Jul 022019
 

 

Surprise! After a busy June in which I was only able to complete four of these round-ups over the entire month, I’ve now finished two, back to back, in just the first two days of July. One must make hay while the sun shines, although in my case I treat that proverb as less of a command than a suggestion, and one that I don’t follow much more often than “why do today what you can put off until tomorrow”.

As in the case of yesterday’s post, I’ve culled these selections to provide variety, in the hope of appealing to a range of tastes, and mixing at least one widely known name with others that should be better known and still others that are brand new.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES

Milano” is the name of the second advance track from this powerhouse instrumental trio’s new album Blood Year, which will be released on August 2nd by Sargent House. As compared to previous releases, the album is billed as “Russian Circles at their most brutalising”, “fully embrac[ing] the most forceful aspects of the band’s repertoire”, in which “blissful respites and ebbs of calm are fewer and farther between”. Continue reading »

Nov 052018
 

 

As most of you will know by now, one of our longest-tenured writers, Andy Synn, is also the frontman of the UK “omni-dimensional death metal” band Beyond Grace. Their debut album, Seekers, was released in July 2017, and while the group are now hard at work on a second album, they’re giving us a reminder of the music on Seekers through a play-through video that we’re happy to premiere today.

The song chosen for this new video is “Black Math Ritual“, and the performers featured in the video are the current Beyond Grace guitar duo extraordinaire of Tim Yearsley and Chris Morley (the latter of whom joined the band after the recording of Seekers). Continue reading »

Jul 072018
 

 

(In this episode of WAXING LYRICAL, Andy Synn interviews himself, in his capacity as lyricist/vocalist of the UK band Beyond Grace.)

Those of you who know me well – and even some of those who don’t know me that well – will probably be aware of my love of words. That’s partially the reason I write for NCS after all, to share and communicate my thoughts and ideas through writing. It’s also why I wanted to make this column a regular thing, because I know a lot of writers and lyricists feel the same way, and put a lot of thought and effort (and depth) into their work, which often goes unappreciated.

Today’s edition, which I’m shamelessly hijacking for my own purposes, is a bit of a special one, as it’s precisely one year since the release of our debut album, Seekers, and we’ve decided to commemorate this by unveiling a brand new (ish) version of “Demiurge”, featuring guest vocals by Adam Cook of A Hill To Die Upon, which can be downloaded for free from our Bandcamp page right now.

So if you’d like to check this out, and learn more about the way I write (for Beyond Grace at least) then please, click on! Continue reading »

Feb 272018
 

 

I’m beginning today’s round-up with two recent videos, which are quite different both visually and musically but which share two common features: Both were directed and produced by the same person (Eric Revill-Dews of Bigger Boat Film), and both include the voice of our own Andy Synn, in all its increasingly varied range of tones.

And then I’m following those two wonderful videos/songs with a selection of other recently discovered releases that also helped make my listening session last night a real joy.

TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE

Until watching this first video for the song “Dying Earth” I had no idea that any place in England could look as vast, as inhospitable, or as starkly beautiful as Derbyshire in the wintertime. Until reading the credits I assumed that the three grim-visaged gentlemen in Twilight’s Embrace had smuggled themselves on board a flight to Scandinavia (though of course I’ve never been there either). Apart from teaching me something new about the landscape of England, the video also proved to be a wonderful match for the music… which is itself as powerfully moving as the vision of those snow-covered reaches. Continue reading »

Jan 312018
 

 

It pains me to say it, but this is not only the 20th installment of this list, it’s the last one. I’m feeling some pain because I haven’t really finished the list, but if I don’t stop now I’m afraid you’ll be reading Part 50 at some point in March. Tomorrow I’ll have a “wrap up” for the list, with links to all the tracks I’ve called out since beginning it earlier this month. Please hold off scorching me for not naming your own favorites until tomorrow. Thanks.

Unlike most of the previous installments in this series, there’s no real rhyme or reason to why I grouped these five songs together. It was just one last frantic effort to load in a few more beloved passengers before the train left the station.

POSSESSION

“Fall on your knees! Take the oath!” How can you resist the chorus in this track? I can’t. I know that the words are part of Possession’s skewering of the Church, but I like to think of the words as an exhortation to the metal faithful, sort of like, “Swear to the dark, you unwashed bastards!” Continue reading »

Jul 152017
 

 

(Andy Synn’s band Beyond Grace released their debut album, Seekers, one week ago, and almost immediately it became available for download on pirate music sites. In this post, Andy shares some reactions to those events and questions what to do about it.)

As some of you may be aware, my band recently released our debut album (I’ll stop going on about it eventually, I promise).
What you might not be aware of is that fact that the album leaked online for illegal download the same day it was released… something which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence these days.

The thing is, I’m really not sure how to respond to this unfortunate turn of events. There’s several options available to me/us right now, but I’m just not certain what the right move is. Continue reading »

Jul 032017
 

 

On July 7, the British band Beyond Grace will release their new album, Seekers, and today we present a full stream of all the music.

As many of you know, the band’s vocalist and lyricist Andy Walmsley is also the longest-running writer at this site (other than myself), better known to our readers as Andy Synn. And as you also therefore know, he has a way with words, which he has put to good use in penning the lyrics to Seeker’s nine songs, drawing inspiration from the writings of such sci-fi luminaries as Kim Stanley-Robinson, Jeff Vandermeer (who also gave permission for excerpts from his novel Annihilation to be used in the song “Apoptosis”), Edgar Rice-Burroughs, and Jeff Noon, as well as the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. And while I could be accused of bias based on friendship, he sounds damned good expressing those lyrics too.

The music on Seekers is damned good, too, as you’re about to find out — and I say that, never having met any of the musicians who created these vibrant tracks. They are: Tim Yearsley (guitars), Andrew Workman (bass), and Ed Gorrod (drums). Continue reading »

Apr 262017
 

 

Shameless cronyism alert: Andy Synn, my old friend and steadfast NCS comrade for the last six and a half years, is the frontman for the band that’s the subject of this news announcement — Beyond Grace. With that pesky disclosure out of the way, here’s a synopsis of the news we’re announcing (with more detail to follow): Beyond Grace’s new album Seekers is complete; it will be released in July; it features cover art by Michael Cowell; and it will become available for pre-order on Monday, May 1st.

Now for the details. First of all, the image at the top of this post is only the top portion of the cover art created by Michael Cowell (who has a web presence here). This is what the middle and lower portions look like, along with the complete piece: Continue reading »

Jan 312017
 

 

Welcome to the 21st — and final — installment in our list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Is the list complete? No, it isn’t. I could easily continue doing this for another month or more, and it pains me to leave so many other infectious songs lingering on my giant list of candidates. But it’s time to shift our focus more intently to what’s coming out this year.

After agonizing over the last 24 hours about what songs to select for this final edition in the series, I cut that Gordian knot in a fairly impulsive way — by simply picking the six songs on a playlist I made for myself in December.

I made that six-track list in December mainly, but not exclusively, because I had just been reading through the year-end list from Panopticon’s Austin Lunn that we were going to publish and was reminded of some addictive tracks I hadn’t listened to in a while. I put those on the playlist along with a couple of others that I wanted to hear again and thought might work well in the flow of the music.

As it happens, before today I hadn’t yet included any of these songs on this Most Infectious list, and so today I decided, why the hell not make all of these into the final Part of this series? They really are all damned infectious, and I do damn well like them. Continue reading »

Nov 032016
 

mithras-and-rannoch-in-london

 

(Andy Synn reviews the performances of Mithras and Rannoch in London on October 31, 2016, and includes some of the videos he made.)

One of my favourite things about being in a band (though, to be fair, there are lots of things I love about it) is the chance it affords me to play shows with bands that I love. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to go out on tour with bands like The Monolith Deathcult and Becoming The Archetype, and perform alongside such stupendous acts as Darkane, Abigail Williams, and Skeletonwitch (to name but a few).

And the thing is, although I still have a hefty list of bands I’d love to support or go on tour with (Living Sacrifice, Blood Red Throne, A Hill To Die Upon, Sanzu, Extol, some Swedish group called Meshuggah…), I’m happy to report that I recently got to tick off another big milestone when we opened for the mighty, mighty bosstMithras! Continue reading »