GATECREEPER: “AN UNEXPECTED REALITY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 022021
 

 

(Here’s Gonzo’s review of the unexpected new album by Arizona’s Gatecreeper, which was discharged by Closed Casket Activities on January 13th.)

From the endlessly bizarre timeline in which it’s being released to the sheer out-of-nowhere, smack-you-upside-the-head-and-run surprise of the release itself, I think it’s safe to say nobody saw this album coming.

And maybe that’s the point. After all, bands like Gatecreeper don’t really entertain much in the way of being subtle. Their bludgeoning songwriting, pounding rhythm section, and Chase Mason’s unearthly howl have solidified the band’s sound as instantly recognizable in the death metal underground.

And even though those elements are as present as ever on An Unexpected Reality, this sonic blowtorch falls a little short of the decimation it wants to inflict. Continue reading »

Technical Difficulties: Please Stand By

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 132021
 

Good morning/afternoon/evening my friends and a hearty “remain indoors” to you all.

Andy Synn here, stepping in for our great and glorious leader who, sadly, can’t be with you/us right now. And for good reason.

Well, I say “good”, but there’s actually nothing “good” about it. Due to inclement, semi-apocalyptic, weather conditions, our beloved overlord is currently without power, internet, or (for the most part) phone signal, meaning that he hasn’t been able to put together any of the posts he had planned for today.

We’re hopeful that, at some point, he’ll have his access to the grid (and therefore the web) restored, but for now we’d just like to issue an apology for the technical difficulties we’re currently experiencing.

Don’t worry though, it wouldn’t be an NCS post without at least some new music, so after the jump I’m going to share a few quick thoughts on a certain EP which dropped just last night (along with the requisite bandcamp embed, obviously) so we don’t feel like today has been a total waste.

Continue reading »

GATECREEPER: “DESERTED”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 072019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Arizona death metal band Gatecreeper, which has just been released by Relapse Records.)

I’ve been making my way through the Will Forte-led comedy/drama (dramedy?) series The Last Man On Earth recently, having missed out on it when it first aired.

This has very little to do with Gatecreeper, to be entirely honest, except to allow me to say that Deserted continues to prove that Death Metal is still “alive in Tucson”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KONKHRA, GATECREEPER, THE HOLEUM, TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA, ATAVISTIK DEATH POSE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 042019
 

 

Sometimes there’s a through-line or organizing principle of some kind in the selections I make for these round-ups. Sometimes it’s just what the category tag says, the one I chose almost 10 years ago for posts like this one — Random Fucking Music — just a random scattering of things I’ve happened upon and enjoy.  Today, I do think there’s a through-line: Almost all of the following tracks are neck-wreckers, though I’ve put one track in the middle of the run that’s less brutishly head-moving and more progressively dynamic (though I think you’ll want to move your head to that one as well).

KONKHRA

Formed in 1989, the Danish death metal band Konkhra had quite a run, releasing six studio albums, a live album, and a handful of other shorter releases from 1990 through 2009 — and then the machine ground to a halt. However, now ten years later, Konkhra have revived, and if Metal-Archives is to be believed, the current line-up dates back to the recordings of the early and mid-90s. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GATECREEPER, DÖ, OPIUM LORD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 072019
 

 

This makes the fourth round-up in the last 7 days, and the sixth one if you count the two-part SHADES OF BLACK I compiled for last Sunday and Monday. I know this isn’t going to continue. Eventually my fucking day job or some distraction in my personal life is going to put the squeeze on my NCS time again, and the new-music round-ups will dwindle. But I’m doing my best to make hay while the sun shines before things get overcast again.

As for what I chose today, the main themes are cranial trauma and reflexive movement. Lots of cool album art in here too.

GATECREEPER

Man it’s good to get a new Gatecreeper album. Their first one, Sonoran Depravation, was killer, and all the short releases they’ve made since then have been too. The new one, Deserted, will be released by Relapse Records on October 4th. The first single, “Boiled Over“, is accurately described by the band as an effort to mix “the melodic side of Bolt Thrower with the crushing heaviness and groove of bands like Obituary or Crowbar“. Continue reading »

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST 2018: A PHOTO RECORD (DAY 2)

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 122018
 

 

For the second year in a row, NCS was proud to co-present Northwest Terror Fest, which took place this year on May 31 – June 2 in Seattle, Washington. Several of us in the NCS family helped organize and present the fest, and I guess that makes us a bit biased, but we’re not the only ones who thought it was a fantastic event. The feedback from bands, fans, and the venues has been uniformly very, very positive — so much so that we and our co-conspirators are already at work planning the third installment of NWTF for 2019.

We will of course be bringing you news about next year’s fest when the time is right, but we now want to take one more look back at NWTF 2018. And to do that, we’re fortunate to be able to present some of the amazing photos that New Orleans-based photographer Teddie Taylor took while the festival was in progress. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GATECREEPER, IRON REAGAN, RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE, KNELT ROTE, IRON FLESH, EEVIOMORFIA, HIGH COMMAND, SCORN OF CREATION, MINORS, SCHIERMANN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 102018
 

 

There’s a megaton of explosive stuff in this mid-week round-up of recommended new sounds, so I’ll dispense with an introduction and just move right to the music.

GATECREEPER AND IRON REAGAN

Gatecreeper’s debut album Sonoran Depravaton was so damned good, a true highlight of 2016 and the source of a song (“Craving Flesh”) that I put on our list of that year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Their EP from last November, Sweltering Madness, was also damned good, a meshing together of dismal, stomping brutality and maniacal, earth-shaking obliteration. And so when I saw that Gatecreeper had released a new song yesterday I nearly soiled myself in my haste to listen to it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AETHERIAN, BLOODSHOT DAWN, GATECREEPER, OF WOLVES, DECAYING, WASTEWALKER, VOIDCEREMONY, ULVER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 112017
 

 

You can go long or you can go short. You can pound your musical erogenous zones or you can shrivel up and go dry from something far outside the rim of your bullseye. You can fragment your mind or feel it coalescing in configurations that become receivers of new visions. Every day there are new opportunities.

I’m speaking of metal, of course. I got doses of all those experiences this week, but bit off almost more than I could chew with this week’s flood of premieres, and got squeezed by my fucking day job on top of that, so I failed to compile a round-up until now, and hence it’s a big one.

Catching up is an impossibility, of course, and this time it happens that my choices (all the way up to the last one) are mainly indulgences in a particular mood rather than my usual effort to throw darts all over the metal dartboard. The one thing I haven’t done is incorporate black metal, because I have tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column for that.

AETHERIAN

We’ve been writing about this Greek band for years, beginning with their first single in 2013 and including their second one in 2015, their debut EP released the same year (and reviewed by DGR here), their amazing single and video from last year, “The Rain”, the first single (“Seeds of Deception”0 from their debut album, The Untamed Wilderness, which will be released by Lifeforce Records on November 24th, and the second one (“Shade of the Sun”). And now there’s a third, accompanied by a video. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 12): ASPHYX, SORCERY, GATECREEPER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  4 Responses »
Jan 162017
 

 

I feel like wallowing in the warmth of a certain kind of guitar tone today, along with a certain kind of delicious death-metal gut churn and head battering.

Yes, you’ve arrived at the 12th part of our growing list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Should you be inclined to explore the tracks that preceded these three beasts, click this link.

ASPHYX

Astoundingly in this day and age, when more venerable metal bands with prominent names are phoning it in than showing they still have fire in their bellies, Asphyx released one of 2016’s mod satisfying death metal records. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GATECREEPER, FÓRN, PREDATORY LIGHT, HOBBS’ ANGEL OF DEATH, OPETH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Aug 032016
 

Gatecreeper-Sonoran Depravation

 

I’m finishing this post on the way to the airport, where I’ll board a flight for Las Vegas with my spouse to attend the wedding of one of her nieces. We’ll be there for three days. That may interfere with NCS activity for the rest of the week. If there’s not much up on the site between now and Sunday, that’s the explanation.

But it may not interfere. Everyone I know who will be at this thing, including my wife, plans to spend a lot of time in the casino. I’m not much for gambling; throwing away money in an undoubtedly losing cause tends to sap the pleasure after a while. And since I’m not keen on getting broiled outside, that leaves the hotel room… and metal.

In the meantime, here’s a quick round-up of new music. Because time is short, I have to largely dispense with reviews/descriptions today. The last time I did this, a reader jumped on me for not at least providing a genre description, so I’ll do that. Continue reading »

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