NO CLEAN SINGING

TOMBS: “ALL EMPIRES FALL”

Mar 222016

(Wil Cifer reviews the powerful new EP by Brooklyn’s Tombs.)

After wrecking eardrums with 1349 and Full of Hell on the Chaos Raids tour, the Brooklyn band is stepping further into the darkness on their new EP All Empires Fall. It might not seem as grim a journey, with the increased focus of their song-writing lighting the band’s way, but it is a powerful addition to their legacy.

Without a doubt, things have changed for this Brooklyn band since releasing Winter Hours in 2009. Some of those changes include the band’s line-up, which now includes Fade Kainer from Batillus / Statiqbloom. Kainer’s industrial side is set back in the shadows as a slight drone launches them into the solid metal chug of the opening instrumental “The World Is Made of Fire”, with the band lashing themselves into straight-up black metal for “Obsidian”. But it’s not just full blast ahead. These guys have more tricks up their sleeves with Kainer‘s synths adding a new depth to the band’s post-apocalyptic sonic layering. Continue reading »

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: AN NCS INTRODUCTION TO THRILL JOCKEY

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Mar 222016

(Our old friend Leperkahn finally gets around to doing something he forecast he would do in early February, with a selection of music that includes not-metal as well as metal.)

I mentioned at the end of my overlong 2015 EOTY list about a month ago that there would be an addendum to said list.

Since the end of September of last year, I’ve been an intern at Thrill Jockey Records, assembling and packing all of your beloved records, among other things (if you’re looking to steal my fingerprints so as to implicate me in a crime later in life, now’s probably gonna be your best opportunity). The job has introduced me to a ton of new music, some of it of the metallic variety, some not, though I would contend that the non-metallic stuff that’s appealed to me might appeal to some of you, as open-minded music listeners who come from a primarily metal background, such as myself.

In a move of unprecedented cronyism and self-promotion, I’m going to use this post to take you through a tour of some recent TJ output, some of it metal, some not. Admittedly, this isn’t a perfect addendum to a 2015 best-of list, since some of what’s featured came out in the first few months of this year, and some came out before 2015. But truly, good music need not consider age; so let’s get on with it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE WRETCHED END, MOONSORROW, MISTUR, SKINLESS, FUNERAL WHORE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Mar 212016

Yesterday I had collected a handful of excellent new songs for a “Seen and Heard” post today. And then today began, and our in-box rapidly filled up with notices of still more song premieres from bands I like (along with one that invited me to “Have Fun Tonight With Asian-Grils”). I’ve decided to save my earlier collection for tomorrow — though there’s an equal chance that tomorrow will bring still more new stuff — and devote this post to music that’s a bit more “hot off the presses”.

THE WRETCHED END

As all connoisseurs of fine metal should know, The Wretched End is the collaboration between former Emperor and Zyklon guitarist Samoth, Mindgrinder/Windir vocalist/guitarist Cosmo, and Dark Funeral drummer Nils “Dominator” Fjellström. They have a new album coming out on April 22 via Indie Recordings named In These Woods, From These Mountains. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SYLVAINE — “DELUSIONS”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 2 Responses »

Mar 212016

On May 13, Season of Mist will release Wistful, the second album of Norwegian composer and multi-instrumentalist Sylvaine. On this new album, Sylvaine again composed all the music and handles vocals and almost all instruments, with Alcest’s Neige and Stephen Shepard splitting the drum performances and with additional guests Coralie Louarnika and Thibault Guichard performing violin, viola, and cello on the title track.

What we have for you today is the debut of the album’s opening song “Delusions” (one of the tracks on which Neige plays drums). If you’re unfamiliar with Sylvaine, you’ll learn from the first seconds of “Delusions” that her music is in many ways an outlier for our putrid site. Most obviously, she has a beautiful, ethereal singing voice, but the exceptions to our “rules” don’t stop there. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GERYON — “THE WOUND AND THE BOW”

Premieres 1 Response »

Mar 212016

Three years on from their fascinating, self-titled debut album, New York-based Geryon have now been embraced by Profound Lore Records, which will release the band’s second full-length, The Wound And The Bow. In mid-February, Stereogum premiered the opening track (“Silent Command”), and now we bring you the second single, which is the album’s title track.

Even if I hadn’t already been primed to pounce on this record by the impact of Geryon’s debut album, I would have made the leap anyway, for three reasons. First, Geryon is composed of two very talented musicians, Nicholas McMaster and Lev Weinstein, both of whom are also members of Krallice, along with the man who produced this album, Colin Marston.

Second, I have a weakness for bass-and-drum bands, and that’s what Geryon is — though this album also includes guest electronic-music contributions from Jim Mroz (Lussuria), Nick Podgurski (New Firmament, Feast of the Epiphany), and Chris Latina (Private Archive, Article Collection), as well as Marston. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORMENTIUM: “COILS 1 – VOID OF MUSE”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Mar 212016

On the first of February we brought you the premiere of the first single from the debut album Bound To The Depths by the veteran Oregon black metal band Tormentium, and now we bring you another — a song called “Coils 1: Void of Muse“.

As the track’s title suggests, it’s the first part of a story told in three songs that closes the album. As the band explains, it “deals with the narrative of an estranged artist who finds his only inspiration from a mysterious entity beyond the world of the living, in Lovecraftian fashion.”

The lyrics, written from the artist’s perspective, tell of “the vision that crept from the void and found me beyond the walls of sleep,” its “slithering tentacles” coiling his brain, inspiring “a composition of ravenous haste gravely depicting the doorway to death”. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 70: DYSCARNATE

THE SYNN REPORT 3 Responses »

Mar 212016

Dyscarnate 2016

(In this 70th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the releases to date of UK-based Dyscarnate.)

Recommended for fans of: Immolation, Hate, Misery Index

I’ll probably catch some serious flack for saying this, but sometimes it seems like the UK scene has an unfortunate tendency, consciously or otherwise, to celebrate mass-appeal and mediocrity over inspiration and artistic integrity — often mixed in with a weird strain of pseudo-nationalist sentiment that demands your unequivocal, unthinking support for “True British Heavy Metal”… and insinuates that you’re a traitor or a poser if you fail to do so.

Despite the fact that the country is currently bubbling with fantastic, unique bands (particularly in the Doom and Black Metal genres) easily the equal of anything the rest of the world can produce, there’s still a large section of the scene who seem happy to just settle for what’s comfortable and familiar, be it the next in a seemingly endless line of interchangeable, lowest-common-denominator Thrash/Groove acts, or yet another generic, domestic-brand version of whatever’s currently trendy in the good old US of A.

And yet despite this, or maybe even because of it, it still pleases me whenever I get the chance to showcase a UK band capable of going above and beyond the call of duty. A band kicking ass and taking names entirely on their own terms. A band like Dyscarnate. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALGOMA (“PHTHISIS”) AND CHRONOBOT (“RED NAILS”)

Premieres 5 Responses »

Mar 202016

AlgomA are a “despair-fueled sludge” band from Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada. Chronobot are purveyors of “noisy, spaced-out stoner doom” from Regina and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan. They have joined together on a new split release that will become available on vinyl and as a digital download on April 1 — and today we bring you the premiere of one track from the split by each band.

As you’re going to discover, although there are definite differences in the approach of these two bands, this split makes a lot of sense, too — because both bands are soul-crushingly heavy.

ALGOMA

AlgomA’s debut release was the full-length album Reclaimed by the Forest in 2014. Their two tracks on the split are “Phthisis” and “Electric Fence”, and what you’re about to hear is the first of those. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 3): NABAATH, DEAFEST, AUTOKRATOR, VUKARI, NIHILISTINEN BARBAARISUUS, NEBULUS

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 2 Responses »

Mar 202016

This is the delayed completion of a three-part post I began early last week, collecting and reviewing mostly new songs, EPs, and albums in the orbit of black metal. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

One benefit of the delay is that I happened across a very recent song that’s the fourth item in this final installment, which includes music from six bands that I’ve been enjoying. Most of what I’ve collected here falls on the “atmospheric” side of the black metal spectrum.

NABAATH

In a previous edition of Shades of Black that appeared the day after Christmas 2015, I wrote about a striking video for a live performance by a band named Nabaath (who are Russian but now based in Ukraine), accompanied by dancer Mariya KarMa. The name of the song was “Iron In Your Throat”, and it’s one of nine on Nabaath’s third album, Common Graves, which was released last fall and is now available in full on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (NOOTHGRUSH)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 1 Response »

Mar 202016

My introduction to Oakland’s Noothgrush came in 2011 via Southern Lord’s The Power of the Riff tour, a limited run of west coast dates that marked the band’s return after splitting up in 2001 (and their first show in Seattle since 1997). What I wrote about that show (here) was my best effort to explain the impact of the music:

“Imagine this: You’re chained in an iron receptacle, and through vents in the bottom, hot paving tar slowly flows in. Inexorably, at a glacial pace, it covers your feet, it climbs up your legs, it reaches and passes the part of your body that does all the thinking, it covers your abdomen and your chest, your arms strain at their chains and you scream as the tar boils the flesh away until it reaches the empty cavity on top of your shoulders and pours into your ears, mouth, and nose, suffocating you in a blistering black agony. Your last sensations are the smell of your own incinerating flesh and the shrieking chants of this band’s vocalist…. Sick, sloooooow, sludgy, and ultimately irresistible.”

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