A PANACEA FOR THE POST-TOUR BLUES

 MISCELLANY  2 Responses »
Apr 182022
 

(Andy Synn has a few thoughts to share, and a few bands to recommend)

As some of you may know, I’m in a band. And you may also know that we just spent this last weekend “on tour”.

Of course, I put “on tour” in scare quotes because, in reality, it was just a quick three-date weekender, and nowhere near the epic, continent-spanning effort those words often imply, but it was still our first chance to get back out “on the road” in a long, long time.

Even though it was only a short (but sweet) run of dates, however, we’re still all feeling the post-tour blues right now, especially considering the third (and final) show of the run was easily the best and we were all really settling into our groove and ready for more.

Alas, it was not to be (though we’ve got more dates in the works for June, and then we’re hoping to get across the channel for some EU dates in September/October, and even possibly looking to the US at some point next year) but we’re still left with a lot of really good memories, made a lot of new fans, sold a fair bit of merch (including several copies of the new vinyl edition of our latest album) and got to meet and see a handful of new bands to boot.

And it’s those bands I want to talk about today.

Continue reading »

MISCELANY NO. 79: ASTHENIC SYN, CABINET, SCALD

 MISCELLANY  No Responses »
Aug 252021
 

 

In the early days of NCS I began a recurring series called MISCELLANY, which got up to 78 installments before it died away from neglect. The self-imposed rule for that series was that I would pick bands I’d never heard before and listen to one song (or maybe two) from something new they’d released, record my immediate impressions, and then leave it to readers to decide whether to explore further. That strategy allowed me to sample from albums and EPs that I didn’t have time to listen to completely or review in full, without knowing in advance how the music would strike me (or you).

As you can now see, I’ve decided to revisit this format today, as a way of highlighting some new discoveries I’ve made. In each case here, except for one, I didn’t have any idea how the music would strike me, but dipping my toes in these waters proved to be a good idea (I bought all three of these). So, start wriggling your own toes, and let’s begin.

ASTHENIC SYN (Russia)

This first album is the one out of today’s three that wasn’t a complete shot in the dark. It was recommended to me by Rennie (from starkweather), and I can’t think of any instance where he’s steered me wrong. As a further inducement to check out Asthenic Syn (from Stavropol, Russia), he mentioned that the music made him think of Kriegsmaschine, a reference which drew me like flies to honey. The fact that the individual behind this solo project has taken the name illwisher sealed the deal Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (MISCELLANY EDITION): IN VACUO, MOROKH, CONSTANT NAUSEA, AKANTHA, NĀV

 MISCELLANY, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Sep 202020
 

 

I mentioned in the first Part of today’s column that I overcame the usual brain-freeze brought about by the overwhelming volume of interesting new music by separating the attractions into advance tracks and complete new releases. Today’s earlier post was devoted to advance tracks, and I mentioned that I had an idea for how to handle the new complete releases.

In the early days of NCS I began a recurring series called MISCELLANY, which got up to 78 installments before it died away from neglect. The self-imposed rule for that series was that I would pick bands I’d never heard before and listen to one (or maybe two) songs from something new they’d released, record my immediate impressions, and then leave it to readers to decide whether to explore further. That strategy allowed me to sample from albums and EPs that I didn’t have time to review in full, without knowing in advance how the music would strike me (or you).

And that’s almost the same strategy I’ve used in this post — almost, because some of what you’ll find below came to me via recommendations from people I trust. So it’s not quite the shot-in-the-dark of the old MISCELLANY series.

IN VACUO

To begin I picked “Pavlína Kováříkov“, the lead-off track from this Hungarian band’s just-released third album, Urbain Noir — and man, I love it. The guitar leads have a kind of yowling but spooky and sorcerous sound, and the way in which In Vacuo introduce and then twist the central melody is ingenious. The song as a whole proves to be a twisting (and twisted) experience – heavy and battering, deep and drilling, moody and murmuring, jolting and groaning, thrilling in its maniacally glittering tremolo’d vibrations and blood-curdling in the hostility of its varying vocals. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 78: KIZIN, INANNA, SOULROT

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Sep 012018
 

 

This MISCELLANY series is one of several that I started at NCS in the early days, but it has become moribund in recent years. In the case of this series, I posted the first edition on July 5, 2010, and the last one (No. 77) in June 2016, and the series had become very irregular even by then. So a refresher on the MISCELLANY game is probably worthwhile:

On a fairly random basis, I pick releases I’ve not heard before, usually by bands I’ve not heard before; I listen to a song or two (usually without much or any advance idea of what the music will sound like); I write my immediate impressions; and I then stream what I heard so you can make your own judgments. I should add that I have some ambitions to revive this series going forward, though I know myself too well to promise that it will happen on any kind of predictable basis.

I decided to sample the music of these three bands based solely on an e-mail we received from a Chilean metalhead whom I don’t know, recommending these three releases. All three groups are from Chile.

KIZIN

Of the three bands in this collection, Kizin have the most recent release, a 2018 debut album named Abstraction (released on July 17th), which includes cover art by Nox Fragor. Metal-Archives also lists three demos and a compilation in the discography of this group from Temuco going back to 2012, none of which I’ve heard. Abstraction is on Bandcamp, and on that page there’s a written prologue for the album: Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 77: GATECREEPER, CELTEFOG, EGGS OF GOMORRH, OCULTUM, 0N0, LIFE WASTER

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Jun 182016
 

Gatecreeper-2016 split

 

My helpful WordPress blogging software tells me that I started writing this post on March 30, 2016, and then I got sidetracked — repeatedly. I’m so tightly wound that I nag myself about things that I start but don’t finish. My life is full of self-nagging. Sometimes, however, that incessant buzzing in my head produces a result. Hence, this post.

This MISCELLANY series is one of several that I started at NCS in the early days, but it has become very irregular in recent years. So a refresher on the MISCELLANY game is probably worthwhile: On a fairly random basis, I pick releases I’ve not heard before, usually by bands I’ve not heard before; I listen to a song or two (usually without much advance idea of what the music will sound like); I write my immediate impressions; and I then stream what I heard so you can make your own judgments.

GATECREEPER

In my “refresher” above, I forgot to add that I sometimes violate the rules of the MISCELLANY game, and for this first item I’ve done that because I knew something about Arizona’s Gatecreeper before listening to this song. Two years ago I featured one of their videos in a round-up, and after that I grabbed the EP that included the song in the video. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 76: SARGAD, SUICIDE EMOTIONS, SUNNATA, ABSKE FIDES, EYESTRAL, FERMI, DUSK CHAPEL

 MISCELLANY, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 172016
 

Sargard ST

 

June 29, 2015. That was the date of the last MISCELLANY post. Pathetic. I can say that, because I’m saying it about myself — anyone else does that and there will be brutal repercussions, which are the only kind of repercussions we know at NCS.

You probably need a refresher about the MISCELLANY process: I pick a song or two from a release I’ve not heard in advance, usually chosen at random from e-mails or suggestions by readers and usually recorded by bands I don’t know much about. I write up my reactions, and then I stream what I heard so you can make up your own minds. Unlike all the other music-related posts we write at NCS, where we focus on what we’ve heard and want to recommend, this series is an experiment.

I admit that sometimes I pick from suggestions that come from pretty reliable sources, and that’s where most of the bands in this post came from (many from my Serbian friend “M“). But even then, it’s still a shot in the dark. Also, this post is obviously twice as long as most of the past episodes of MISCELLANY, and maybe I should have split it into two parts. But I figured that lots of our readers are as gluttonous as I am when it comes to new discoveries, so just get ready for a big fuckin’ feed.

SARGAD

Sargad are a foursome from Örebro, Sweden, and they released their self-titled debut EP three days ago. I listened to the first song on the EP, “Ur Jord”, and that was so damned good that I listened to the second one, too. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 75: SLAVE HOUSE, KADAVRIK, CHURCH, MORBID PANZER

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Jun 292015
 

 

Welcome to the glorious 75th edition of MISCELLANY, the highly irregular series in which I go exploring into the unknown. For those new to these excursions, I pick bands whose music I’ve never heard before, I try to listen to not more than one recent song per band (though sometimes I cheat and listen to more), I scribble my immediate impressions, and then I stream the music so you can judge for yourselves. (I cheated a lot on my one-song rule today.)

Usually, I make the MISCELLANY selections in a highly random fashion, not knowing whether I’ll like the sounds or not. Today, however, the last three of the four picks were recommended by friends who know something about what I like, so that increased the odds of success. But I still didn’t know exactly what was coming…

SLAVE HOUSE

I’ve already forgotten when or exactly where I noticed the 2014 demo by this band from Columbus, Ohio.  I’m pretty sure someone posted about it on Facebook, and I kept the link for future reference. Yesterday I decided to check out the music, which CVLT Nation put up on Soundcloud last summer. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 74: PALINOPSIA, TEMPLE OF GNOSIS, FORGOTTEN HORROR, VIOLET COLD

 MISCELLANY  14 Responses »
Jun 052015
 

 

The last of these MISCELLANY posts was more than three months ago. I’ve obviously done a piss-poor job getting the series on anything like a regular schedule. Of course, I would be foolish at this point to predict when No. 75 will happen. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

I think we probably need a reminder about how the MISCELLANY experiment works:  I randomly pick bands whose music I’ve never heard before (usually bands whose names I’ve only discovered recently) and I listen to only one or two songs, usually from their most recent releases. I write my immediate impressions of what I’ve heard, and then I stream the music so you can make up your own minds. Unlike everything else we post at this site, I don’t know what the music will sound like in advance, or whether I’ll like it.

PALINOPSIA

My first selection comes from a four-man band named Palinopsia from Poultney, Vermont. They wrote yesterday to call our attention to their first EP, entitled Murmurs From the Well Nothing More, which was released on June 3. The EP is on Bandcamp, and the song that’s set to begin streaming there is the EP’s second track, “Silt”. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 73: SUN SPLITTER, EPOCH, DRÄUGR, AU-DESSUS

 MISCELLANY  15 Responses »
Feb 282015
 

 

I don’t write installments of this long-running series with any kind of regularity, so I always begin by reminding people how it works. On a very random basis I pick bands whose music I’ve never heard before (usually bands whose names I’ve only discovered recently) and I listen to one or two songs, usually from their most recent releases. I write my immediate impressions of what I’ve heard, and then I stream the music so you can make up your own minds.

This experiment differs from just about everything else we post on this site because I don’t know whether I’ll like the music before writing about it. Granted, I tend to get enthusiastic about a very wide range of metal from a very wide range of bands, and in the case of the four bands that are the subject of this MISCELLANY excursion, three of them were recommended recently by friends whose opinions I respect — so that’s a bit of a cheat on my self-imposed rules for the series. Anyway, here we go…

SUN SPLITTER

I heard about this Chicago band through a recommendation from one of the nameless members of Venowl. I’ve now forgotten what topic we were discussing that prompted the recommendation, but I hung on to the name, as well as the link to the Sun Splitter Bandcamp page. Their most recent release is an album named Time Cathedral that came out in January of this year. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 72: FOEHAMMER, ORGAN TRAIL, THE VOMITING DINOSAURS, SNAKEFEAST

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Jan 022015
 

 

Yesterday I noticed a Facebook post by Baltimore’s Grimoire Records about a forthcoming release by a Virginia band named Foehammer and a song from the album that had debuted on Bandcamp. So I visited the Grimoire Bandcamp page — and discovered three more forthcoming Grimoire releases that I didn’t know about (surprising as it may seem, I haven’t yet become omniscient). So I decided, what the hell, this seems like good fodder for the next MISCELLANY experiment. And since I haven’t written a MISCELLANY post in two months, I decided there’s no time like the present.

To remind you about the MISCELLANY rules, I randomly pick albums or EPs by bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually by bands I’ve never heard of either), I listen to a track or two, I write my immediate impressions — and then I stream the music so you can make up your own minds. Unlike everything else I write about at NCS, I don’t know in advance what the music’s going to sound like or whether it will be worth the attention. Don’t try this at home — I’m a trained scientific professional and I can handle the risks.

FOEHAMMER

Foehammer’s self-titled release appears to be a debut album, scheduled for discharge by Grimoire on March 3, 2015. The one song that’s streaming is a 10-minute track named “Stormcrow”. It’s one of three long-form tracks on the album. I like the album art (by Luciana Nedelea). Turns out that “Stormcrow” is quite likable, too. Continue reading »

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