I’ll make this quick because I’m busy readying a few more posts for today — but this news doesn’t require a lot of elaboration anyway.
The news is that the excellent Swedish label Nordvis has today made a sampler of music by Nordvis artists available for free download. The sampler includes tracks by 12 bands, nearly all of whom we’ve praised at this site, including Forndom, Murg, Grift, Lustre, Panopticon, Nechochwen, and Stilla. Continue reading »
(Comrade Aleks interviews Peter Svensson of the Swedish doom band Void Moon.)
Void Moon rises again, radiating its mournful and dark shine for those who prefer slow and low doom metal. Their second full-length Deathwatch released by Sun & Moon Records in March 2016 has a deeper concept behind it, so it’s not just a collection of true doom dirges but also the result of considered and rigorous work. Void Moon bass guitarist Peter Svensson was on tour with Goatess when I sent him the request about an interview, but answered pretty soon on my recall — much appreciated. Continue reading »
Grey Aura are a two-man Dutch band who have recorded a massive debut album, a double-record entitled Waerachtighe beschryvinghe van drie seylagien, ter werelt noyt soo vreemt ghehoort that was initially self-released on Bandcamp and will now be released in June by the astute Finnish label Blood Music, both digitally and in a remarkable 2-CD set housed in a 60-page hardback book with foil-stamped printing.
Now, you may have already heard something about this unusual and tremendously ambitious album. In fact, if you have long memories, you may have heard about it here at NCS, because I wrote about two of the songs when they were first released for streaming in late 2014. Yes, this has been in the works for a long time, but when you understand more about the nature and scope of the project, you’ll understand why so much time has been invested in it. And so here’s the context of this album — followed by our premiere of yet another song: “Ijshoek“. Continue reading »
Is this too much? Songs, albums, and EPs from ten bands collected in a single post instead of divided up and spread out over time so you can have recovery periods in between the skull-fracturing? I’m afraid it might be too much, but obviously not afraid enough to change the plan. Mainly, I’m too impatient to share all this fine new metal to worry very much about your cranial integrity.
In fact, you can think of this as a test for the hardness of your skull. If you can make it to the end, you have a Granite-Level Skull and should consider applying for employment as a crash-test dummy. People with Eggshell Skulls might not make it through the first track; R.I.P. Those of you in between are degrees of semi-hard and semi-soft, kind of like cheese.
AMONG GODS
Three-and-a-half years have passed since I last wrote about this band from Bergen after discovering them through a listening session for a MISCELLANY post. But the opportunity for a rediscovery has arrived, because on June 27 Argonauta Records will release their new album, Ghost Empire. Continue reading »
(Allen Griffin reviews the last two albums by Norway’s Okkultokrati — which have recently been reissued by Southern Lord in advance of the band’s new album due later this year.)
In anticipation of their upcoming fourth full-length, Southern Lord is reissuing the second and third albums by Norway’s Okkultokrati, 2012’s Snakereigns and 2014’s Night Jerks, respectively. Both show a group at the top of their game, one with a unique identity but also one that’s constantly evolving.
Snakereigns is probably the heavier of the two, at least in the traditional sense. The sound is an amalgamation of metallic hardcore mixed with punishing bits of doom and sludge. What sets Okkultokrati apart, both then and now, is the pure bile they spit through the speakers, a mix of punk snarl and rock-and-roll swagger. Continue reading »
Get ready to move. Loosen up your neck muscles and discard any items of tight, confining clothing. Hell, just take everything off. If you feel even a slight urge to go to the bathroom, go ahead and get that out of the way now (I’ll explain why in a minute). All set? Then let’s go…
Here’s a new song named “Big Casino” from Revival, which is the forthcoming third album by Gozu, a group of Boston bruisers whom I’ve only just discovered and whose music has already proven to be powerfully addictive and absolutely, physically, compulsive. The album will arrive on June 10 via Gozu’s new label, Ripple Music. Continue reading »
Algorithm of Destruction is the title of the debut album by Red Dawn from Rennes in the French region of Brittany. It’s a nine-track onslaught of death metal in the bloodline of such bands as The Faceless, Necrophagist, Decapitated, Aborted, and Gorod, and today we happily bring you the premiere of the album’s second track, appropriately titled “Hate“.
If you’re in the mood to be jackhammered, eviscerated, and then shot through a threshing machine at the speed of a particle accelerator, then “Hate” is just what you need. But it offers more than the adrenaline rush of that kind of experience. Continue reading »
The best music videos (and unfortunately they’re a small percentage of the total) are those in which the visuals enhance the emotional impact of the music, and sometimes even make you think about the music in a different way. The video we’re premiering in this post is an example of such an effective partnership of sight and sound. It’s for the song “All Roads Lead To Perdition” by Subterranean Disposition from Melbourne, Australia, whose new album Contagiuum and the Landscapes of Failure will be released by Hypnotic Dirge Records and Solitude Productions on June 13.
This new album is the band’s second, though the group’s founder Terry Vainoras is no newcomer, having spent time in a variety of music projects for more than two decades. In addition to performing on guitar, bass, and saxophone for the album as well as contributing different vocal expressions, he enlisted the help of Dan Nahum (Bleakwood, The Veil, Dead River Runs Dry) on drums, Gelareh Pour on the Kemancheh and Qeychak Alto (plus vocals), and guest vocalist Daniel Lucas. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn assembles a trio of reviews for recently released albums by German bands.)
A couple of weeks back I put together a collection of reviews under the banner of “The Best of British 2016, Part 1”, chronicling three albums, each from a different artist, currently taking the UK underground scene by storm.
And although I’m currently in the process of putting Part 2 together, you’ll note how I’ve gotten slightly side-tracked by a plethora of sterling releases from our Germanic cousins, all with their roots, historically at least, in the general sound and aesthetic of Black Metal, but all of which offer something strikingly different to the more open-minded listener. Continue reading »
(DGR brings us a dual review of two gloomy albums released in April, by Italy’s Novembre and Sweden’s October Tide.)
The month of April has proven to be rather interesting if you are a fan of a very specific, European-flavored branch of melancholic doom metal. Sometimes referred to as melo-doom — for lack of a better short-term genre-naming — and other times described as being ethereal, this branch has seen something of an explosion in recent years. One of the results has been the re-formation of quite a few acts, and April has brought us releases by two of them, one that has effectively been re-formed for some time and one that is returning after a nine-year hiatus.
Coincidentally, both groups also happen to be named after months themselves, with Novembre releasing their come-back album Ursa on April 1st and October Tide released their third post-revival album, Winged Waltz, on April 22nd. Long story short: If you happen to inhabit the incredibly weird niche of being a fan of the prettier side of doom and also a huge fan of months and stupid coincidences, holy shit was April the month for you. Continue reading »