By now, when I say that Mgła’s Exercises In Futility is an album for the ages, I expect no argument.
Yesterday these Polish magicians posted a video of a live performance of the song “VI” from that album. The video, which was filmed during the the Nidrosian Black Mass Aftermath tour in December, is as much a work of art as that magnificent album — and I bow my head in respect to Woda i Pustka, who filmed and edited it. Continue reading »
I guess I went overboard with this collection of new metal in a blackened vein. Believe it or not, even though eight bands are featured in this round-up, I made a lot of hard choices, leaving behind many other new releases I also heard over the last week that I thought were good. But eight is still a lot for a single post. Hope you won’t be deterred by its length from giving everything here a listen.
I organized these songs with a quartet of full-throttle assaults at the start, followed by a trio of more ritualistic, strange and/or atmospheric selections, and concluding with one final head-crusher.
SVARTTJERN
Norway’s Svarttjern signed with Soulseller Records for the release of their fourth album Dødsskrik, which our friend eiterorm tell us is Norwegian for “Scream of Death”. The song I have for you is the first advance track from the album, “All Hail Satan”. Continue reading »
Welcome to another Sunday edition of this continuing feature, in which we recall metal from the past. The band I’ve chosen for today — Kawir — is a Greek black metal institution, with a long string of splits, EPs, and albums dating back to 1993. The last full-length was 2012’s Ισόθεος (Isotheos) — though a new one will soon be upon us.
Though widely respected and influential, Kawir don’t have quite the same name recognition as other Greek black metal bands of a similar vintage, such as Rotting Christ, Septic Flesh, or Varathron, though perhaps to a greater extent than any of those bands, Kawir has embraced ancient Hellenic culture in their music, with lyrics sung in ancient Greek and songs built upon the rich traditions of Greek myth and legend. Continue reading »
It’s possible that I owe each of these two bands an apology for reviewing their new releases alongside each other. I swear I wasn’t trying to be ironic or make any mischief. It just happened that I listened to both of them back-to-back, liked them both (for somewhat different reasons), and was anxious to spill some words about them. So I’m striking while the iron is hot in my head.
ITHAQUA: “THE BLACK MASS SABBATH PULSE”
When I first came across this band’s debut demo Initiation To Obscure Mysteries more than a year ago (here), I didn’t know anything about them other than the fact that they seemed to be from Greece. But that demo was an arresting experience, and I felt grateful that Iron Bonehead spread it around.
Now, a year later, Ithaqua finally have a page on Metal-Archives (along with the other bands with the same name who are not them), they seem to have attracted a following, and Iron Bonehead will again be releasing their music. This time it’s a two-song 7″ named The Black Mass Sabbath Pulse, and it’s even more impressive than the demo. Continue reading »
(Allen Griffin rejoins us with this review of the new album by Inverloch from Melbourne, Australia.)
Following up 2012’s critically acclaimed EP Dusk|Subside, Australian Doom/Death juggernaut Inverloch are set to release their debut full-length Distance|Collapsed this March via Relapse Records. Inverloch consists of Mark Cullen (guitars), Ben James (vocals), Chris Jordan (bass), Paul Mazziota (drums), and Matthew Skarajew (guitars), and you won’t read anything about this band without reference to Mazziota and Skarajew’s involvement with the seminal diSEMBOWELMENT, and this particular article will be no different. But there is certainly justification for this beyond the two bands’ sharing common members, seeing as how Inverloch started off under the moniker d.USK, performing material from diSEMBOWELMENT’s only official album, Transcending into the Peripheral. And while Inverloch might be performing original material, their sound is perfectly in keeping with their lineage.
For the uninitiated, what we are dealing with here is a Death/Doom hybrid that trawls through the darkest depths of crypt stench. The most immediate analogues for this sound are Incantation’s first two albums or, in more recent times, the work of Hooded Menace. But with Inverloch, there are also elements that add a more obscure, or what one might call a mystical, slant to the material. The group achieves this by juxtaposing clean guitars over the top of the crushing foundation laid down by the rest of the band. This is a consistent feature of both incarnations of this outfit and one of the things that makes them so fascinating. Continue reading »
I woke up this morning to find a link to this song waiting for me on Facebook, and this note from DGR: “Obviously the most important thing to happen this week and partially why I’m alive. Grooves harder than your favorite nine string wielding plural name band of the week. Also sings better. Probably raps better too.”
We’ll probably lose a few readers because I’m posting this. But you have to understand that it’s almost obligatory that I do it, since more than one of us here at NCS have been writing about BabyMetal since 2011, back when they were not a lot more than a curiosity, back in the halcyon days when Phro made our site more deranged. Continue reading »
There are two ways you can think about Cleveland’s Embalmer. You can think of them as a death metal band who started in 1989 and made a name for themselves with demos like Into the Oven, Taxidermist, and Rotting Remains, and a 1995 EP entitled There Was Blood Everywhere — and then went on hiatus for nearly a decade, returning in 2006 with an album named 13 Faces of Death that even the band weren’t crazy about.
Or you can forget all that history and just think of Embalmer as a band with an album named Emanations From the Crypt coming out on April 1 that will tear your fucking head off. Continue reading »
(In this new edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn has picked a fine day to review the discography-to-date of Finnish marvels Oranssi Pazuzu — including the band’s brand new album that’s due for release today, for which we have a full album stream for you to hear.)
Recommended for fans of: Nachtmystium, (mid-period) Enslaved, Killing Joke
After two more Death Metal leaning editions of The Synn Report, I think it’s time to take things in a… different… direction. And, if there’s one thing that can be said about Oranssi Pazuzu it’s that they’re definitely “different”.
After all, the Finnish quintet have never been your stereotypical Black Metal act and have rarely, if ever, played up to the expectations of their audience. Over the course of the last 9-or-so years the quintet have released three (now four) critically applauded albums fusing the base elements of Black Metal with massive injections of proggy psychedelia and surrealistic sonic experimentation, constantly pushing their sound in ever more unusual, unconventional directions.
With their fourth full-length album Värähtelijä set for release today, now seemed like the perfect time to suit up and take a trip out into the void in the company of these Finnish cosmonauts! Continue reading »
The story of Finland’s Convulse is a twisting, turning one, which in strange ways seems to have circled back on itself, like an ouroboros. The band launched their career as a death metal band through the release of their first demo in 1990 and their acclaimed 1991 debut album World Without God. Three years later brought their second album, Reflections, which marked a controversial shift in sound to what might be called “death ‘n’ roll” — and not long after, Convulse disbanded.
Almost 20 years later, Convulse rose from its own ashes, releasing their third album (Evil Prevails) in the fall of 2013 via Svart Records in what seemed a reconnection to their death metal roots in the early ’90s. And now they bring us a fourth full-length, also to be released by Svart Records, bearing the title Cycle of Revenge — and as they did before in the earliest chapters of their story, Convulse have again gone off in a surprising new direction.
Those of you who caught the premiere of the album’s title track last month have an inkling of what I mean, but we have further proof today as we host the premiere of a lyric video for the new album’s second track, “God Is You“. Continue reading »
The French trio Witchthroat Serpent made an impressive debut with their 2014 self-titled album, and now they’re poised to follow that with a new full-length named Sang-Dragon, which will be released by Deadlight Entertainment on April 30. Though the release date doesn’t arrive for two months, we have the premiere of a new song that should cause you to circle it in red on the calendar.
The first morbid notes of “Into the Black Wood” tell you that you’re about to cross a threshold into a dark place, and the feeling is reinforced when the mammoth, fuzz-bombed riffs begin raining down like meteors. By contrast to the titanic stomp of those deep brontosaurian chords, Fredrik Bolzann’s voice soars up high in a psychedelic wail. Continue reading »