AN NCS PREMIERE: ASCENDENCY — “VICTORY – IN ALL ITS EPHEMERAL GLORY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 212023
 

In July of 2020 the Danish band Ascendency released a debut EP named Birth of an Eternal Empire. It chronicled the rise to power of a despotic tyrant and was announced as “the first of a trilogy of short releases, with a continuous conceptual narrative, about the thirst for power and hegemony and the ultimate betrayal of ego and arrogance”.

That EP made a striking impression as a hybrid of death and black metal that featured skull-busting grooves, white-hot riffing, crazed leads, demonic vocals, and yet the capacity to create eerie and unsettling atmospherics from the other side of the veil rent by the music’s violence.

Now Ascendency are returning with another EP in the promised sequence. This one, A Manifest of Imperious Destiny, will be co-released on July 14th by none other than Me Saco Un Ojo Records and Dark Descent Records, on 12″ vinyl and CD formats, respectively, and today we have the privilege of revealing one of the four new tracks: “Victory – in all its Ephemeral Glory“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ASCENDENCY, BIESY, HELGAMITE, KENAZ, NEKUS, OMINATION, TITHE

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
May 032020
 


Ascendency

 

We’ve now entered the second full month of a government-ordered shutdown here in Washington State, with only minimal re-openings permitted before June, and maybe not even then. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country communities are being encouraged to become human petri dishes by venturing out to movie theaters, gyms, restaurants, beaches, etc. Good luck to them. I’ll be interested to see what grows within their cells, or doesn’t.

Meanwhile I’ll try to suppress my own depression and anxiety over the prospect of another month within these walls, and continue to sift through the great mass of new metal in an effort to make my life, and perhaps yours, a little more harrowing and wretched. To that end, below you will find six individual tracks and one album to stream. I also have a collection of other complete releases I would like to recommend. Maybe tomorrow…. Continue reading »