(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Polish band Koronal, which will be out on April 29th.)

It’s pretty common knowledge by now that we here at NCS Inc. tend to focus more on the underground, and underappreciated, bands and artists from the Metal scene.

That’s not to say we have anything against the bigger or more well-known names (heck, I’ve reviewed several of them myself over the last few weeks) but igenerally these bands, for the most part, don’t really need our coverage – in most cases they’ve already got the benefit of a label’s PR machinery and resources behind them, and even when they don’t you tend to find that they’ve already crossed a certain threshold, popularity-wise, which makes them essentially “too big to fail”.

It’s different for the smaller bands though, and it’s here where I/we generally feel like we can do the most good and make the most difference by introducing our readers to new bands, bands who they might not otherwise have stumbled across on their own, to them grow and establish their fanbase.

Over the years we’ve all developed particular favourites of our own – personally I’m still waiting for new stuff from Martriden, Sanzu, and Sunlight’s Bane, to name but a few – but I know I’m not the only one of us who has been looking forward to hearing more from Polish post-Meshuggah crew Koronal, whose superb second album is scheduled for release next week. Continue reading »