AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NOCTAMBULIST — “LICHTETER”

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Dec 062024
 

(written by Islander)

“Noctambulist stand for contrasts. Serotonin summits and strung-out canyons. The empty and the grandiose. The beautiful and the appalling.”

That’s how this Dutch band represent their own music, and when you listen, it makes a lot of sense. In more prosaic terms, they could be considered a “melancholic” black metal band, albeit one that draws inspiration from other genres such as post-rock, shoegaze, new wave, and post-punk.

They released their full-length debut Noctambulist I: Elegieën via Northern Silence Productions in 2021, and now they’re following that with a new album named Noctambulist II: De Droom that will come out in February on These Hands Melt.

So far, two singles from the album have appeared. The second one, “Lichteter,” surfaced in mid-November, and today we’re premiering a beautifully made video that evokes key features of the song’s themes. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TETHRA — “WITHERED HEART STANDING”

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Dec 052024
 

On December 6th — tomorrow! — Meuse Music Records will release Withered Heart Standing, a magnificent new album by the Italian melancholic doom/death metal band Tethra, and it’s our pleasure to give you an advance listen today.

Over the course of eight songs, from “Liminal” through “Commiato,” the album both builds a dark, monumental, and ornately adorned edifice and holds out a fragile bleeding heart. It hits very hard, and it drifts like shining seas or wafting clouds. It becomes brazenly defiant, even furious, and it collapses on its knees, like a stricken soul stripped of everything dear but memory. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIFFERENT SEASONS — “DARKSIDE”

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Dec 052024
 

(written by Islander)

We host lots of song, EP, and album premieres — one or two of them every weekday. One of my main tasks around here is to decide which premiere requests to accept, and then to introduce them.

I almost never agree to premiere music from a reissued record, mainly because I interpret “premiere” literally. If a piece of music has already been publicly available, then subsequently hosting it here is not a “premiere,” and by definition music that is being reissued has been heard before.

But for three reasons, I decided to make an exception today. First, this reissue is for a demo that was first released on tape in 1996, and no one else has re-released it since then. So although some members of the public have heard the demo, their number is undoubtedly dwarfed by those who’ve never heard it. Second, the demo has been remixed and remastered, so the public hasn’t actually heard it the way it sounds now.

And third, this demo is more than a historical artifact. As you’ll find out, it hasn’t lost its ability to sink the heart and haunt the mind despite the passing of nearly 30 years. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUMMONING SATURN VOIDS (SELF-TITLED)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 042024
 

(written by Islander)

What madness is this?!?

No doubt with grinning faces, Summoning Saturn Voids describe their lineup as an “intergalactic covenant” that features “clones and doppelgangers stolen from earthly bands like Aborym, Darkend, Drakkar, The Headless Ghost, and Daemoniac (plus a quite well renowned gentleman from Norway).”

Possibly still with grinning faces, but possibly not, they describe their musical mission this way:

“The Summoning Saturn Voids project was born from a desire to create a musical time machine.

“Bringing a black metal singer into the future, immersed in sidereal and cosmic sounds and then catapulting him into the 70’s, jamming with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler…. The potion thus evoked is at the same time spirited and punishing, grim and melancholic, reeking of 70’s era Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and… well, you will surely find out.” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AXIOMA — “LIVE TOTALITY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 042024
 

(written by Islander)

In April of this year the Cleveland post-black metal band Axioma traveled to Lorain, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, to witness a solar eclipse. But they didn’t just witness it, they simultaneously provided their own soundtrack for it.

Building up to the eclipse and continuing through it, they performed an extensive instrumental piece on the lakeshore that they’d written for the occasion, aptly named “Live Totality“, and some friends filmed it, creating a video that includes gorgeous overhead scenes of the band’s setting and the lake.

On December 6th, through their label Stained Glass Torments, Axioma will release that song on a vinyl and digital EP that shares the song’s name. The EP includes three more subsequently recorded tracks, and we have all the songs for you to stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CZARNA MAGIA — “MORBID AFFECTION TO DARKNESS”

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Dec 042024
 

Almost three years after its last album, the Polish black metal band Czarna Magia is returning with a third album named Morbid Affection To Darkness, proudly presented as an uncompromisingly evil reflection of its sole creator Balrog‘s sickness and hatred.

The album will be co-released on December 13th by Symbol Of Domination and The End Of Time Records, and today we premiere its disturbing title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UNTIL DEATH OVERTAKES ME — “DIAGENESIS”

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Dec 032024
 

(written by Islander)

No matter how “niche” they may be, every genre of extreme metal includes variations on the themes that give them their names. That’s why, as time has passed, most of them have been categorically sub-divided, with an ever-increasing use of hyphenated naming conventions.

Few genres are more “niche” than funeral doom. No doubt, it has intensely devoted fans, but, with very rare exceptions, it has never been “popular” and probably never will be. In the imagination of most listeners, the music is too slow, too superficially simple, too appallingly bleak, and usually with track lengths that are too long for anything remotely approaching mass consumption.

Yet even in such a niche genre variations abound, though its popular reach is so limited that people haven’t reached very far for hyphenated or slashed sub-conventions. That doesn’t mean we can’t try, and for the sheer hell of it we will try to find one that suits Diagenesis, the latest album by the mysterious Belgian entity Until Death Overtakes Me which we’re premiering today in advance of its December 6 release by Aesthetic Death. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARTE-X — “Երազանք֊Նպատակ”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks (the ones we use to beat you with), but not too far off: there still seem to be devils roaming these dark woods where we’re going.

What we have for you now is a lyric video for a song from a debut album named Victory by the Armenian band ARTE-X. It will be released on December 12th by a new Armenian label, Holy Mountains Music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VEENLIJK — “GALGENBERG”

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Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re now in that “in between” time of year, a time of holidays and year-end lists, a time for “turning the page” and hoping that the mere movement of the calendar from one year to the next will somehow improve life, a time of reflection and a time of looking ahead that’s unlike any other month of the year.

As such, if we’re honest, it’s the worst time of year to try to catch the attention of listeners about new music. But people should still try to be attentive, because otherwise they’ll miss some gems — such as the startling gem of a song we’re premiering below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TERROR — “PÉOS THANÁTOU”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 292024
 

(written by Islander)

It’s always a challenge to write about the releases of Sentient Ruin Laboratories, not because the music leaves us feeling meh (far from it!), but because it’s tough to match, much less exceed, the way Sentient Ruin describes its records. Today’s example is a forthcoming debut EP named Hymni Belli Occultum, depicted by the label in these words:

Brazilian one-man bestial black/death commando Terror emerges with its first act of ritual terrorism, an eighteen minute EP of gruesome extreme metal warfare weaponized from the cult of Archgoat, Holocausto, Tormentador, Sarcofago, Bestial Warlust and Conqueror.

Across these five edicts of third world barbarism the totality of our new world dystopia is glorified and instigated down to its most antihuman and savage traits, with the cult of all crime syndicates, gangs, slums, warfare, violence, militarism and corruption thrown into an abyss of occultism and esotericism to embody the true lineaments of the modern world antichrist.

See what I mean? Continue reading »

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