A DIRTY HALF DOZEN: ABJECTION RITUAL, ANTLERS, DEPTHS, FOEHAMMER, MØL, YASHIRA

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Apr 182018
 

 

(Andy Synn has compiled reviews of six new releases in this mid-week post.)

 

Despite our best efforts to the contrary, there still remains a certain cadre of people convinced that there’s some sort of nefarious motive or hidden agenda behind the work we do here at NCS.

So, in the interests of clarity and transparency I’d like to begin this piece by restating a few things.

For one, you should be aware that we don’t host any ads here at the site, take in any money from bands/labels, and don’t receive any kicks for clicks. This place is entirely independent and self-funded, and it’s going to stay that way.

Similarly we’re not beholden to record labels for access or coverage, nor do we favour “big” releases over less well-known ones. We’ll write about them, sure, if we feel like we want to, but the general ethos of this site has always been to focus on less well-known and less widely-covered, bands.

And while we have built up a good relationship with certain labels/agents over the years, this has largely been based upon a reputation for scrupulous honesty. We won’t host a premiere, conduct an interview, or write a review, unless we actually like the band/artist in question, and while we always try to accentuate the positive, we’re not afraid to provide (constructive) criticism when it’s warranted.

As a matter of fact we’ve actually been blacklisted or downgraded by certain agents/agencies in the past simply because we weren’t nice enough about their bands…

Anyway, all of this preamble is really just a long-winded way of saying that the following collection of reviews hasn’t been paid for or solicited in any way. It’s just a bunch of albums I’ve stumbled across in the last few weeks/months that I felt like writing about and recommending to you all. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CLARET ASH — “THE GREAT ADJUDICATION”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 162018
 

 

(We are very happy to present the premiere stream of the new album by Claret Ash in advance of its April 30 release by Casus Belli Musica and Beverina, preceded by Andy Synn’s review.)

 

Reviewing this album has been something of a strange experience for me, since I’ve actually already written about half of it last year, when the first five tracks were released as The Great Adjudication: Fragment One.

Now though, with the addition of seven more songs (which, I suppose, collectively make up Fragment Two), the band are all set to release the complete version of The Great Adjudication next month in its full, seventy-five minute glory.

The big question of course, is whether the Australian quartet’s gamble is going to pay off, whether these additional tracks will serve to enhance and improve that initial experience, or whether their decision to split the record up into two separate sequences of songs – and then attempt to recombine them for the album proper – is going to blow up in their faces. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: EMPLOYED TO SERVE

 Interviews, WAXING LYRICAL  No Responses »
Apr 142018
 

 

(Andy Synn returns with another installment in his Saturday series about lyrics in metal, and today brings us insights from Sammy Urwin of the UK band Employed To Serve.)

 

So last week’s edition of Waxing Lyrical featured an artist who I declared to have produced one of the best albums of 2017, and so I thought… why not carry on in that vein?

So here’s your chance to learn more about Employed to Serve, whose most recent album, The Warmth of a Dying Sun, was an absolute masterstroke of metallic catharsis and furious energy, courtesy of the band’s guitarist/main song-writer Sammy Urwin. Continue reading »

OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE: “WITH INEXORABLE SUFFERING”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 132018
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by California-based Our Place of Worship Is Silence, which is being released today by Translation Loss Records., and features striking cover art by Wrest of Leviathan.)

 

When you get right down to the beating, bleeding heart of things, a band is really just an organic machine, a biological mechanism of meat and metal, driven by electrical impulses and instinctual imperatives to procreate and disseminate its memetic ideas as far and as wide as possible.

This is something that Our Place of Worship is Silence seem to have grasped on an innate level with their vicious and hate-fuelled second album, With Inexorable Suffering, which finds the deadly duo simultaneously fleshing out their gruesome sound whilst also stripping it back to its most lethally efficient form. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (MONOLITHE, ÆTHĔRĬA CONSCĬENTĬA, GLORIOR BELLI)

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  1 Response »
Apr 102018
 

 

(After a hiatus, we present another edition of Andy Synn’s three-line reviews.)

 

According to my records (or vague recollections) it’s been almost ten months since the last edition of ‘Reviews in Haikus’… and this simply will not stand!

So, since I have a backlog of unreviewed albums as long as the Seine, I’ve selected three albums from our Gallic cousins which deserve some attention to cover here.

So, without further ado… Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: FOSCOR

 Interviews, WAXING LYRICAL  4 Responses »
Apr 072018
 


photo by Unai Endemaño

 

(Andy Synn returns with another installment in his Saturday series about lyrics in metal, and today we have a fascinating and eloquent discussion by J. F. Fiar, the vocalist and bassist for the Spanish band Foscor, who has penned the lyrics for their songs, in Catalan and English, for the last four years.)

 

Foscor’s latest album, the stunning Les Irreals Visions, was a beautifully bleak, moody and multifaceted delight, and was so good I declared it one of the Critical Top Ten albums of 2017 and at one point described it as:

“…an album that is simultaneously easy to pick up, and nearly impossible to put down…”

Hopefully, like me, you’ve found it just as difficult to stop listening to and, if so, you might be interested in hearing from the band’s long time vocalist J. F. Fiar about his life, his lyrics, and everything he’s learned along the way! Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 4

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 062018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which we’re spreading out in installments this week. Day 4 is the focus of this post; reactions to Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 can be found here, here, and here.)

 

The fourth, and final, day of Inferno Festival 2018 was the day which held the fewest number of bands that I was really interested in, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a bunch of killer acts to see. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 3

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 052018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which we’re spreading out in installments this week. Day 3 is the focus of this post; reactions to Day 1 and Day 2 can be found here and here.)

 

The third day of the festival began with another long lie in, followed by a bit of a wander around Oslo, which included stopping at a nice little restaurant/bar just around the corner from the venue for a delicious burger and several pints of Norwegian beer, before I eventually made my way into Rockefeller in time to catch Nordjevel riffing it up on the main stage. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 2

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 042018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which will be spread out in installments over the balance of this week. Day 2 is the focus of this post; reactions to Day 1 can be found here.)

 

Day two of Inferno began with… me sleeping in. And damn, did it feel good.

It also meant that, after grabbing some food, doing some writing for NCS, and checking my work emails, I was nice and rested and ready to hit the festival good and early, even getting there with enough time to have a bit of a wander around the (admittedly quite limited) array of merch stalls on offer, where I picked up a copy of Drottnar’s second album Stratum and browsed a bunch of truly terrible band shirts, before grabbing a cool spot from which to watch the opening band, Swedish occult artists Mephorash. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2018 – DAY 1

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 032018
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to be in attendance at the 2018 edition of Inferno Festival in Oslo on March 29 – April 1, and files this report, which will be spread out in installments over the balance of this week.)

 

What to say about Inferno Festival that I haven’t said before?

From the venue(s) and the location, to the bands and the general organisation, it’s still one of my favourite festivals I’ve ever been to, and this year was a particularly good one for me.

Of course things didn’t get off to the best start, as my plane was delayed on the tarmac for almost two hours, meaning that, by the time I finally hopped off the plane, jumped on a train, and made my way into Oslo, I had missed the one part of the Inferno Music Conference, which I really wanted to attend.

Anyway… Continue reading »

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