TORTURE DIVISION AND BENT SEA: “DOUBLE PENETRATION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 132013
 

It was barely more than a month ago when Torture Division released their latest three-song assault on the senses (The Worship, reviewed here), and damned if they aren’t already back with another release. And damned if they don’t have company this time, because Double Penetration is a split release by Torture Division and Bent Sea, which is another super-group, and one we haven’t heard from in a while.

I had to crawl all the way back to November 2011 to find the post I wrote about Bent Sea’s debut album, Nostalgia. At that point the band consisted of guitarist/drummer Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve), vocalist Sven de Caluwe (Aborted), and bassist Devin Townsend (you read that right). Devin Townsend didn’t participate in Bent Sea’s contribution to Double Penetration, his shoes having been filled by none other than Napalm Death’s Shane Embury.

The Bent Sea track is a ditty called “Partners In Grind”. It’s a bone-shaker and a neck-snapper, a death-grind marauder with a beastly off-tempo mid-section. I’ve taken the liberty of uploading it to our Soundcloud account so you can hear it. And then of course you should go download it from Torture Division’s web site (more on that later). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARSAFES – “.onslaught.čoček.”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Sep 092012
 

Moscow-based Roman “Arsafes” Iskorostenskiy is one of those uncommon musicians whose creative impulses are multifaceted and who has the talent to follow them with remarkable success, despite how divergent they are.

We first became aware of him through the striking music of his Indian-influenced melodic death metal band Kartikeya, about which much has been written here at NCS. Later, we discovered his involvement with a Russian pagan-metal band called Nevid (Невидь), which has produced four full-length albums, the most of recent of which is 2011′s Agarta, (discussed here). Most recently, he has also collaborated with singer Aleksandra Radosavljevic (ex-Destiny Potato) to create an “Atmospheric/Ambient/Progressive Metal” project named Above the Earth, who we featured here and whose debut EP is coming soon.

But in addition to all that, Roman also has an ongoing solo project named Arsafes. The first work of the Arsafes project was a solo EP called A New Way of Creation that appeared in 2010. We wrote about that here and in that same post provided a link for a free download of the EP.

Now, the Arsafes project has a new album in the works, which with luck will be ready before the end of the year — and today we are giving you the exclusive premiere of its first single, “.onslaught.čoček.”, which is now available on Bandcamp. It features performances not only by Arsafes, but also by drummer extraordinaire Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, The Devin Townsend Project, etc.), David Maxim Micic (guitar) and  Bojan Kvocka (bass) of Destiny Potato, and Fedor Vetrov (viola) (Veter Vodi, Nevid), as well as a cameo appearence by the above-mentioned Ms. Radosavljevic.

And if you’ve heard the first Arsafes EP, what you are about to hear is something very different, and it’s very, very good. Continue reading »