SEEN AND HEARD: MODERN RITES, BIAŁYWILK, VAELMYST, WITCH VOMIT, MAZE OF TERROR, DIMENTIANON, UNREQVITED

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 232021
 

 

Lots of good stuff in today’s round-up, with a variety of new black metal, death metal, and thrash, plus a towering exit song. All of the songs are off forthcoming records, with the exception of a just-released EP that I’ve sandwiched in the middle. You’ll see some really good cover art in this collection too.

Even though I and most of the NCS writers are in the U.S., the preponderance of the music we cover (along with half our readers) seems to emanate from outside U.S. borders. Thus it’s unusual that (coincidentally) almost all of the following music comes from U.S. bands.

MODERN RITES (U.S./Switzerland)

The opening song today, “Self Synthesis“, swells in sound, like what you might hear if gradually approaching an industrial metal-mangling machine, and then erupts in a hammering, searing discharge of instrumental and vocal intensity — with eerie, wraith-like tones swirling in sorrow above. It revisits those mangling sensations, which begin to seem apocalyptic…. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): MISERY INDEX AND WITCH VOMIT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  3 Responses »
Jan 092020
 

 

I had to pause the rollout of this list yesterday. My effin’ day job put the squeeze on my NCS time, and I just didn’t have enough free mental space to get another installment finished. But now we resume. I should be able to post another Part tomorrow, and might do one over this coming weekend to make up for yesterday’s hole in the schedule.

It will probably become obvious why I decided to pair the following two songs: They’ll both tear your damned head off.

MISERY INDEX

This was a tough one. I knew I’d name a song from the latest Misery Index album to this list, but had a devil of a time picking just one. As Andy Synn wrote in his review of Rituals of Power, Messrs. Netherton, Jarvis, Kloeppel, and Morris have become “a veritable Death Metal institution”, and with this 2019 album they produced something “that’s pretty much all killer, and zero filler” — “the sort of musical powerhouse that requires… in fact practically demands… to be listened to on repeat until both your body and your mind have been bludgeoned into submission”. Continue reading »

ALTERNATIVE RELEASE DAY ROUNDUP

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 202019
 


Apparatus

 

(Andy Synn presents an extra-large Friday round-up of highly recommended new releases, from Apparatus, Consummation, Crypt Sermon,  Eternal Storm, Foscor, Haunter, Soheil Al Fard, Toadeater, Weight of Emptiness, and Witch Vomit.)

Inundated and overwhelmed with new releases as we are here at NCS it’s no surprise that a lot of albums this year have gone unpraised and unremarked upon.

And this situation looks likely to only get worse going into the last quarter of the year, as there’s a frankly astounding number of new albums yet to come before 2019 draws to a close.

Heck, today alone sees highly-anticipated new releases from Cult of Luna and White Ward, an unexpectedly killer comeback from Exhorder, as well as some seriously good new records from less well-exposed, but no less deserving, artists like Coffins, Engulfed, Urn, and more.

But, chances are you’re likely to have already read a lot about all those bands, either here or elsewhere.

So, instead, I’m going to take this opportunity to draw your attention to a bunch of albums (some big, some small) that you may have missed over the last few days/weeks/months. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): WITCH VOMIT, ANTICOSM, ENEMY OF CREATION, GROGUS, CAÏNA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 222019
 

 

As forecast in Part 1 of this round-up (here), Part 2 goes in very different directions from the four songs I chose for the opening installment yesterday. Hopefully, you will find the variety appealing. I’ll forewarn you (though it’s really intended as an enticement) that despite the variety, it’s all pretty damned destructive.

WITCH VOMIT

Just a few hours down the highway from the NCS headquarters in the Seattle area is Portland, Oregon, home to many sources of potent metallic extremity, including Witch Vomit. Originally a two-man operation, the band eventually expanded, and the current quartet includes people who are current or former members of other Portland death- and black-metal decimators. Witch Vomit‘s new album, Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave, will be released by 20 Buck Spin on August 30th. The great cover art is again the creation of Matt Stikker. Continue reading »