AN NCS EP PREMIERE: WITCHTRIP — “COSMIC CAULDRON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 142018
 

 

We were told that the Canadian band Witchtrip includes all the members of Winnipeg’s Occvlt Hand other than the vocalist — so, basically the same band with a different singer. That was reason enough to check out the two tracks on Witchtrip’s debut EP, Cosmic Cauldron, because we were big fans of Occvlt Hand’s 2017 album, Not Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending. We gleefully premiered a track from that album, and put that same track on our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

Now, one would expect that Witchtrip’s music would be different from Occvlt Hand’s, despite the significant overlap in members. Otherwise, why choose a different name? And in fact, the music is quite different. And perhaps it should also come as no surprise that the music is nevertheless really, really good — as you’re about to discover for yourselves through our premiere of Cosmic Cauldron in advance of its release on March 16th by Possessed Records. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 19): GODFLESH, GHOLD, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, OCCVLT HAND, BALFOR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  No Responses »
Jan 312018
 

 

We have come at last to the final day of this list, which I began rolling out on January 11th, and which I pledged to myself I would finish before February. Like yesterday, there will be two large installments today.

In this one the songs have certain stylistic connections, as I hear them (at least until you reach the final track) — which probably means nothing more than me thinking they make an interesting and powerful playlist.

GODFLESH

It seems that every year, at least in recent memory, brings reunions and revivals. The latest Godflesh album, Post Self, wasn’t exactly a reunion or a revival — A World Lit Only By Fire did come out only three years earlier — but it still seemed like a revival, or at least a resurgence, a vivid rekindling of memories without sounding like a cash grab. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCVLT HAND — “HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 142017
 

 

Winnipeg’s Occvlt Hand chose one of the year’s best titles for their new album: Not Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending. And who could argue with that? In fact, one of life’s great, infuriating ironies is that so many people who don’t deserve a happy ending get one anyway. It would be so much sweeter if the assholes could all be subjected to the righteous ministrations of Occvlt Hand, from which they would emerge beaten, bruised, and broken.

Occvlt Hand didn’t exhaust their storehouse of bleak, memorable titles after they named the album. They’ve got a song on the record called “Total Fucking Absence of Light” and another one named “Smash My Bones, Inhale the Dust“, which my comrade DGR wrote about in a round-up at our site not long ago, describing it as “a harsh track that seems to drain the color out of the room, absolutely blatant about its stomping disregard and hopelessness”.

More good song titles are to be found in this punishing new release, including the track we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s September 13 release by Possessed Records: “He Who Walks Behind the Rows“. Continue reading »

A DGR SEEN AND HEARD: ABHORRENT DECIMATION, DECAPITATED, OCCVLT HAND, BROKEN HOPE, DECREPIT BIRTH, SCHAMMASCH, QUASARBORN, LEPROUS, THE ZENITH PASSAGE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 212017
 

 

(DGR once again takes over round-up duty, compiling a selection of nine items for your listening and viewing pleasure, culled from the last week.)

 

Clearly nobody got the email that we sent out announcing that we would be incredibly busy late last week Northwest Terror Festing, and therefore decided that it would be a good time to flood the heavy metal world with news. You wouldn’t know that by visiting NCS, because we slowed to a crawl, with writers Gorger and Andy Synn coming through as the heroes keeping the fortress guarded whilst the rest of us rotated between drunk and exhausted.

Now, though, DGR has come to collect his dues, so I have compiled a round-up with every single thing that I kept notes on from Thursday of last week ’til now, and I guarantee you that I’ve still missed a handful of things. Still, though, this collection of music videos, lyric videos, and live performance(s) is gigantic in its own right and it is certified NCS “Fresh”, which means it should only mildly smell like rotting beef carcasses.

Abhorrent Decimation – Conspire

When I first saw the artwork by Karmazid for the upcoming Abhorrent Decimation album The Pardoner, I declared that if the music on that disc could be half as cool as the artwork it bore or the concept behind it, then I would be a happy camper. Well, with “Conspire“, Abhorrent Decimation have shown that they are in good standing on that front — releasing a monstrous six-minute brutalizer. Continue reading »