SHADES OF BLACK: SIGH, ORM, VETER DAEMONAZ, SWARN

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Aug 142022
 

After three days of cruising along with lots of time to devote to NCS I ran into a wall. The demands of my fucking day job are unpredictable and weekends aren’t any more sacrosanct than they are at this site. So I had to work yesterday and this morning. You just never know when people will urgently need a delivery of toilet paper.

I finally did manage to squeeze in some listening and some writing for this weekly column, just so it wouldn’t completely go missing, but it’s shorter and more hurried than I wanted it to be.

SIGH (Japan)

To begin, we have a video for the song “Satsui” from the forthcoming 12th album by the remarkable (and long-lived) Japanese band Sigh. It’s the kind of song that’s capable of hooking people damned hard and damned fast. Continue reading »

ALTERNATIVE RELEASE DAY ROUNDUP (CONSTELLATIA, IMPIETY, KOSMOKRATOR, ORM, ORPHANAGE NAMED EARTH, RAGNAROK)

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 152019
 


Constellatia (photo by John Second)

 

(Andy Synn prepared this collection of reviews of six albums, some brand new and some from a bit earlier in the year.)

Phew… I am absolutely swamped at the moment. Writing, recording, practicing… oh, and that pesky day job… are all keeping me exceptionally busy. Plus I’m currently tackling a (thankfully) mild dose of the flu. All of which means I’m more behind than usual when it comes to reviewing new (and not so new) albums.

Still, I’m not going to let a little thing like a complete lack of time stop me from ending the week on my own terms, so here’s a handful of albums for you all to check out over the weekend. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NIGHTFELL, UNMENSCH, ORM

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Jul 162019
 

 

This is a rare mid-week edition of a column that usually appears on Sunday. This didn’t happen by design. I was trying to select some new songs for a SEEN AND HEARD post, and by chance it happened that three of them — these three — were shades of black metal. So I decided to collect them today, and try again tomorrow for a cross-genre round-up under the SEEN AND HEARD banner.

NIGHTFELL

A Sanity Deranged is the third album by Portland’s Nightfell, a duo (Tim Call and Todd Burdette) whose music I’ve enjoyed from the beginning. It will be released on Friday the Thirteenth of September by 20 Buck Spin (who are having another great year of releases), and the first song in today’s selection is from that new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORM — “APOTHEOSIS”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Feb 222017
 

 

The painting by Italian artist Paolo Girardi that appears on the cover of the self-titled debut album by ORM provides meaningful clues about the music. The gigantic tentacles of a sea beast roil ocean waters beneath a threatening sky as trees seem to recoil in fear and a city high above the frothing waves is engulfed by fire. The scene is riveting, apocalyptic, and mythic. As you’ll soon discover, those same qualities come through vividly in the music of ORM as well.

This new album will be released digitally and on vinyl by the Danish label Indisciplinarian on March 24. It consists of five long tracks, and today we present one of them, which bears the name “Apotheosis“. Continue reading »