Nov 242015
 

Luctus 2015-photo by Luneth Vinonen

 

I had more than the usual amount of time to explore new music yesterday. As usual, I found a lot to like, so much that I’ve divided the discoveries into two posts. In this one, I’ve collected mostly recent videos from six bands.

LUCTUS

In September I reviewed Ryšys, the excellent new album by the Lithuanian black metal band Luctus, along with a full stream of the album. Luctus have now released an official live video for their cover of “He’s turning blue”, originally recorded by Carpathian Forest. It’s not the first time Luctus have covered the song — it appeared on their 2011 album Live at Intro (which is available here on Bandcamp). Continue reading »

Jul 082013
 

This Monday has turned into a day of premieres (not even counting the one we did ourselves for Razormaze). I’ve collected in this post a handful that I enjoyed, from Elite (Norway), Oathbreaker (Belgium), ASG (US), and Nexilva (UK).

ELITE

I was originally turned on to Norway’s Elite more than two years ago via one of Andy Synn’s SYNN REPORTS about the band. Almost five years have passed since Elite’s last album, We Own the Mountains, but it appears the band are planning to release a new one before this year ends. Today they released a promo version of a new track called “This Is Where All Ends”. It reflects some changes from much of what has come before.

The song is mid-paced and majestic in its atmosphere, with a soaring chorus to match whispers of black metal darkness in its jagged verse. For most of the song’s duration, the vocals are near-clean, though ragged and anguished in their passion. The song has gotten stuck in my head, too. Check it out next. Continue reading »

Mar 262013
 

Here’s another installment of things I saw and heard over the last 24 hours while merrily rambling along the by-ways of the interhole. The theme of this installment is METAL ART RULES!

TARDIVE DYSKINESIA

This Greek band’s debut release The Sea of See Through Skins was one of my favorite albums of 2009. One version of the album apparently included a bonus track named “Crawling Through the Mud”, though I don’t think it was on the copy of the CD I bought; at least I don’t see it on my iPod, which is where I transferred the music from the disc before eventually storing the CD away with a gazillion others that my spouse made me remove from our cluttered house.

And that’s all I can say about the wonderful artwork above that mysteriously appeared on Tardive Dyskinesia’s Facebook page yesterday. I don’t know who created it, and I don’t know what music it will eventually accompany. Maybe the band is about to release that bonus track as a single?

Anyway, the band’s 2012 album Static Apathy In Fast Forward ain’t too shabby either. Here’s TD’s cool official video, released earlier this month, for “Time Turns Planets” from that album. Prepare for a spine-jolting, head-scrambling experience. Continue reading »

Jun 122012
 

This is a day for album reviews at NCS. We started with Andy’s SYNN REPORT on V.A.S.T., and a couple more are on the way. But I thought I’d mix things up a bit by posting two videos before the next review appears. These are not new, but they made this grey Seattle day brighter for me, and I thought they might brighten your day, too, unless you’ve already been staring at the sun, in which case I guess you probably can’t read this. You could get a friend to play the videos and just listen while you get used to your new burned-out retinas.

ASG

Until yesterday I had never heard of this band. I found them through a Facebook link from XII Boar. The link took me to a video for a song called “Horeswhipper”. With a name like that, I had this powerful psychic intuition that I would like it, because in general I like metal that makes me feel like I’m being horsewhipped. And no, I’m not into BDSM, or maybe I am and just don’t realize it.

Anyway, I think maybe one reason I liked it so much is because I had been listening to Borracho, and I think their music re-aligned my neurons into a configuration that increased receptivity to this song. Or it could have been because the song is such a titanic riff-fest, with such attention-riveting dynamics and acidified by punk-like vocal snarls and balls-out attitude. Headbanger heaven. Continue reading »