AN NCS INTERVIEW: INVICTUS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Feb 262026
 

(In late January Me Saco Un Ojo and Memento Mori co-released a new album by the Japanese death metal band Invictus, and that led our contributor Zoltar to reach out for the following good interview with guitarist and vocalist Takehitopsy Seki.)

While the Japanese grind and death scene has granted us some of the wackiest, most disturbing bands over the last twenty-five years or so (we dare you to try to listen to GORE BEYOND NECROPSY or CATASEXUAL URGE MOTIVATION for 24 hours straight and not want to murder everyone), they also know a thing or two about recreating note-perfect tributes to their American elders. Unsurprisingly, the sound of the early ’90s Floridian mob left an obvious mark on many, including Nagano’s own INVICTUS, whose second album was released on vinyl by Me Saco Un Ojo and CD by Memento Mori.

This trio may be obvious MONSTROSITY fans but their extremely tight musicianship, powerful drive, and thrash leanings truly set them apart from the clone pack, and guitarist and vocalist Takehitopsy Seki does obviously know what the fuck he’s talking about, based on the following answers… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVICTUS — “WANDERING ASHDREAM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 182025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to spill a considerable volume of words about a single song of death metal that ends just shy of the four-minute mark, because it is such an explosive reminder that even the last month of the year is a bad time to sleep on new music.

The song is “Wandering Ashdream” and it’s from the forthcoming second album by the Japanese band Invictus which will be released next month by Memento Mori and Me Saco Un Ojo. As mentioned, it’s the kind of track that inspires a great flooding of words, but the album as a whole does the same thing, witness these portions of the labels’ press statement about the record: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INVICTUS — “BLEED ME OUT”

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Oct 072022
 

To say that Maurizio Iacono has nothing left to prove is to state the obvious. After 14 studio albums from Kataklysm (and a host of other releases), four more full-lengths from Ex Deo, numerous global tours and festival performances, and many other endeavors in prominent aspects of the music business, he’s already secured a rare level of success in the world of heavy metal and a secure position in its history.

Having nothing left to prove, however, doesn’t mean having nothing left to say. How else does one explain his decision to create a new band at this very mature stage of his career? That is in fact what Maurizio has done with the formation of Invictus, a group that makes its recording debut with an album named Unstoppable on October 21st via the MNRK Heavy label. Continue reading »

HEAVEN SHALL BURN BURNS ANOTHER ONE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 242010
 

The next album from Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn will be called Invictus.  It’s scheduled for release on different dates in May throughout Europe and on June 8 in North America. Yesterday the band put up the second track from Invictus on its MySpace page. It’s called “Combat”.

And if you thought the first song from the new album (“Omen”) was good — which we sure as fuck did — then you really have to hear “Combat”. It starts with a hammering riff and a howl, and takes off from there into a sonic war zone. It blends the fury of bombs exploding with feverish melodic riffs, Marcus Bischoff‘s distinctive shrieking, blackened keyboard pulses, and snatches of industrial dance-floor daze.

The song is heavy as fuck but galvanizing in its get-up-and-move compulsion. We thought “Omen” was outstanding (and said so here), but “Combat” is another step up. Based on these two samples, Invictus promises to be a landmark in the Heaven Shall Burn pantheon of discography. Seriously, go check it out here.

HEAVEN SHALL BURN (“THE OMEN”)

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 102010
 

We’ve been diehard fans of Heaven Shall Burn for eons. Or at least years. They’ve got a new album called Invictus due for release on June 8 in the U.S. and on staggered dates from May 21 – May 24 throughout Europe. You can see the recently unveiled album cover above.

And the band has just put up a song from the album, called “The Omen,” for streaming on their MySpace page. It starts with a haunting melody by piano and strings, but at about the 1 minute mark, it erupts. Marcus Bischoff has never sounded better, and the song is a classic HSB killer. You can listen here.

Our status: Pretty fucking stoked to hear the whole album.

“THAT’S METAL” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC

 Mosh Pit, That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  1 Response »
Jan 042010
 

We metalheads call things “metal” even when what we’re talking about isn’t music.  Most of the time, it’s meant as a compliment (the ultimate compliment).  Sometimes it’s just a description. In either case, I don’t think I could come up with a definition of what “metal” means when it’s used this way.  It’s kind of like what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about porn in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964):

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it . . . .

Yesterday, while wasting my fucking time expanding my mind on the Internet, I came across one non-musical thing after another that made me think, “that’s metal” — from a cool New Zealand metal site, to abandoned buildings in Detroit, to rugby, to hakas, to Nelson Mandela, to poetry. Allow me to share (after the jump). Continue reading »