AN NCS PREMIERE: “INTERSTELLAR” BY SICKENING HORROR

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by the Athenian metal band Sickening Horror, to be released by Deepsend Records on March 17.)

Like a lot of people, I first heard about the Greek technical death metal band Sickening Horror in 2007 by seeing the mention that drummer George Kollias (Nile) was in the line-up on their first record, When Landscapes Bled Backwards. He departed after the release of that album, but the band has continued on just fine without him.

We last heard from them when they released their worthy sophomore follow-up, The Dead End Experiment, back in 2009. Then the band seemed to drop off the map for a few years, finally emerging toward the end of last year with an announcement that their third album, Overflow, was on the way. Today we give you a tantalizing taste of what Overflow is all about with our premiere of a new song entitled “Interstellar“.

The track begins in a acidic bath of dissonant melodies, soon joined by a slick overlay of guitar leads that shifts to a building stomp punctuated by warbling bass — and then the track explodes into a jackhammering beatdown, augmented by jerky stop-start rhythms amidst the straightforward deathly war hammering that’s on forward at all times. Toward the end of this acrobatic assault, an intriguing melodic solo takes hold and is given room to breathe, birthing a torrent of slithering melodies that brings  “Interstellar”to an end.

“Interstellar” exemplifies all the things Sickening Horror do so well, which is to craft death metal very much in touch with the primal viciousness of its early roots but also moving things in an often technical direction, while injecting the music with dissonant black metal melodies, inspired lead guitar-work, powerful drumming, and prominent bass-work, all tied together with an inclination toward progressive flourishes.

Sickening Horror’s Overflow comes out March 17 on Deepsend Records and can be pre-ordered here

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