SHOW REVIEW: ANAAL NATHRAKH, INCITE, SECRETS OF THE SKY, PLAGUE WIDOW

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
May 262015
 

 

(DGR prepared this review of a show in Sacramento, California on May 11, 2015.)

I’ve often joked about my living in Sacramento as being an unfortunate situation and something of a curse. Sacramento, which could easily be described as a pretend big city and the world’s largest cow town, often within the same breath, is a city that up until the past three years or so would rarely get many touring acts rolling through town. Most of the time, those tours would hit the big cities (you know, the ones they actually care enough to include on a map of California because stuff happens there, unlike us, who get preferential treatment because we are the capitol) and then quickly jet away from the desolate wastelands of this state.

The local scene has always been vibrant but even now, with a whole bunch of venues in town and multiple concerts that likely would have NEVER rolled through before those venues came to Sacramento, I still find myself surprised. Sometimes, the stars align and we even manage to pull off something incredibly insane — like Anaal Nathrakh coming to podunk-ass Sacramento and playing in a venue the size of a large kitchen. Continue reading »

ANTIGAMA: “THE INSOLENT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 152015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Poland’s Antigama.)

Antigama’s Meteor was one of those albums that felt like a band finally getting a bit of much-needed spotlight. The Polish grind band, whose music strayed heavily into industrial realms while sticking mainly to the core four instruments that make up any group, hit a disc out of the ballpark with Meteor, and it served as an effective closer to the band’s time on Relapse — one that had seen the releases of Resonance, Warning, and Meteor. In their long career Antigama have spent time on different labels and now find themselves returning to Selfmadegod — who had previously handled the group’s disc Zeroland — for their seventh full-length album release with early May’s The Insolent.

The Insolent continues the band’s slow drift into cybergrind territory, one that sees them not so much playing their instruments as fully desecrating them — with chord changes that sound like the performers’ hands had to be physically yanked across the guitar by the speed at which they happen and are so jarring that people familiar with Meteor should be right at home. The Insolent is high-minded viciousness, an album that hints at a bunch of different things happening under the surface but on top is like three trains all destined for collision — and a huge chunk of The Insolent is that moment of impact. Continue reading »

THE RESISTANCE: “TORTURE TACTICS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 212015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new EP by The Resistance.)

Torture Tactics is a weird release. The release itself isn’t weird, but as a whole Torture Tactics is an odd duck amongst EP releases. More on that in a second, as some folks may need some quick catching up.

Torture Tactics is the new EP by Gothenburg, Sweden-based melodeath supergroup The Resistance. If you’ve never crossed paths with The Resistance before, their members have quite the histories in other bands and somehow found their ways into one congealed group, constructed out of some fairly big names to make some pretty straightforward and punishing thrash and death.

For instance, in my case, The Resistance were a way to keep track of the Dimension Zero gentlemen, as both guitarists Jesper Strömblad — yes, he of ex-In Flames fame — and Glenn Ljungström have spent time within their ranks. Also on the roster, in terms of slightly more recognizable names, is Marco Aro, current vocalist for The Haunted — although at the time of The Resistance’s inception he hadn’t stepped back into that role yet. Continue reading »

CARACH ANGREN: “THIS IS NO FAIRYTALE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 162015
 

 

(DGR reviews the latest album by the Dutch band Carach Angren., which is out now on Season of Mist.)

One of the things I love about Carach Angren is how divisive they are amongst the staff at this site. For some, they’re “LARP-Friendly black metal” and for others they’re an enjoyable band. When it comes to a genre like symphonic black, I own up to it time and time again that I am, in large part, an idiot.

I scratch the surface of the genre but it has been a huge blind spot for me, as has black metal as a whole; when it comes to the great divide of metal, between the black metal and the death metal guys, I tend to fall on the death metal side of the spectrum. I like my fair share of death metal bands masquerading as black metal groups, but rarely the traditional, ethereal, and anguish-fueled howls or the purposefully roughly-produced walls of sound of the early generations of proper black metal — which roughly translates to me being perfectly OK with Carach Angren and their symphonic horror tomes.

I think a large part of this is how you see the band. For me, Carach Angren are a group of storytellers who happen to really love their camp. They’ve never been the most black metal thing out there, and frankly, their stories have never been the most traditionally black metal out there, having covered a battlefield or two and even doing a nautical-themed disc, though the latter has become a bit more common and has been done increasingly well by other bands. The only thing you can be sure of is that the body count on a Carach Angren disc is probably going to be high and no one is going to escape happily. I’ve never had a thought of , “Well, this oughta end just swell for this character!”, when listening to a Carach Angren album, instead just counting down the minutes until their inevitable end. Continue reading »

NIGHTRAGE: “THE PURITAN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 142015
 

 

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by Nightrage.)

Nightrage are a band who seem to exist by force of will. They have gone through numerous lineup changes and, across their discography, a whole smattering of frontmen have appeared, many of whom are names within the realm of melodeath. Since 2011’s underrated Insidious, an album that is easily one of their best and pretty much the spiritual sequel to earlier release Sweet Vengeance (including cameos by the same musicians who appeared on that album), Nightrage have once again found themselves in flux — with members leaving and then slowly being replaced. In the end, Nightrage have become a much smaller group than they were before, with founding guitarist Marios Iliopoulos and bassist Anders Hammer being the remaining constants. They are joined by new vocalist Ronnie Nyman to complete the three-piece that is the current incarnation of Nightrage.

Needless to say, four years is a long time for a band to be out of the limelight, and their new album The Puritan is itself a slimmer beast, one with sleeker and more to-the- point songs that reflect Nightrage’s new, slimmer line-up. It also shows that despite their ever-in-flux membership, Nightrage are still damned good at hitting a melodeath fan right in the pleasure centers of the brain. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 2): HELLUCINATION, THROWN TO THE SUN

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 032015
 

 

(This is Part 2 of a collection of five new reviews by DGR. The first three reviews are collected here. For those who missed Part 1, DGR’s introduction is repeated below.)

I’ve written a few articles where I’ve had to sort of slide back from the desk my laptop sits on, sigh, and go, “Well, that got completely out of control”. There’s something to be said about being punctual with your writing, but what initially began as a sort of archive of two real quick discoveries of stuff from 2014 that I had just found via Bandcamp became this massive and stupid roundup of five bands, with 2014 bookending a huge block of shit from 2015; so, uh, I guess fans of symmetry should really dig into this collection of sounds.

A huge chunk of this is still as originally penned, dedicated to stuff I found recently that hit last year, as I sifted from various sites I visited while trying to find stuff that might perk your ears. But I just kept finding music that seemed to be hitting right as I would type up the last little paragraph for an earlier release. Some were sent to us by bands themselves, and others I came across after a piece of album art or a random show poster caught my eye. Much of this article is death-metal-focused and much of it very cleanly produced and melodeath-leaning. However, there are a few curveballs this time around, and those are the ones that really caught my attention this time.

Hellucination

This band right here is one of the reasons this article got out of control. Yet, Hellucination are one that I felt I had to include because I was listening to their new album a lot for a fairly recent discovery. This one is a late addition that kind of forced its way into the group after I spotted its album art popping up on the social media pages of a couple of musicians I was checking in with. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 1): BLIND SPITE, MANIFEST, THE RAGNAROK PROPHECY

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 022015
 

 

(DGR provides this collection of reviews of new releases by five bands. The first three reviews are collected here, and Part 2 will follow tomorrow.)

I’ve written a few articles where I’ve had to sort of slide back from the desk my laptop sits on, sigh, and go, “Well, that got completely out of control”. There’s something to be said about being punctual with your writing, but what initially began as a sort of archive of two real quick discoveries of stuff from 2014 that I had just found via Bandcamp became this massive and stupid roundup of five bands, with 2014 bookending a huge block of shit from 2015; so, uh, I guess fans of symmetry should really dig into this collection of sounds.

A huge chunk of this is still as originally penned, dedicated to stuff I found recently that hit last year, as I sifted from various sites I visited while trying to find stuff that might perk your ears. But I just kept finding music that seemed to be hitting right as I would type up the last little paragraph for an earlier release. Some were sent to us by bands themselves, and others I came across after a piece of album art or a random show poster caught my eye. Much of this article is death-metal-focused and much of it very cleanly produced and melodeath-leaning. However, there are a few curveballs this time around, and those are the ones that really caught my attention this time.

Blind Spite

One of the fun things about just combing through Bandcamp and various other sites is the forehead-slapping discovery of releases that hit last year and flew completely under the radar. This one in particular hit in September of 2014, and yet it is one that deserves to get out there. We usually try to be on the somewhat forefront when it comes to new releases, but a late discovery is easily excused when we get to share it out there for all of you folk. Continue reading »

DELIVERED AT THE SPEED OF PRINT: BLACK AND WHITE DISCOVERIES — SIBERIAN HELL SOUNDS, A BAND OF ORCS, AETHER REALM

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 162015
 

 

(DGR hath delivered the following round-up of two new EPs and one new single.)

It’s been a little while since I’ve had time to really trawl around the internet and pen up one of these humongous roundups — mostly because smaller descriptions have been mutating into full album reviews. Often, I’ve used this kind of feature to help folks catch up with stuff they might have missed (or that we missed) and discover things that may have happened weeks ago, but flew under our collective radars. This time we’re having a little fun and attempting to bring a theme with this one — the theme of desaturated artwork, because what is more METAL than black-and-white artwork?

The answer is “nothing”, for it is bereft of all color, like our hardened and blackened souls. So I present unto you the most recent collection of things I have found, which actually share not one, but two things connected to the printed format: They are in black-and-white, and I was really fucking slow in writing about them and getting them out to you. Continue reading »

AETHERIAN: “TALES OF OUR TIMES”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 122015
 

 

(DGR reviews the debut EP by Aetherian from Athens, Greece.)

Oftentimes, when a writer disappears for an extended length of time, the writer will usually return to the fold — because really, the muse is always calling, siren song being strangled from her (because really, we have to METAL around here) — with tail tucked between the legs, bevy of excuses in hand (most pretty valid), ‘aw shucks’ look on the face, and full of apologies, ready to be welcomed back with grand plans and a ton of material to work with.

I can’t do that this time. I disappeared because work kicked my ass. It’s been a well-known fact that NCS is a labor of love and it is our passion (and that of many others) that keeps the site running. We happen to be in a very blessed position where we don’t have to worry about ad-buys and traffic, and therefore we can sort of freely write about what strikes us. But our amateur status also opens up the scenario in which actual real life takes over, and for about a month and a half I was the aforementioned single digit that was being smashed into dust on Napalm Death’s Apex Predator. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “DORMANT HEART”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

(DGR reviews the latest album by Sylosis.)

For a long time, there were few bands out there that I was willing to evangelize as much as Sylosis. Long before I ever got into the writing game, I would tell anyone who would lend me their ear about the band — a group I had initially checked out on a whim when my policy for checking out new music consisted of looking into albums that scored an eight and above on Blabbermouth.net’s review scale, a criterion that Sylosis’ 2008 release Conclusion Of An Age happened to satisfy.

To explain why the group held such a strong appeal to me, I have to own up to the fact that three genres were really my entryway into heavy metal, and they were melodeath, metalcore, and thrash metal. It’s probably a common event that those three tend to be the welcome mats, since a lot of what I view as “gateway bands” tend to fall into those genres, but I just had to highlight it, in part because, to be incredibly reductive, Sylosis‘ sound is a combination of those three genres. Continue reading »

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