(Andy Synn offered the following thoughts about his conception of our mission here, plus recommendations of three new albums.)
Why are we here? That’s the big question which has been playing on my mind for a while now.
Not in the philosophical or religious sense though, more the very concrete, very real question of why are WE, the people who make up NoCleanSinging, actually here? What is our purpose? What are we trying to achieve? Continue reading »
Anthony Pilon: “The Fevered Sycophant”
(Andy Synn goes on a rant.)
I don’t know about you guys, but the amount of fawning hype I’ve seen being bandied about with regards to certain bands recently has begun to make me feel a little green around the gills.
It’s not so much the fault of the bands in question either – both Rivers of Nihil and Conjurer (to name but two) have produced new albums recently which, while overhyped to a frankly ridiculous degree in places, richly deserve the praise they’ve been getting – nor do I blame them for capitalising on it, but the general lack of any sense of professional ethics or detachment and the perceived unwillingness (or inability) to even try to be even semi-objective on the part of many of those who call themselves “reviewers” has really started to get my goat.
And I realise I may be putting the cat amongst the pigeons here, nor do I contend that NCS is entirely innocent in this regard either, but the fact of the matter is that a large number, maybe even the majority, of the reviews that I encounter these days tend to read more like unpaid press releases than an attempt at any sort of critical analysis/assessment. Continue reading »
(We invite you to respond to Andy Synn’s invitation to fill in a certain alphabet…)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ll doubtless be aware that a little band called… Morbid fuckin’ Angel… just released their long-awaited and highly-anticipated – albeit with a certain amount of trepidation – new album, Kingdoms Disdained.
And while it’s not a total three-point-slam-dunk-home-run (I don’t know sports…) it’s still a solid album, replete with a bevy of stand-out tracks that go a long, long way towards redeeming the band’s slightly tarnished reputation.
Although I still contend that it should have been called Judas… Continue reading »
Anyone who pays any attention knows this: Every day is filled with tragedy, somewhere. We go on here, as everyone else does, because what else are we to do?
I think at some genetically encoded level we know death as well as we know anything. We repress the experience, we fight it, but we know it in our marrow. And we go on with our lives anyway, even when death intrudes in some particularly horrific and incomprehensible way, because in an unthinking way we’re geared to survive.
Enjoyment of our survival is tinged with guilt on days like yesterday and today, as unreasoning as that is. Still, we forge on, because every living thing is driven to do so, even living things as self-destructive as we are, with our giant, toxic, and beautiful brains. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn is the author of this thought piece, and as always, we welcome your own thoughts in the Comments.)
I/we recently received a pair of promos here at NCS that couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed in style, Deus Salutis Meae by Blut Aus Nord and Will to Power by Arch Enemy.
The former is a return to the oppressive, industrialised soundscapes of The Work Which Transforms God and Mort, whose purposefully unsettling nature practically epitomises the idea of “art for art’s sake”, while the latter is a collection of shamelessly catchy, if predictably formulaic, tunes, designed with one eye firmly on increasing the band’s popularity and mainstream (in Metal terms at least) appeal.
And though the two bands/albums have very little in common on the purely musical side of things, their very nature means they can still be compared as representing the two polar extremes of the modern-day Metal spectrum. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn is now lobbying the Oxford English Dictionary for recognition of a new word.)
In case you didn’t know, yesterday saw release of the brand new album by Symphonic Death Metal titans Septic Flesh (yes, I’m still spelling it as two words).
Now while I’m not planning on reviewing it here (that honour will, in all likelihood, fall to DGR), I will say that Codex Omega feels like a big step up from The Great Mass and Titan, the latter of which in particular suffered (in this author’s opinion at least) from a noticeable lack of balance between the “Symphonic” and the “Death Metal” aspects of the band’s sound, with the lion’s share of the effort put into the orchestration, while the drums and riffs (or lack thereof) were treated very much as an afterthought.
And as Codex Omega is such a big improvement on its predecessors in this regard, I felt it might be high time we all got together to discuss the costs/benefits inherent in “symphonisizing” (a word I’ve just invented) your sound. Continue reading »
I’m still in Wyoming with a bunch of good friends, now one day away from the total eclipse of the sun that we came here to witness together. Last night was another late session of stargazing, boozing, and the kind of unpredictable conversation that boozing under the shine of the Milky Way can produce.
Much earlier in the day NCS contributor Grant Skelton had sent me a link to a song that I had decided to include in today’s SHADES OF BLACK column (which I haven’t even started writing, but will write, I promise — though I might not post it until eclipse day tomorrow). And the name of the band reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about in years, and that provoked one of the most interesting conversations under the stars last night. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn’s band Beyond Grace released their debut album, Seekers, one week ago, and almost immediately it became available for download on pirate music sites. In this post, Andy shares some reactions to those events and questions what to do about it.)
As some of you may be aware, my band recently released our debut album (I’ll stop going on about it eventually, I promise).
What you might not be aware of is that fact that the album leaked online for illegal download the same day it was released… something which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence these days.
The thing is, I’m really not sure how to respond to this unfortunate turn of events. There’s several options available to me/us right now, but I’m just not certain what the right move is. Continue reading »
Daniele Valeriani: “Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni” (2017)
(Andy Synn wrote this thought piece — and provides some musical recommendations at the end.)
As part of a new initiative here at NCS, designed to give Islander some time off over the weekend (as well as serve as an intervention for his crippling blog addiction), I’m planning to put together a little something every Saturday – be it a review, an interview, or an opinion piece – to help tide over our readers until the inevitable Monday (editor’s intrusion: and Sunday!) rush of content comes back around.
So here goes nothing… Continue reading »
Oranssi Pazuzu
As regular visitors will have noticed, we haven’t posted very much since last Wednesday. That was the day when three of us here at NCS and a group of other friends made our way to Baltimore for the 2017 edition of Maryland Deathfest — which turned out to be a blast once again, from the set by Baltimore’s Destroyer of Man that launched the pre-fest show straight through to the drum solo by Pete Sandoval that ended Terrorizer’s closing set at Soundstage last night.
In past years I’ve written a day-by-day recap of MDF, with photos and sometimes with videos, usually pulling those together on the morning after each day. This year I decided just to enjoy the event and not worry about writing it up while it was happening. Continue reading »