Jan 222020
 

 

Three years ago I vowed that I would begin forcing myself to end these lists before the beginning of February, not because I would really be finished by then but because continuing it past that point had become embarrassing. I renewed the vow this year, and it hit me this morning that January 31st is only nine days away! Shit! Nine days away, and I’m not even close to naming all the songs I want to name.

Well, this means it’s time to expand the daily installments from two songs to three (or more). And I’m going to have to post installments on Saturday and Sunday too, if I can manage that. The three I’ve chosen today have a certain über-dark atmospheric kinship, as I hear them, in addition to being addictive. To catch up with the songs that preceded them on this list, go here.

KRATER

I was very happy to see that Andy Synn decided to devote his November 2019 edition of THE SYNN REPORT to these frightening Germans, putting in one place streams of all their albums and allowing for a clear view of the ways in which their sound has evolved since 2006, culminating (for now) in 2019’s stunning Venenare, which Andy rightly acclaimed as “without a doubt, one of the most intense and impressive Black Metal albums of 2019”. Continue reading »

Dec 302019
 

 

The German band Raptvre picked a fantastic song to showcase in the video we’re presenting today. It displays so many of the attention-grabbing qualities that made their 2019 debut album Monuments of Bitterness one to remember (and which caused our own Andy Synn to herald it in a year-end list here at NCS).

The song is “Echokammer“, and the video (beautifully filmed and edited by Noel Auch and Julian Baron of Brainthrill Studio) captures Raptvre‘s performance of the song at the band’s album release show on November 23rd in Cologne. Continue reading »