May 302022
 

Serpent Ascending‘s new album Hyperborean Folklore is one in which a questing wanderer may travel far in the company of an unusually gifted guide and find wonders galore, both on the surface of the path and far below it.

The music is the work of a sole adventurer, the Finnish musician and vocalist Jarno Nurmi, who was once a member of Slugathor, Nerlich, and Desecresy. Because it is a solo work, the inspirations, the words, and the music are all inter-connected in ways that are rare for a full band, and here they all come together in truly extravagant and fascinating ways. Continue reading »

May 142022
 

If you happened to wade through my windy intro to yesterday’s small-ish roundup, then you know I had a ton of new songs and videos to check out, and hoped to pull together a lot more picks today than I managed to do yesterday.

Unfortunately, for reasons I won’t get windy about today, I haven’t been able to dig as deeply into that big pile of new things as I’d hoped, so this followup roundup will also be smallish, but hopefully still worth your time. (More to come tomorrow.)

WORMWITCH (Canada)

Kyle Tavares has been a very busy man this year. Aided by some talented bandmates, his group Vital Spirits released a new album, and his band Seer released a new EP (both of which we premiered, here and here), and now Wormwitch (the third active band in which he is a key participant) just released a new digital single yesterday, along with a video that had its premiere at Decibel. Continue reading »

Aug 052016
 

SERPENT ASCENDING - Ananku

 

Serpent Ascending is the solo project of Finnish musician and vocalist Jarno Nurmi, who was once a member of Slugathor and Nerlich and remains one of the two members of Desecresy. Five years ago, I, Voidhanger Records released a collection of Serpent Ascending demo tracks under the title The Enigma Unsettled, and on September 16 it will be releasing the project’s full-length debut, Aṇaṅku.

The new album includes eight tracks in the range of two-to-five minutes, and today we bring you a stream of the opening song, “Entrance”. Continue reading »

Nov 252012
 

 

(Our friend Utmu hath delivered this guest post, introducing us to a some great bands who share the same label.)

Hello all! I’m Utmu and I’m back with my second article for NCS this year—I’m on a roll! Anyway I was on From the Dust Returned recently and I came across Ævangelist; intrigued by the artwork and the band’s name, I decided to look into them. I also saw reviews for the bands Nar Mattaru and The Wakedead Gathering and I came to find out that they are all on the same label, I, Voidhanger Records.

The first part of I, Voidhanger’s manifesto reads, “Born in 2008 as an independent division of the Italian metal label AeternitasTenebrarumMusicaeFundamentum (ATMF), I, Voidhanger Records tolerates musical categorizations, but doesn’t like any kind of boundaries.” It goes on to say in the second part, “We are interested in black metal, death metal, avant-garde metal, progressive metal, doom metal, heavy rock, psychedelia, 70’s dark sounds, dark ambient and drone music, as long as they are the result of an obscure, unique, and uncompromising artistic vision.” That’s pretty accurate when comparing that to the bands they’ve signed. Continue reading »