BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK: LACASTA / MAGDALENE / WINTER GRAVES

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 232026
 

(Andy Synn transitions from covering Hardcore to Black Metal with today’s trio of killer cuts)

The UK is experiencing another sweltering heat-wave this week (let me tell you something, the shift from “temperate” to “temperate tropical” here is having serious consequences for a country whose infrastructure was primarily designed to retain heat and resist cold and damp) which means now is the perfect time to start listening to some blisteringly cold Black Metal, right?

Of course, since I’ve been writing about a lot of Hardcore in the last few weeks maybe a bit of a transitional step is required… so here’s three booming blasts of blackened fury from a trio of bands who also wear their Punk and/or Hardcore influences loudly and proudly.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: UNDERGANG, CORPUS OFFAL, FUNEBRARUM, BARÚS, VINTREGAL, LACASTA, THERE WERE WIRES, CLASS TRAITOR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Apr 182026
 

(written by Islander)

As I often do, I made a list of links for new songs and videos I wanted to check out in anticipation of this Saturday’s column, i.e., things that had surfaced or that I had noticed since last weekend. Having done that, I counted the number of links, and there were 69 of them (I swear that number is completely coincidental!), including a few I noticed for the first time this morning. It wasn’t even a complete list; I had a bunch of other tabs open on my desktop that I didn’t add to the list because I knew time was running short.

I recognize this is odd behavior. Why make a list that long when you know you won’t make it through even a quarter of the items? Why make a list that long when you know it will only knot up your brain in deciding which of them to check out? I have no answer, though perhaps a trained therapist would have some theories.

As usual, I resorted to impulse. The only calculated part of the process was a desire to mix up bands I already like and others that were new to me, and a further desire to mix up the genres so that visitors here will be at least somewhat caught off guard if they move from one choice to the next and the next. Continue reading »

CREMATIONS / DAWN PATROL / LACASTA

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 042020
 


Cremations

 

(In this post Andy Synn combines reviews and streams of three albums released in February.)

Sticking to the theme which I’ve already established this week, here are a few words (and pictures, for those of you with a less literary disposition) on some recently released albums that err more towards the Hardcore side of the spectrum than our usual Death/Black/Doom fare.

First up we’ve got some heavyweight Metallic Hardcore from Hanover quartet Cremations, then there’s the punky, abrasive attack of Dawn Patrol, and, last but by no means least, the bristling blackened assault of Italy’s LaCasta.

So, something for (almost) everyone really. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LACASTA — “VULTURES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 172020
 

 

In retrospect, we should have foreseen the surge of bands over the last five years and more who have brought elements of black metal into the traditions of metallic hardcore. Both genres have found their own ways of expressing rage and disgust, and combining them was a natural and potent means of pushing the cathartic intensity of those emotions further into the red zone.

The Italian band laCasta (from Monopoli) made their own furious foray into that hybrid musical soundscape through their 2015 EP Encyclia, and on February 28th they’ll follow that debut with an album entitled Æternvm on the label of Argonauta Records. laCasta mince no words and pull no punches. Their name itself, as the label explains, “was inspired by the system that surrounds us and controls the entire planet, where all the castes hold more power day by day”, and their music gives a powerful voice to their nihilistic world-view. We have a prime example today in our premiere of a video for a track off the new album named “Vultures“. Continue reading »