AN NCS PREMIERE: PYROMANCER — “VOLCANIC RAPTURE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 072025
 

(written by Islander)

The name Pyromancer rang bells around here when news of their forthcoming debut album broke, but they were distant bells, even though their resonance was ruinous. Looking back, we had a burst of posts in 2015 about Pyromancer‘s debut demo and then Kaptain Carbon‘s review of their performance at the spring 2016 Blood of the Wolf Fest in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.

Almost a decade has passed since then, an almost incomprehensible amount of time given the rushing pace of changes in almost every aspect of life over those years. Pyromancer did finally re-surface last year with a pair of songs on a split with Detroit’s Perversion released by Godz Ov War, and now comes the debut album, aptly named Absolute Dominion By Fire, set for release next month by Adirondack Black Mass.

The same two terrorizing dominators are still in charge — Master of Graveyard Torment (drums, vocals) and Conqueror Horus (guitars, vocals) — and as you’ll learn from the album track we’re premiering today, they haven’t backed off or backed down from igniting black/death conflagrations – bizarre black/death conflagrations. Continue reading »

DEATH & DISMAY: THREE DAYS AT BLOOD OF THE WOLF

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 042016
 

BOTWtitle

 

NCS Introduction: Kaptain Carbon returns to NCS with a review of the second Blood of the Wolf Fest , which took place in Lexington, Kentucky, on March 26-27, 2016.  He also took all of the photos that accompany the review — most of which you will find at the end.  Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community.

“He is Risen!”, they shouted in an authentic southern accent with mocking glee. This was Easter Sunday in the thick of Kentucky during one lull between songs at the second Blood of the Wolf festival. The crowd celebrated the fact that it was, in fact, Easter sunday and the whole weekend was centered around macabre imagery of rising dead. What I am surprised about in this anecdote was not the fact that it happened but how little it happened over the course of Good Friday to the holiest of Sundays. In fact, the whole festival, which drew bands and fans from the midwest and eastern coast of the US, appeared to be more grateful than blasphemous. How can you really be spiteful when you have three days of gorgeous weather, a craft beer garden, and a host of raw, unyielding death metal bands? Continue reading »

PYROMANCER: “DEMO MMXV”

 Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 022015
 

Pyromancer-Demo MMXV

 

(Our old friend Black Shuck provides this guest review of the excellent new demo by Kentucky’s Pyromancer.)

Greetings, denizens of the infernal region. Popping in here once again to put the spotlight on another underground band worth getting to know.

Pyromancer are a two-man black/death metal band from Lexington, Kentucky, consisting of Master of Graveyard Torment on drums and Conquerer Horus on guitars. The band have no bass player, and switch off on vocal duties, with Torment performing the high shrieks while Horus does gutturals. Their first demo tape, Demo MMXV, has been released via Grim Winds Records.

The demo takes the grim, lo-fi atmosphere of second-wave Norwegian black metal bands and combines it with the aggressive bestiality of bands like Archgoat. When Master of Graveyard Torment is shrieking over Conquerer Horus’ tremolo riffs the band sounds very traditionally black metal indeed. However, thanks to Torment’s relentless drumming, the music is fierce and fast rather than gloomy, and when Horus takes a turn on the mic, deep, distinctly un-Norwegian growling fills the air. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): MAÏEUTISTE, THIS GIFT IS A CURSE, PYROMANCER, REBEL WIZARD, HUMM, GATEWAY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Oct 022015
 

Maïeutiste-st-cover

 

Yesterday I began a multi-part collection of new music in a blackened vein. I broke the post into two parts because I had so many new music streams I wanted to recommend. I probably should have broken this post into two parts as well, to make a total of three. But what the hell… As much music as you’ll find here, I hope you’ll find time to at least sample all of it, because it’s all very good and very diverse.

MAÏEUTISTE

I’ve written before about individual songs on the new self-titled debut album by the French band Maïeutiste (and we premiered one of them), but now the album has been released (by Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions) and all the songs are available for streaming and acquisition on Bandcamp. Continue reading »