AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LARVAE — “ENTITLED TO DEATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 042023
 

“Oakland, California has summoned the rituals of many metal legions over the decades. Its stench is filled with dark art, morbid riffs, death and doom. There’s a scorched place in the corner of the crumbling landscape evoking evil and witchy magic where Larvae feast on the remains of those who perished.”

In the press materials, those evocative words precede the release of Larvae‘s long-awaited second album Entitled to Death, which (to quote again from the same materials) “pursues a human experience, traversing the middle realm seen thru the eyes of a defected warrior,” who is bound to a grim and hostile reality “until the final collapse in a land filled with ruin and loss… crossing over into a cosmic abyss.”

In the musical telling of this uncomfortable tale Larvae draw inspiration from such divergent  ’90s legends as Runemagick, Paradise Lost, Immolation, Bolt Thrower, Neurosis, and Dismember. How they interweave those influences might be difficult to guess, but today no guessing game is needed because we have the complete album stream for you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LARVAE — “IMMORTAL CORPSES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

In the spring of this year the Bay Area band Larvae, with a revised line-up, returned after a five-year interlude following the release of their debut album (Grave Descent) with a new EP named Necroptuary. The EP consisted of three tracks that were thematically interlinked, seeming to function as a commentary on the sacrifice and scars, the pain and bodily corruption, that characterize human existence, and of the crossing over from chaos to another plane of existence that comes with death.

Today we’re presenting an evocative lyric video for the new EP’s closing track, “Immortal Corpses“. To introduce it, and to aid in understanding it, we’ll begin with a statement by the band’s founder, vocalist/guitarist Brad Kobylczak (who is joined in Larvae by lead guitarist Dara Santhai, bassist Wyatt Culbertson, and drummer Eric Evert, all of whom shine as integral parts of the music on this EP): Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): CAÏNA, OLD GRAVES, LARVAE

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jul 032016
 

Caina-Christ Clad In White Phosophorus

 

For this Sunday round-up of recommended music in a blackened vein, I compiled advance tracks and two full-album streams from a total of six bands. Because I’m a little pressed for time today, I decided to split the collection into two parts and finish writing the second half for tomorrow, so as to char the shit out of The Glorious Fourth. Between now and then I might add to the collection, too.

I’m starting with music from two bands whose past work I’m familiar with, and then turning to groups who are new to me, concluding tomorrow with one whose music is only slightly “blackened” but has some famous names attached to it.

CAÏNA

With a few relatively brief pauses, Caïna has been prolific and inventive, releasing six albums and more than a dozen shorter releases since the first demo in 2005 — and transforming the shapes of the sound along the way. Caïna’s new seventh album is named Christ Clad in White Phosphorus, and it’s coming out on July 15 through Apocalyptic Witchcraft Records.

For this new album, Caïna’s core creator Andy Curtis-Brignell is joined by vocalist Laurence Taylor (Cold Fell) and bassist Paul Röbertson, along with contributions by members of the British experimental/noise group Warren Schoenbright and Integrity’s Dwid Hellion in his guise as Vermapyre. Continue reading »