(Andy Synn recommends a trio of recent releases for your listening pleasure)
I originally intended to publish this piece a while ago… only I couldn’t quite lock down exactly which three albums I was going to write about.
For a while I considered including the new Abduction album, only to realise that since we share a drummer these days that probably crosses a few ethical boundaries (I don’t have many, it’s true, but I do have some).
And though I initially intended to include the new one from Wren as my third choice (I’ve written about them before after all) some crossed-wires here at NCS Central meant that one of our regular guest-writers ended up including them in one of his articles… which meant I had to go back to the drawing board again.
Thankfully, however, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed by the three artists/albums I’ve chosen to cover – two of whom are making their official debuts here at the site – as they’re all more than deserving of your time and attention on their own merits and in different ways.
DOWNPOUR – WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE
The Hardcore scene here in the UK has been in rude health for… well, a pretty long time now… and while I’m not really a part of “the scene” (musically I still love it – and whenever my own band gets to play with anyone from the UK Hardcore/Metalcore side of things we always go down a storm – it’s just there’s a certain mentality in places I don’t get along with) I still try and keep an eye open, and an ear to the ground, for bands I can recommend to our readers here at NCS.
And with their debut album, Where There Is Life There Is Hope, Bristol-based quartet Downpour have more than earned their recommendation, delivering a blend of Hardcore-friendly hooks and emotional intensity perfect for fans of bands like Counterparts and Comeback Kid, Shai Hulud and Strike Anywhere… and more.
And while the band, for obvious reasons – see the poignant, prominent clean vocals of “Break Me”, the intricate harmonic guitar work of early stand-out “Clarity”, or the uplifting atmospheric undercurrent of “Footsteps” (another one of the album’s many highlights) – are most often billed as “Melodic Hardcore”, they’re not afraid to flex a bit of metallic muscle either, with moments like the impressively beefy breakdown which closes emotionally intense opener “Half Empty”, the dark, dense chuggery of “421” or the significantly more aggressive attack of “Death of Everything”, all showing off the heavier side of their sound at its best.
Sure, there’s a few tracks which don’t quite find the right balance – “Validation” in particular is just that little bit too poppy for its own good – but when they get the formula right (as they do during the dynamic, almost Post-Metal-like stomp and shimmer of “Suffocated” or the richly textured riffs and rhythms of captivating closer “Miles Apart”) they prove themselves more than worthy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with many of their most famous influences and inspirations.
OFNUS – VALEDICTION
I first encountered Welsh Black Metal wizards Ofnus at a festival I played with my own band last year… they were, in fact, the next band on after us and so we were able to watch their entire set from the merch area.
And one thing that quickly stood out to me from the band’s all-round excellent performance was just how collected and in control they seemed throughout.
That’s not to say they were particularly calm or “restrained” – and you’ll soon discover that songs like “Throes of Agony” and electrifying opener “The Shattering” provide a perfect showcase for the band’s tightly-focussed ferocity – but you got the sense that the entire band were perfectly in sync, with every member and every element of the music moving and acting as a singular savage entity.
And the band’s new album, Valediction, only further reinforces this impression with its careful balancing of blazing intensity, brooding introspection, and sinister symphonic grandeur (although the latter element, while undeniably striking, is arguably somewhat more understated and subtly integrated – while still expanding the heroic scope and scale of the group’s sound – than many of their bigger, more bombastic peers).
This is particularly notable during the back-to-back epics which form the crux of the album, with the extravagant extremity of “Proteus” and the gloom-shrouded slow-burn of “Zenith Dolour” (arguably the best song on the album, though both its immediate predecessor and the bleak, blast-driven horror of “Alazia” certainly give it a run for its money) – both of which find the band channelling some of the best bits of classic Opeth and Emperor (with maybe a bit of My Dying Bride in there too) to craft some of the best work of their career so far.
The caveat of this is that they do occasionally hew a little too close to their obvious influences – the core melodic identity of the title-track in particular owes a lot to Akerfeldt and co. – but when they get the balance just right (supported by an array of impressive performances, especially from drummer Ethan Reed Spargo) what they’re building here is more than capable of standing on its own two (or ten) feet.
SACRED NOOSE – VANISHING SPIRES
Different people listen to music for different reasons… but one of the primary reasons, one which I think most of us here will probably share in common, is to feel something.
And what you’re going to feel while listening to Vanishing Spires, the debut album from Belfast-based Black/Death/Doom duo Sacred Noose, is abject horror, dread, and misery (not necessarily in that order).
Reminiscent, in all their ear-gouging filth and fury, of similarly abrasive acts like Portal, Abyssal, and Teitanblood, these six tracks – which peak with the eponymous extremity of the soul-crushing “Sacred Noose” – blast and bludgeon, suffocate and eviscerate the listener without mercy or restraint (well, almost… more about this shortly) in a tumultuous torrent of dissonance, distortion and groaning, grinding, guttural devastation.
What sets the record apart from its predecessor (2023’s Renounce the Flesh EP), however, is the extra care and attention the band have clearly lavished on the layering and dynamic of each grim metallic morass, from the haunting introduction of “Terminal Prologue” to the heaving back-and-forth between skin-flaying ferocity and gut-clenching terror that forms the basis of “Black Tempests of Promise” and the churning, choking, charnel-house assault on the senses that is “Moribund” (possibly the nastiest, gnarliest track the group have written thus far), culminating in the explosive noise and erosive atmospherics of “True Emancipation”.
Like I said at the start, different people have all sorts of different reasons for listening to music… but a lot of those reasons simply will not apply when talking about Vanishing Spires.
After all, this isn’t music that you “enjoy” – heck, some people would probably say it isn’t music at all (but what the hell do they know?) – it’s more something that you “endure”, while still knowing, in the back of your mind, that you’re going to want to endure it all over again soon enough, purely for the sick, visceral thrill it gives you.