Spirit Adrift, photo by Wombat Fire
No NCS premieres today. I had blocked out this day to fly to Texas for the day job, but that got canceled at the 11th hour, so here I am with unexpected time to entertain myself, and hopefully you too.
But wow, what a flood of new songs and videos there have been this week! And I’ve barely scratched the surface in checking them out. Under the circumstances, I’m going to try something new, since I have nothing else in the queue ready to publish today: roll out short round-ups one after the other until I run out of time. This is the first one, which focuses on things that just surfaced today. I’ll also have another roundup to share with you on Saturday, as usual.
SPIRIT ADRIFT (U.S.)
I know, I know, what the hell am I am I doing leading off with a new Spirit Adrift song? We typically pay as much attention to trad heavy metal at this site as we do to quantum physics. But I’m not immune to the appeal of a band like this one, witness the fact that I even named a song from Curse of Conception to our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and gave a shout-out to their Forge Your Future EP in 2021 too.
Spirit Adrift‘s new single, presented today by Century Media through a lyric video, proclaims through a protagonist cursed with immortality that “Death Won’t Stop Me“, and of course it’s loaded with hooks. A groovesome chug-a-thon at its core, it also offers enough vocal and guitar heroics to please the old-school, horn-throwing faithful. And even though I’m not one of those, it pleased me too.
The song is the first preview track from a new Spirit Adrift album named Ghost At The Gallows, which will be released August 18th.
https://spiritadrift.lnk.to/DeathWontStopMe-Single
https://www.facebook.com/SpiritAdrift
WORMWITCH (Canada)
Following 2021’s Wolf Hex album Wormwitch punched out two singles last year, and now they’ve got a split release with Atlanta’s Sadistic Ritual that will be released by via Boris Records at some point later this year. Today they unveiled the first of their three songs on that split through a video that gives us scenes of a live performance along with imagery of warfare through the ages. The song’s name is “Weapons Against Despair“, and hell knows we could use as many of those as we can get.
This one is a blazing and brazen attack, loaded with guitar pyrotechnics, tumultuous drumming (albeit with doses of punk-laced beats in the mix), and fanged vocals tearing at your throat. High-intensity frenzy and malignant grandeur are the order of the day, though there’s a spine-busting breakdown in the midst of it where the lead-guitar seems to wail and convulse in agony.
https://wormwitch.bandcamp.com/track/weapons-against-despair
https://www.facebook.com/wormwitch/
THRASHFIRE (Turkey)
This next song just seemed tailor-made to follow that Wormwitch song – a way to keep hearts and heads pounding like overdriven pistons.
True to its name, “Chaosbringer” is a red-eyed, skull-cracking, gut-ripping thrash attack. It’s mean as hell and delivers high-powered jolts as well bracing gallops, blizzard-like guitar frenzies, electrifying riffs galore, freak-out fret-burner soloing, and thoroughly crazed vocal ferocity. Pure adrenaline fuel, and damned addictive too.
This is a standalone single released by Xtreem Music and follows up the band’s 2019 album Into the Armageddon.
https://music.imusician.pro/a/Q0ttoR95/
https://www.facebook.com/thrashbeerandviolence