Therrian of 17 seconds photography, and beginning today we’ll be providing them for your viewing pleasure.

We’ve divided these photo collections into four parts, one for each day of the festival, and we’ll roll out the remaining three installments over the next three days. Many thanks to Kris for letting us share these memories with you. For more info about her work, visit these links: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE CONJURATION — “WHORE”

Premieres 3 Responses »

May 022016

We bring you the premiere of a new song by The Conjuration, a premiere that we are especially excited to bring you because it includes vocals by a member of the NCS family (more about that later).

For those new to the name, The Conjuration is the genre-bending (and mind-bending) one-man project of Corey Jason from Danville, Virginia. When last we posted about this project, it was Austin Weber’s review (here) of The Conjuration’s last album, 2014’s Surreal, which he described as music that “bends the limits of death metal… pushing it down creepy, wailing, mumbling, singing stairs to hell, and then pulling it back up with proggy keys and synths—only to have it crumble again under the weight of the gleefully insane death metal at the heart” of the album.” Continue reading »

NECROSAVANT: “ANIARA MMXIV”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

May 022016

(We’re late reviewing the very impressive debut album of Necrosavant, but DGR does his best to make up for the delay with this extensive review.)

Sometimes reviews start out as entirely different beasts from the ones that are eventually published. You close your eyes and start typing — in my case usually to discover that your fingers were off to the left by just one letter after about a paragraph — and the next thing you know your opening segment has spent more time talking about other projects that a band might be involved in than the release you were initially focused on. This review has one such lineage, starting out as one for In Mourning, before shifting to October Tide, before finally becoming a review for Necrosavant.

Believe it or not, there actually is a throughline for those three releases. The initially wild and wooly paragraph that opened up this monster would’ve taken you on a journey ’round the world before landing on why those three are tied together somewhat. Instead, it came down to the fact that although our site posted about the Necrosavant kickstarter way back when it launched, and I personally was on pins and needles hoping to see it succesful (based on a one-minute sample video of guest vocalist Tobias Netzell (In Mourning, Antarktis) delivering a monstrous vocal performance), we actually never got around to talking about the whole album after its end-of-February release through Kolony Records came and went. The time has come. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REVULSION — “DRAIN / REJECT MYSELF”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

May 022016

When a band name themselves Revulsion, it’s a safe bet that they’re not going to play break-up songs, narcotic stoner jams, or ambient drone. Of course, that still leaves a lot of open territory, most likely the kind that resembles a war zone. But as much fun as guessing games can be, we won’t leave you guessing for much longer.

Of course, some people reading this will already know about Revulsion, but the two-track 7″ we’re premiering today was my first exposure to what they do. You can probably guess that I think it’s damned good. The name is Drain / Reject Myself. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SEA OF BONES, HÄXENZIJRKELL, HVØSCH, SHYY

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 15 Responses »

May 012016

Most of the music in this Shades of Black series comes from the realms of black metal, but not all of it. Music can be black for other reasons as well, as demonstrated by the first of the four bands featured here.

This is a collection of songs that have been keeping me company in recent dark days. Until I decided to add the fourth band, I was going to call this Shades of Black — Long-Form Edition, because the songs by the first three bands are indeed much longer than average. They convincingly earn the extra minutes, and I hope you’ll carve out some space for them.

SEA OF BONES

As far as these selfish ears are concerned, far too much time has passed since New Haven’s Sea of Bones released their last album, The Earth Wants Us Dead. At last, we have something new. Continue reading »

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