DGR Archives - Page 31 of 58 - NO CLEAN SINGING

SOL DRACONI SEPTEM: “HYPERION”

May 242021

(This is DGR’s review of the debut album by the French band Sol Draconi Septem, which was released in March of this year.)

The genesis of this review happened some time ago and it is one that has been long simmering.

Believe it or not, it was actually our featuring of the prog band Wheel – of whom I’m a fan – in one of our round-ups a while back that was the ‘something different’ which caused the re-activation of dormant neurons that led to where we sit right now. In our round-up we covered their song “Fugue”, which is a peaceful interstitial number in between two much larger tracks on their latest album Resident Human, and our editor mentioned that the song had been inspired by the Hyperion Cantos series of books by Dan Simmons.

There are actually a few songs throughout Resident Human that take cues from those books, but it was that mention which reminded me that in one of the many metal rabbit holes I have a tendency to tumble down I had come across another group who also pulled inspiration from that series: the French space-prog/black-metal hybrid of Sol Draconi Septem and their early-March release of the aptly titled Hyperion.

If anything, I figured that if the admittedly excellent Wheel release wasn’t our usual reader fare, then the plumbing of the depths of space and all things synth that happens during the forty-five-or-so minutes of Hyperion probably would be. Continue reading »

FALLENSUN: “THE WAKE OF THE FALL”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

May 182021

(DGR prepared the following very enthusiastic review of the new album by Fallensun from Prince George, British Columbia, which is out now via Bandcamp.)

It has been a blessing in disguise that the recent crop of newer crew inhabiting the upper reaches of the NCS cave have somewhat similar taste to my own. It has freed me up tremendously to just bounce around the internet and look for projects that might otherwise have a hard time getting out into the wider reaches of the metal-sphere while stuff that I would normally consider myself on the hook for has found pretty good coverage here. It’s let me make strange trips, review quieter and more ambient albums, and also get into some crushingly heavy stuff by way of just bouncing around the internet.

To put it mildly, my recent musical discovery quests have been executed with the grace of a body having been thrown down a mine shaft. I don’t know where I’ll land or what stuff might’ve fallen through the NCS net that I’ll catch but its been great so far. The most recent discoveries have been a vast combination of things, including albums that came out earlier in the year – in quite a few recent cases, in February – that are really worth looking in to. Thus, I found myself at the doorstep of Canada’s melodeath/prog-death hybrid Fallensun and their album The Wake Of The Fall. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “LV-426”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Apr 232021

(DGR tends to move in fits and starts with his NCS writing, and this week he’s had a fit, with this being the third of his posts for us in almost as many days. Today’s subject is the new EP by NCS favorites Hideous Divinity, which is being ejected today (like a blooming facehugger) by Everlasting Spew Records and Century Media Records.)

Hideous Divinity‘s chosen subject matter of different films to frame their overwhelmingly hostile take on brutal death metal has proven fruitful for them over the years. The recent Cronenberg deep-dives have given them much to work from as they take their chosen genre and morph and contort it to fit their musical equivalent of a bulldozer being launched downhill in a mudslide into a suburb. Often stretched into full-albums, the film nods have been blatant, but LV-426 represents the biggest and most upfront statement of subject matter to date.

It’s already struck a chord around here, given the NCS crew’s fondness for the Alien moves to begin with, and so the group’s decision to tackle a more focused subject over the course of an EP was one we were guaranteed to be looking into. LV-426 consists of two original songs and one out-of-left-field yet surprisingly pragmatic cover song for a total of sixteen minutes of blindingly fast music. Continue reading »

STRANGE TRIPS (PART 2): GHOSTS OF ATLANTIS (“3.6.2.4”) AND TIDES OF KHARON (“TITANOMACHY”)

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 2 Responses »

Apr 222021

(DGR has been spending his listening time with some strange musical creatures and has offered his thoughts about them in a two-part collection of reviews, of which this is the second. Go here to check out Part 1.)

GHOSTS OF ATLANTIS: 3.6.2.4

At this point in my metal fandom I think its safe to admit that there will always be room in my heart for something a little more theatrical when it comes to music. I’m a sucker for things appearing larger than life, buried in bombast, and suffocated by symphonics. If you’re incredibly ambitious and it seems like you may be swinging for the fences on even your first release and coming off just a little bit campier than expected, then you’ll probably have someone who enjoys what you’ve got right here.

Of course all those things don’t necessarily have to apply, so they can be larger than life without having the veneer of a B-grade horror movie, but sometimes the stars align just so that I can’t help but be attracted to it. Like I said, a larger-than-life spectacle can often be just as interesting for me in the world of the extreme, which is how I landed at the debut album from Ghosts of Atlantis. Continue reading »

STRANGE TRIPS (PART 1): EMPTINESS (“VIDE”) AND DIALETHEIST (“ECSTASY AND FUTILITY”)

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Apr 202021

(DGR has been spending his listening time with some strange musical creatures and has offered his thoughts about them in a two-part collection of reviews, of which this is the first.)

I could probably pay off a month’s worth of bills if I had a nickel for every time I’ve started a dive into a particular release with some variation of ‘this is gonna be a weird one’. But there’s a certain joy I take in continuing to do that in between the varying issuances of brutality and violence that we typically cover.

Sometimes it’s a good breather and other times it feels like a peek into where metal might be expanding in the future, a gaze into realms otherworldly and difficult to describe, where the artiste roams free and unshackled. Mostly, it’s because, despite the fact that strangeness may abound and take us off the beaten path, that can still appeal to many a listener in the world of No Clean Singing.

It’s still metal, because I guarantee you that the constant breaking of conventions and the fusing of different moods into strange creatures is certainly enough to challenge a listener on what they may consider musical. Sometimes it’s in the atmospherics. Sometimes it’s how a band might embrace minimalism. And other times it can be due to just how strange the collection of influences and instrumentation is. Often it might feel like this is the room where we get to adjust our turtle-neck sweaters, sip on our classiest alcohol, and pretend to be as high-minded and pretentious as we can possibly get.

Long story short, the two that I’ve paired up today are albums I’ve been listening to quite a bit since their release, and while one name is likely more recognizable, I assure you that for both you’ll probably want to buckle up, because this is gonna be a weird one. (I have another pairing of reviews still to come tomorrow.) Continue reading »

OMINOUS RUIN- AMIDST VOICES THAT ECHO IN STONE

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 112021

(Find out what our man DGR thought of the new album from San Francisco’s Ominous Ruin, out now on Willowtip Records.)

Ominous Ruin‘s first full length album – after a string of demo’s and EPs throughout the late aughts – Amidst Voices That Echo In Stone starts in a very different spot from where it ends up.

The band’s sound is one of multiple extreme genres in all-out combat with each other, fully unloading from the hyperactive Tech Death scene even as it drains the arsenal from a very Brutal Death inspired segment as well.

It’s an ambitious album for sure, but not one that feels intentionally crafted to become a journey – more that it just wound up that way as songs morphed over time, from that previously mentioned superspeed blast festival into something weirdly proggy, incredibly dense, and all too willing to dive headlong into some profoundly (and joyously) dumb caveman chug all over the course of nine songs.

If it seems like the Bay Area crew are one of those amorphous bands able to reach tentacles into a variety of places and drag down so much of it back into their maw by that descriptor, you wouldn’t be too far off, but the fact that they make it work here…now that’s worth talking about.

SHORT BUT SWEET: DISTASTE AND INORGANIC

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Mar 102021

(DGR jumps back into action once again with a pair of short but sweet EP reviews)

Three months in and although the review slate so far has been oddly stop-start – understandable given the shitshow we’re slowly crawling out of, especially when we can start complaining about being buried by our day jobs again – we’ve had some very choice releases so far.

So I figured after a bunch of long ass reviews I’d try to pick a couple of EPs to keep things shorter for you all, even as I keep on digging through everything else as it’s the only thing keeping me sane.

Right now I present to you some very much up-my-alley style of music though, one Grind release that I’m convinced I have spelled wrong every time it appears (despite the fact that I copy and paste it off of the bandcamp every time) and one so firmly implanted in the Brutal Death concrete that using a jackhammer to get them out would just be added instrumentation for atmosphere.

FRACTAL GENERATOR: “MACROCOSMOS”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 082021

(DGR catches up with the new record by Canada’s Fractal Generator, which was released in January by Everlasting Spew Records.)

You’ll likely be reading this one way out of chronological order given the tendency I’ve developed with this album to want to dive back in, write a little, crawl back out, and then dive back in again.

As a result, there’s been multiple discs from the moment this review started that have coasted into and out of my purview.

But, needless to say, as of recent I have been absolutely buried in a wall of incredibly dense Death Metal.

And while I’m talking about multiple albums one could also ascribe that feeling to Fractal Generator‘s newest album Macrocosmos all on its own.

DGR REVIEW ARCHIVES (PART 4): THE AMENTA — “REVELATOR”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 192021

(We present the fourth and final installment from an avalanche of reviews that DGR delivered unto us earlier this week, and today’s edition focuses on the newest album by Australia’s The Amenta, which is being released today by Debemur Morti Productions.)

It’s been a good bit of time since we last heard from the Australian amorphous extreme metal genre-hoppers The Amenta. Their sound has expanded widely over the years, with releases that range from a blackened death metal vein, to industrialized monstrosities, and even some straightforward noise and black metal collisions for fun. I’ve even seen them granted the genre-descriptor of ‘terminator metal’ a few times, given their favoring of distorted electronic backings that can often sound like failing machinery.

By the time of 2013’s Flesh Is Heir the group’s sound was firmly planted in a vast maelstrom of industrial noise and blackened death metal, and it is a release that we have yelled about for a long time – largely my fault – at this here site. The eight years since then, though, have been relatively quiet and have seen The Amenta‘s various musicians spread far and wide. It seemed for a little while that the group would be slowly shadowed out – that is, until the announcement of the group’s newest album Revelator. Continue reading »

DGR REVIEW ARCHIVES (PART 3): MECHINA — “SIEGE”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 182021

(We present the third installment from an avalanche of four reviews that DGR delivered unto us earlier this week, and today’s edition focuses on the newest album by Illinois-based Mechina, which was released on January 1st.)

I did not review Mechina’s 2019 album Telesterion for this here website. This is something that bothered me for a lot longer than I expected. All the way into mid-2020 I was swearing up and down I would do a 2019 archive of stuff I had come to super-late, but truth be told that was always only part of the reason why it never got a deep-dive here, despite my continued insistence of enjoying nearly everything the band have done.

The main driver behind that decision actually came down to the simple fact that Telesterion is a completely different style of album from previous Mechina works, and in some ways that disc served as a foray into newer sounds for them. It’s the first time when the project fully leaned into its conceptual side and you had vocalists playing characters within songs, and thus the characters sang about certain of the events being described. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries