AN NCS INTERVIEW: PENTAGRAM

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Feb 242025
 

(At the end of January the US doom metal legends Pentagram, in collaboration with Heavy Psych Sounds, returned with their first new studio album in a decade. Not long before it was released, our Comrade Aleks reached out and then conducted the following very good interview with current Pentagram guitarist and sound producer Tony Reed, who also leads Mos Generator and Hot Spring Water. With thanks to Tony Reed, we present that interview today.)

The first incarnation of doom metal legend Pentagram was founded in 1971. Back then Bobby Liebling (vocals) gathered around himself a bunch of like-minded persons who dug heavy bluesy rock and wanted to do their own things. The band had a reputation of “street Black Sabbath”, and a lot of talented musicians went through its ranks.

Almost all of Pentagram‘s rises and falls were the result of Bobby’s actions, and it’s a miracle that after so many years the band is still alive. Nearly 40 musicians went through the band, and nowadays Bobby is accompanied by the guitarist and sound producer Tony Reed of Mos Generator, his colleague bass-player Scooter Haslip, and drummer Henry Vasquez from Saint Vitus, Legions of Doom, and more.

At the time of this interview Heavy Psych Sounds was scheduled to release the new Pentagram album Lightning in a Bottle on January 31st. It’s the tenth album in the band’s extended career (and the first one in this decade), and it’s an absolute killer, something I couldn’t ignore. Tony Reed was kind enough to find some free time in his busy schedule and helped with this interview. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GRAVE INFESTATION, DARK MEDITATION, SPIRITWORLD, ANCIENT DEATH, TYRANNOSATAN, ARV, EXILIUM NOCTIS, PRIMORDIAL BLACK (AND TWO INTERVIEWS)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Greetings on another Saturday. I have another globe-hopping-and-genre-hopping selection of new songs and videos filtered from what I was able to check out over the past week.

At the end, I’m also recommending a pair of recent interviews published at locations other than NCS, not just because the bands are favorites of mine but also because the discussions are so interesting.

But we’ll start with the music…. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XIII: CHAOS AND FINDING THE LIGHT

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Feb 182025
 

(Daniel Barkasi is back, with another monthly selection of new albums and reviews, this time focusing on what January provided.)

It’s been a bit! My last musings at NCS was my overly indulgent 25 For 24! year-end debacle, and since the turn of the new year, unless you’ve been living in a cave (you have my envy if you have – any room for two people and a shitload of animals?), the world has further descended into the toilet. I could write a thesis on all of the wild things that have happened since the turn of the calendar, and most are no doubt aware of these happenings.

Admittedly, I’m a well-established pessimist. I like to say that I’m a realist, but that often leans toward looking at the dire side of things rather than the hopeful. I see chaos, injustice, greed, and sheer stupidity, but struggle to see any light trying to crack through the toxic dump of slime that often gets spewed upon us at the speed and power of a high-pressure hose.

Like we’ve spoken about previously, what we do here is a wonderful distraction from the nightmare that society can be (and often is). I also like getting a little personal in this space. Maybe it’s selfishly therapeutic; a hope that maybe my own struggles can help someone, humanize my monthly musings – who knows? Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CHRISTIAN NECROMANCY, ЗАРЕЗНИЦА, FRAGDA, INOMIATUM KALOUNAPTHRAH, MIDRYASI’S KULT, ALDAARON

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 162025
 

(written by Islander)

I hope you’re having a good day. I hope the following music will make it better.

I used roulette-wheel and craps analogies yesterday, and it’s even more fitting today. Without exception, I had never heard the music of any of these bands before, so picking them was a spin of the wheel and a roll of the dice. I did also land on some songs that didn’t bring much payback; those aren’t here, only the winners. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CARCOLH — “TWILIGHT OF THE MORTALS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 122025
 

(written by Islander)

Carcolh is the name of a mythical beast from French folklore, a large snail-like serpent that oozed slime and grasped with hairy tentacles. Carcolh is also the name of a powerhouse French doom metal band from Bordeaux/Herbignac. They have two albums to their credit so far, and are about to have a third one released on February 14th by Sleeping Church Records. Its name is Twilight of the Mortals.

Thankfully, the band and the label didn’t put too much weight on the name of our site — because Carcolh‘s Sebastien Fanton sings the words (in a voice that is truly spine-tingling) — and so we have been invited, and have happily agreed, to premiere the entire album today.

The new album is an honorable devotional to the old gods of traditional doom metal, but with a steadfast orientation toward musical narratives that earn the adjective “epic.” As we discuss in greater detail below, they have created dynamic music that is earth-quaking in its heaviness, pulse-pounding in its surges, and melodically sinister and stricken, glorious and gutting. We venture to predict that it won’t be soon forgotten. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 20): SINISTRO, MAN’S GIN, DEVIN TOWNSEND, YOVEL

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  2 Responses »
Jan 292025
 

(written by Islander)

When I picked the name for this blog in 2009 it was partly a joke and partly dead serious. A joke, because I made clear from the outset that some of my favorite metal bands included singing in their music; serious, because at the time I was annoyed by a budding trend among metalcore bands I liked to substitute fairly lame singing for yelling and snarling.

In the ensuing years we’ve written about many bands who have included singers, but it’s fair to say that they’ve been in a minority. Speaking only for myself, I still generally prefer extreme vocals in metal, and it still takes a special singing voice to overcome the prejudice.

In the case of all four songs that I’ve bundled together today, I thought the exception was well-earned, although I’m not sure you would agree that “singing” is the correct way to describe the vocals in the fourth song. Of course, I think all four songs are infectious too. (If you’re new to this series, you can find all the other songs on the list via this link.) Continue reading »

WARDRUNA: “BIRNA”

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Jan 292025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile prepared the following extensive discussion of Wardruna‘s just-released new album Birna.)

Bears have been a constant presence in our minds, stories, and myths from the times undreamed of. It was those first encounters between our ancestors and the majestic dwellers of the forest that shaped our very understanding of nature. For the bears, so perfectly aligned with the changes of the seasons, were like a beacon that shone its light on our wandering hearts and thus setting us on a path of revelation, a path from which we have strayed away in our complacency. Time has come again to take the road less traveled and return to the shade of the trees and the rustling of the leaves.

If there is one band in existence today that we would call upon to take us back into nature’s realm, there is no other better candidate than Wardruna. This Norwegian force of (and for) nature needs no particular introduction, as they have forged their own blazing trail from the noctilucent North into the hearts of the world. Their Runaljod trilogy is a towering achievement in modern music and serves both as an inspiration to many and as a reminder that we belong to the Earth and not the other way around.

Released on January 24th by Sony Music and By Norse Music, the sixth studio album by the band is called Birna and sees their mastermind Einar Selvik reaching for inspiration deep into the dens and the burrows of the earth where the hibernating bears dream on their moss-covered beds. The concept behind the album is best described by the band itself: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 10): OTTONE PESANTE, KILLING SPREE, PONTE DEL DIAVOLO

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  No Responses »
Jan 152025
 

For the last few installments of this list I haven’t had any organizing principle that guided the grouping of songs together in a specific Part. Today I do. But I’m afraid if I tell you why I put these three songs together you might not listen to them (if you haven’t already heard them). Better for you to learn for yourselves, and hopefully to find yourselves as enthusiastic about them as I am.

(To find and listen to all the preceding songs in this list, use this link.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSCURE SPHINX, THIS GIFT IS A CURSE, SH-BO-OO-OM, BANK MYNA, MISANTHROPÆ

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 212024
 


Obscure Sphinx

(written by Islander)

It seems like the end of the year is coming up in a big rush. It’s now four days before Christmas and the start of Hanukkah and 10 days before New Year’s Eve, a block of time when many people do something different from what they normally do (like taking time off from work), and other people feel grumpier about what they normally do because they’re still having to do it (like working).

We’re still here of course, and not even feeling grumpy about it. For a bunch of reasons I won’t bore you with, it’s the fanatically commercialized “holiday season” that makes me feel grumpy, and it’s continuing to pound away on this blog that helps get me through it.

Part of what we’re pounding on, of course, is year-end LISTMANIA. Even on a Saturday I nailed another list to the door. Next week we’ll have lists from at least four more of our writers, plus a bag of odds and ends from Neill Jameson.

But for now, just more new music — quite a lot of it actually. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: YOVEL, EEUWIG, BOLG

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Dec 152024
 

(written by Islander)

As predicted in the intro to yesterday’s roundup, the high winds in our area finally did murder the power at our house. Amazingly, it didn’t happen until overnight, and more amazingly, the internet is still working this morning even though the power’s dead, so here we are.

But I’m getting a late start today for a different reason: I went to a holiday party in Seattle for my job last night. It was fun, and somehow three Sazerac cocktails didn’t leave me crawling, but by the time our royally fucked-up ferry system got me home the wee hours of Sunday were already in progress. So I’ve shortened my plans about what to do in this column; otherwise it will arrive very late in the day. Continue reading »

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