SEEN AND HEARD: CRYPT SERMON, CULT BURIAL, AMIENSUS, DEFACEMENT, TETRAGRAMMACIDE, BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS, BRUXIST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 282025
 

(written by Islander)

As usual I had a lot to choose from for this Saturday’s roundup. I gravitated to six bands whose music I and/or others at NCS have showered with past praise, but chose to end it with one band’s first release.

Geographically you’ll bounce back and forth across the Atlantic, take a trip to the Indian subcontinent, and then go further west and south to Australia for the final two records. Your head will probably bounce around a lot as you go through the music too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS — “HELL OF ETERNAL DEATH”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 092022
 

 

The Australian death metal band Beyond Mortal Dreams feeds from roots that extend back into the mid-90s, but with a discography whose dark flowering has been marked by fits and long silences. Following a pair of demos in the mid-2000s, they released a debut album (From Hell) in 2008, and then only a couple of short releases marked their path for the next 13+ years. But at last they have risen again with a second full-length named Abomination of the Flames that’s set for release by Lavadome Productions on April 12th.

Although the band hasn’t experienced the extent of line-up upheavals that are commonplace among other bands over such an extended interval, it’s inevitable that the passage of time has influenced the musicians — in their thinking about music, in their interweaving of influences, in their desires for what their music should become.

The result, as the Lavadome press materials describe it, is music that reveals an “eagerness to explore, destroy, and conquer in order to create”, “a grand tour of at times cinematic proportions” that is “bestial and brutal” but also “elaborate and intelligent”, and atmospheric as well as savage.

We predict you’ll remember those descriptions when you hear the song we’re premiering today — “Hell of Eternal Death“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE MELVINS, SANNHET, BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS, GIFT OF GODS, GOWL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News  8 Responses »
Oct 152013
 

I’ll be straight with you: I have about 500 new albums I want to review, a few hundred more I’d like to hear, a couple of interviews I said I would do, and instead I’m sitting here surfing the interhole, looking for new things, with so many tabs now open on my computer that it’s too bogged down to stream the music I’m looking for.  Time passes, and I fall farther and farther behind. But I might as well put up a batch things I’ve seen and heard today so I can close some of those tabs. Here you go:

THE MELVINS

I saw an interview, published today, that Buzz Osborne of the Melvins gave to Noisey. He talked about the new Melvins album, Tres Cabrones (three dumbasses), which features the band’s original drummer Mike Dillard returning for the first time since 1983 and the band’s long-time drummer Dale Crover moving over to bass. The interview also included a bunch of other subjects, including these (which made me chuckle):

So you’ve been around for a while, what’s the biggest change in the music industry that’s impacted you as a band?
Nothing’s changed, really. Honestly, I don’t think there’s really any golden era of music. I like about as much new music now as I ever did, which isn’t much.

…

You were talking about new music earlier. At Noisey, we’re constantly dominated by news of Drake and Miley Cyrus. Curious if you had opinions on either.
Well, I don’t know who Drake is, first off. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS – “DREAMING DEATH”

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, SHORT BUT SWEET  9 Responses »
Oct 232012
 

It’s not often that in the space of a four-song EP a band establish themselves as a paramount force in their chosen genre of music, but that’s what Beyond Mortal Dreams have done on Dreaming Death. This Australian band recorded a debut album in 2008 (From Hell), but this April 2012 self-released EP is a new beginning, reflecting both a revised line-up and an especially powerful take on dark, supremely brutal death metal.

Three of the songs are original and the fourth is a cover of Beherit’s “Beast of Damnation” — and the choice of a Beherit song should tell you something about this band.

The music on Dreaming Death is both galvanizing and transfixing. It made me imagine standing in the presence of an infernal creature that’s monstrous and yet magnificent, a sight that would freeze you in place with fear yet accelerate the rush of blood through your veins in a supercharged burst of adrenaline.

The hyper-speed riffs swarm like a horde of red-eyed bats bolting straight out of Hell. It’s a dense, raw, distorted sound that’s almost overpowering.The listening sensation is horrific, like being caught in the cataclysmic destruction of a battlefield or being processed through a giant meat-grinder capable of turning entire populations into sausage stuffing, bones and all.

The guitar solo’s erupt like sheets of white lightening. They’re scalding and blazingly fast, yet they’re also melodic — if you can wrap your mind around that conundrum. Continue reading »