SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HEAD OF THE BAPTIST, GROZA, WESELE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 112023
 

 

“Really?!?,” I can hear you say, “Is that all you saw or heard this Saturday? Or yesterday? Or the day before?”

Well, not exactly. I did check out a couple of other things, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to do more than what you’re looking at right now. It’s just been one of those weeks, when my effing day job hammered me into submission. On top of that, we had four visitors at the house yesterday, beginning at noon and extending pretty deep into the night. I slept away most of the morning, and my head has been fuzzier than usual. So this is what I have. Hoping for more tomorrow in the SHADES OF BLACK column….

HEAD OF THE BAPTIST (Belgium)

If you’re looking for a way to un-clog your head of whatever gunked it up overnight, I can testify from personal experience that this first song and video will do that, and right quick. It’s called “Succumb“, and that’s what you will do. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2021’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 20): PANOPTICON, GROZA, GRAVPEL, BLACK JACKAL, GENUNE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  4 Responses »
Jan 302022
 

 

Before we get to the music I have a few announcements:

First, Sundays at NCS are usually reserved for the SHADES OF BLACK column. I’ve made the music selections for it today, but it’s only partially written. Hopefully I’ll finish and post it before I have to depart the site this morning. Whether I do or don’t, my traditional efforts to blacken the sabbath influenced my picks for today’s installment of this list (to see the preceding picks, go here).

Second, my song choices for today’s segment are unusual because I’m opening and closing with two very long songs. Long songs can be fantastic, but I think it’s rare for them to strike people as “infectious”. I think both of these are, in the sense that they are both so memorable.

Third, I’ve been persuaded to break my self-imposed rule that this list must end on the last day of January. I’m going to keep it going for a few more days into February. More on that in what was supposed to be the last installment of the list tomorrow. Now let’s get to today’s selections…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GROZA, APATHY NOIR, EYES OF PERDITION, THUMOS, KAAMOS WARRIORS, KASCK

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 102021
 


Groza

It was one of those weeks when my day job jackhammered me into submission. I fell far behind even in saving links to new songs and videos I might want to check out, and the hundreds of emails we receive every day went mostly un-read. And man, what a week to fall behind in. As people used to say 5 or 10 years ago, there was a metric shit-ton of new releases and song or video premieres.

I did obsessively spend a chunk of time this morning just making lists of links, and felt overwhelmed at the end of that exercise. If I had total control over my life I’d spend most of the rest of the day plowing through all those links and compiling round-ups, or at least one gigantic one. But my day-job project isn’t finished, and I’ve got to turn back to it, even on a fucking weekend. So I’ve just dipped my toe in the ocean, and this is what dripped off of it.

GROZA (Germany)

To begin, I chose a video for “Elegance of Irony“, a song off a new album named The Redemptive End by these Bavarian black metallers. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: RITUAL MOON, GRINNING DEATH’S HEAD, PA VESH EN, GROZA, AAMON, GLIMT, THRON, OPPRESS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
May 302021
 


Ritual Moon

 

Especially after yesterday’s humongous round-up it probably wasn’t smart for me to follow it with another one, but that’s what I’ve done. As you’ve probably figured out by now, careful thinking and reflection never have much to do with my NCS contributions. Impulse and enthusiasm tend to rule the day.

RITUAL MOON (U.S.)

I had intended to fully explore this L.A. band’s January 2021 debut album after listening to an advance track many months ago, but never got back to it until my comrade DGR recently posted about it. He figured it would be up my alley. It definitely is. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GROZA, DRATNA, A FLOCK NAMED MURDER, SLEGEST, HISSING, SOLAR TEMPLE, FLUISTERAARS, TURIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Sep 302018
 

 

I struggle with these picks every week, and resolve the struggle in different ways. Sometimes, when I’ve got the time, I double-up the column so I don’t have to leave out quite as many possibilities. I don’t have that kind of time today. And to make the task harder, a lot of the music I wanted to talk about today turns out to be extra time-consuming — full releases, really long songs, many minutes that don’t lend themselves to pithy introductions.

Days like this I’m reminded that the main value of what we do here is “curation” (to use a pretentious term), i.e., the sifting and sorting of music and the selection of what we find appealing and think might be worth the time of people like you. If the writing itself proves to be entertaining, that’s a bonus. Mainly, we just do that to entertain ourselves. Hopefully, the curation alone will carry the day today — my own words are limited to begin with and kind of tail off into tiny dribbles the further you get into this.

GROZA

My friend eiterorm found Groza’s new album on Friday, said it was obviously inspired by Mgła, and expressed completely certainty that I would like it, judging from our common tastes in metal. “So make sure this one gets top priority. ;-]”, he wrote. So I did, and my friend was right — this is really good. Continue reading »