Aug 182024
 


Häxenzijrkell – photo by Sophia W

(written by Islander)

Two days ago I woke up with a burst blood vessel in one eye. The entire space in the sclera between the iris and the inner corner of the eye had turned a deep and solid red, as if some devil-worshiping artist had figured out how to photoshop the real me.

It doesn’t hurt, nor has it affected my vision, but it looks hideous. The Mayo Clinic’s website says this condition (a “subconjunctival hemorrhage”) will heal itself in a couple of weeks, as the conjunctiva slowly absorbs the blood over time. The same site lists potential causes, but none of them seem to fit my situation, unless I rubbed that eye really hard in my sleep.

For the sake of symmetry, I’ve wondered if there is a non-painful way to burst a blood vessel in the other eye. I thought if I played today’s selections of black metal extra-loud, that might do the trick. So far, no luck; a blown-out eardrum is more likely, but blood draining from the ear canal would also create a kind of symmetry, yes? Continue reading »

Aug 162024
 

(DGR is attempting to clear out a backlog of reviews he has been planning for some time, beginning today with a collection of writings for four bands who released records in May of this year.)

You could probably set your watch by this – right down to the opening sentence even – but it seems once again that the back half of the year has crept up faster than one might expect, which means it is now time for the honoured tradition known as ‘clearing the slate’.

These are quicker, more stream of consciousness reviews than I generally prefer to do, and although the brevity is certainly appreciated, it does still kind of bother me personally that I’m not quite diving as deep into an album as I would generally like to.

This may come as shocking but even though I’ve had extended periods of radio silence on the site throughout the years, that doesn’t mean I’ve necessarily stopped listening to music. Instead, the musical net behind the good ship DGR remains constantly deployed, and full, even after I’ve removed and returned any protected species to the their homes in the wild.

What you see here are albums that’ve slowly built up in the collection over the year, some recent and others very clearly and assuredly not so recent. Some of these are even releases that I intended to write about before fucking off for the entirety of May, when I jammed out something like eleven or twelve reviews so the site wouldn’t go completely dark while we were all out in the wild that is both Terror Fest and Deathfest.

Either way, if I don’t at least attempt to kick this boulder downhill, the act of leaving so many releases I’ve been listening to without at least something to help get them to a wider audience is going to bother me until December… when I’ll be doing this again during year-end list season. Continue reading »

Aug 152024
 

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the fourth and final day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including another large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For Didrik‘s reports on the festival’s first three days, go here, here, and here.)

The final day began with a bit more fever which also meant a bit more cocaine (still a joke, calm down) and that meant I couldn’t wait for the entire thing to be done. Combined with the lineup being mostly thrash this, wasn’t my favourite day, yet Saturday started with a band that seemed like it could be interesting – the Italian Astral Paralysis.

Metal Archives lists the band as progressive death metal and while their actual playing wasn’t bad there weren’t too many hints of anything progressive. Given that this was the only band on the lineup that went anywhere near proggy vibes, that was disappointing and definitely something I’ve been missing. The band’s biggest problem is, however, the vocalist who was stiff on stage and looked quite terrified. His vocal skill is good, he just needs to relax and play a lot of shows and that should be a lot easier and result in this band going places. Continue reading »

Aug 152024
 

(Andy Synn provides three more recommendations for some home-grown British brutality)

I must apologise for my relative lack of writing/posting over the last couple of weeks – I’ve been pretty busy with a combination of personal, professional, and musical stuff (we’ve got a festival show coming up, for one thing, which will be our first time playing as a three-piece, and then spent all Tuesday this week hanging out at a local brewery and helping out with the creation of a signature beer for the band) which means I haven’t had as much time, or energy, to devote to NCS as usual.

But while I’ve not been able to write very much that hasn’t stopped me from listening… and today’s triptych of album reviews is a product of all that time spent sifting through all the musical chaff to pick out the real diamonds in the rough.

Which may be a mixed metaphor, but I’m running with it all the same.

Continue reading »

Aug 142024
 

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the third day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including another large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the reports on Day One and Day Two, go here and here.)

They say all things come with their consequences. And that must be why I woke up with a fever on day three. Not exactly how you want to start the second half of the festival, but ah well. Time waits for no man and after consuming an obscene amount of cocaine (for legal reasons, I want to make clear that this is a joke) I felt normal enough to continue and start the day early for once as Patroness was opening at 11:50AM.

Tolminator does try and sort of make the days thematic by subgenres and so Friday had a bit of a stoner/doom vibe and the Belgians fit somewhat into that larger bracket. The band has only one released album, Fatum, from 2022, and therefore limited material but the vocalist is utterly deranged. For some reason his pants had one of the pantlegs cut off, he poured a bottle of ice tea on his head, and showcased a generally nihilistic approach to the entire show. At least you can’t say we weren’t entertained. Continue reading »

Aug 132024
 

(Below you’ll find Daniel Barkasi‘s reviews of 8 albums released in July that he enthusiastically recommends to you.)

As summer continues its dreadful humidity-laden romp, I’m reminded of a bit from Robin Williams’ (RIP legend) Live on Broadway standup special where he talked about climate change. More specifically, “It’s beyond Global Warming at this point – it is cooking!” Just over 22 years ago, and he got it like only Robin could. Seriously, watch that entire special if you want to writhe in pain from laughter. Some of the references may be dated to some younger than dirt, but man it’s a good time from one of the funniest people to ever live.

Going from my “If I go outside, I’ll be peeling sweat-ridden clothes off like a layer of Saran Wrap” Florida life, a subject that’s been bugging the crap out of me is generative AI. More specifically, it’s application of generating album artwork – and we use the term artwork in this case very loosely. It’s not artwork at all, but a prompt-drive monstrosity that almost always looks like cheap junk. Continue reading »

Aug 132024
 

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the second day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the report on Day One, go here.)

Hi, hello, we’re back, it’s day two of Tolminator and I’m here again to waffle about some bands I’ve seen. Thursday didn’t start at the stage, however, because we decided to go for a swim instead, as Soča was absolutely begging people to go in with its beautiful greenness and its cold… coldness.

The little storms and showers have by now finally completely fucked off and it was well above 30 degrees Celsius for the rest of the festival (the water stays at about 15 degrees) which means you really need to have a dip here and there if you like living. The river’s level fluctuates a bit and this year it was rather low which also meant the current was very slow and people would constantly lazily float by on all sorts of floaties ranging from pink unicorns, tanks, massive ducks, and so forth.  Continue reading »

Aug 122024
 

(Our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri prepared the following highly entertaining review of the latest album by the Tunisian band Znous, released in early June of this year.)

And now for something completely different. No, I’m not referring to the Flying Circus, the music and the band is anything but unserious. Znous hail from Al Rudayyif, Gafsa in Tunisia and were covered by Andy Synn back in 2021 as “socio-political Punk-Metal firebrands” not to miss.

Continue reading »

Aug 122024
 

(Andy Synn says that listening to the new Duhkha album is an experience you can’t come back from)

While a lot has been written about the various Death Metal bands incorporating more and more stripped-back, straight-to-the-throat Hardcore dynamics over recent years (some more successfully than others, I might add) much less has been written about bands going the other way.

Which is a shame, because the last few years alone have seen the likes of ENDIncendiary, Bridge Burner, End Reign, Underneath and Umbra Vitae (whose latest I still haven’t gotten around to reviewing) all stepping up to demonstrate that the lines between the likes of Earth Crisis and Entombed, Overcast and Obituary, Cro-Mags and Cannibal Corpse, have always been blurrier than the “scene police” pretend.

And now we’ve got Duhkha, whose absolutely devastating debut album, A Place You Can’t Come Back From is here to put one more humongously heavy nail in that particular coffin.

Continue reading »

Aug 122024
 

(In mid-June we published a preview by our Slovenian comrade Didrik Mešiček of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country that was then set to kick off in late July. When it did kick off, Didrik was there, and below you will find his report on the first day. It’s accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography.)

Summer brings with it many things – the heat, the impending dread of the next storm and how much damage it’ll do, but most of all it brings the joys of summer, and amongst those what’s better than metal festivals?

Slovenia’s metal scene reputation has taken a bit of a hit lately as you’ll know if you’ve ever heard or read the unfortunate word “Metaldays” but that beast has been fully slain and buried in what has brought nothing but relief to most people. Upon its grave, a new hope has grown, a young and green tree by the name of Tolminator, now in its second year after a generally impressive debut in 2023.

The festival brings a unique location as it’s based on the confluence of two Alpine rivers while presenting a fairly solid extreme metal lineup and what has become a proverbially pleasant atmosphere ever since some 20 years ago when metal festivals first arose in the area. Much like last year, I was once again allowed to pretend to be a real journalist at the festival and this is why you now get to – naturally to your extreme satisfaction – read a bit about what happened at Tolminator 2024 Continue reading »