SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MEFITIS, CLOUDS, SIKARIO, LABYRINTHUS STELLARUM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 282024
 

(written by Islander)

This is a good time to take stock of where we are (“we” being NCS, not the squirming hive of humanity that continues spinning helplessly through the void). I thought we would have the final installment of our year-end lists from writers and other friends on Monday, but a late-breaking e-mail creates the possibility there will be one more after that. Whether we finish Monday or a bit later, there’s one more segment of LISTMANIA still to come, i.e., my own list of 2024’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. More on that in a minute.

Next week we’ll also have Andy‘s monthly Synn Report and five song premieres (at last count), plus at least a couple of interviews that have been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for an opening. After next week, most of which will still be a holiday for most people, things in metaldom will ramp back up into the usual churn of news announcements and new releases, and we’ll again have the usual weekly volume of premieres, reviews, and interviews from then until 2025 starts winding down. Continue reading »

MÖRK GRYNING: “FASORNAS TID”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 262024
 

(Below you’ll find a review by our Oslo-based contributor Chile of the new album by the Swedish black metal band Mörk Gryning, which was released earlier this month by Season of Mist.)

The times of horrors are truly upon us. With the approach of everything everywhere gnawing all at once, there is something comforting in the knowledge that we as a civilization are still capable of putting out almost nine thousand metal albums each year. Listening to all of them, well, that’s a different story, maybe it will go down as a New Year’s resolution for the coming turn of the calendar. Until then, you are welcome to all the great writing on this very site.

Among those thousands, we are first and foremost focused on the quality in our selection, a logical statement if there ever was one. Enter Swedish band Mörk Gryning which has been around for some time now, and saying that would be an understatement, at the very least. Three decades deep into their career (although with a decade lost in a hiatus from activities), they have released some bona fide classics in albums like Tusen år har gått… or Maelstrom Chaos cementing their place in the pantheon of Swedish metal and surely black metal in general. 

The well-received comeback album Hinsides vrede released in 2020 has put the band back into the spotlight and with it also hopefully brought a new generation of fans. Since fans only want one thing, Mörk Gryning are returning after four years with their new album titled Fasornas tid out now on Season of Mist. The album, more or less, keeps the format of the previous one with twelve tracks in total, although with fewer interludes and a bit longer running time of 44 minutes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (CHRISTMAS DAY EDITION): SKAGOS, WĘDROWCY~TUŁACZE~ZBIEGI, ZÉRO ABSOLU, THE MAN AND THE ABYSS, ISTAPP

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Dec 252024
 

(written by Islander; photo by Islander)

I hope you got a holiday today. If you did, I hope you’ll be able to spend the time happily, however you choose to spend it and whatever it may mean to you. If you didn’t, from all of us at NCS the same wishes still apply.

I wasn’t able to compile a SHADES OF BLACK column last Sunday. I didn’t think about trying to cure the omission during this week, but then DGR said I should run it today “for kvltness so cheesy it would qualify as proper parmigiano.” It’s nice that he picked “the king of cheeses”, and also fitting that it’s often served shaved or grated, since that’s what some of the following selections might do to your brain.

As an aside, did anyone notice that we served up lists from a Grover and a Gonzo yesterday? I wish I was clever enough to have done that on purpose, but I was just following my habit of posting lists from our writers and other friends in the order received. Sometimes the stars align. (And thanks to Dan Barkasi for pointing out the Muppets connection to this dummy.)

And now, onward with some gifts we were all given as the year’s nights turned longest, and which will keep things dark even with the solstice now behind us. (My family’s all old enough that we don’t give gifts any more, so I had some money to spend on this music, and hope you’re not too broke to do that yourselves.) Continue reading »

DREAMING OF A BLACK CHRISTMAS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 242024
 

(Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, Andy Synn has three early Christmas presents for you)

I know not everyone out there celebrates Christmas – either as a religious event or an example of crass commercialism – but for me this period of the year has (with the occasional exception) always been about stepping back and taking some much-needed time to rest and relax and reconnect with family and friends.

Not everyone, of course, is so lucky, which is why today I’d like to share my many blessings with those who are less fortunate… by bringing them a black Christmas, featuring two bands I mentioned during “List Week” (but hadn’t had a chance to cover beforehand) and one whose latest album I didn’t manage to include at all (an omission I am hoping to make up for here).

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 »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HORSE BUTCHER — “HORSE BUTCHER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Dec 192024
 

(written by Islander)

It’s not enough that a particularly dismal and disgusting year on Earth will soon gasp its last rotten and rattling breath — Horse Butcher have arisen to murder it with one of the most vicious and mind-mauling releases of the last 12 months. It’s as if they decided this bastard year didn’t deserve to live even another two weeks.

Given how often our putrid glorious site throws emotionally and aurally assaulting sounds at visitors, it may seem like an exaggeration to say that about Horse Butcher‘s self-titled EP. Trust me, it’s no exaggeration.

Sentient Ruin Laboratories, which will release the EP on December 20th, also isn’t exaggerating when they call the record “a disfigured onslaught of gore-fucked bestial deathgrind worshipping directly at the altar of Carcass, Archgoat, Disgorge, Impetigo and Pissgrave” — “six tracks and twenty minutes of neanderthalian carnage and slaughterhouse madness.”

But you’ll see this for yourselves right quick because today we’re hosting the EP’s premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOONDARK — “THE ABYSMAL WOMB”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 182024
 

(NCS contributor Zoltar wrote the following introduction to our full streaming premiere of the long-awaited debut album by Sweden’s Moondark, which will be released on Friday by Pulverised Records.)

Her name might not matter that much anymore but boy oh boy did she have the look. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about don’t you? That one gorgeous looking girl, for whom you had a not-so-secret crush all high-school years long. She filled your dreams and even to this day, although three decades have passed and you’ve moved to greener pastures with a ring on your finger, three kids, a mortgage, and a beer belly, you can’t seem to be able to get rid of, you can’t help but think of her from time of time, like a lost relic of bygone times when things seemed simpler and funnier.

And then, totally by random, you bump into her on your way to the supermarket. And boom, without warning, all your teenagers’ fantasies are ruined in a nano-second as this once seemingly goddess-like figure turns out to now be ugly, fat, ridden with bad skin problems, and utterly obnoxious.

So yeah, I so wanted Moondark not to be that girl geddit? Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DREAMING DEATH — “SINISTER MINISTER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 172024
 

(written by Islander)

Band name: Dreaming Death. Record title: Sinister Minister. That lovely queasy-green cover art festooned with tentacles and claws. That should be enough to lure you into the music on the debut EP we’re streaming in this post. If it isn’t, you’ll soon see a photo of the band ready and eager to beat you to death with a shovel. That ought to seal the deal.

But just in case, we’ll add that Dreaming Death‘s lineup incudes Pahl Hodgson (guitars, vocals) and Ross Duncan (bass, vocals), known for their work with Beyond Mortal Dreams and Oath Of Damnation, plus drummer Matt “Skitz” Sanders, and further add that their EP lured Lavadome Productions into releasing it this coming Friday — the label’s only release in 2024.

You need any more reasons to listen? Nah, you probably don’t, but providing reasons is the reason for my existence, so you’re going to get some more whether you need it or not. Continue reading »

NIGRUM: “BLOOD WORSHIP EXTREMISM”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 172024
 

(Our Oslo-based contributor Chile prepared the following review of a new album by the now-Sweden-based black metal band Nigrum. The album was just released last month by Iron Bonehead Productions.)

Multiculturalism, what a concept. Joining two (or more) different cultures in a fusion of varying elements of traditions, customs, and human existences to achieve a new state of equilibrium and a richer tapestry of life for everyone to enjoy. Anyway, where else would that be more true and visible than in that melting pot of postmodern lunacy, namely metal. 

Such is the story of Nigrum, originally hailing from Mexico, but settling in Sweden, thus bringing some of the southern madness into the insanity of the darker parts of the world. Coming off their well-received debut album Elevenfold Tail, which was a fantastic accomplishment in itself, Nigrum have wasted no time in recording a follow-up to keep the momentum going. Two years have passed, and with some minor personnel changes, Blood Worship Extremism is now before us, courtesy of Iron Bonehead Productions. 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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