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GORGING SHADE – INVERSIONS

Nov 112024

(Andy Synn refuses to throw any shade at Inversions)

So my weekend definitely did not go to plan.

Late Friday night my mum was taken to hospital due to severe and unexplained stomach pain, and then early Saturday morning was rushed into emergency surgery to prevent her from, well… dying.

Thankfully the surgery was successful and she’s now recovering well, but she’s not entirely out of the woods just yet, which means I’m going to be spending quite a bit of my time away from home for the next month or so.

As a result my posting schedule may be a little irregular for the foreseeable future, but hopefully I’ll still be able to bring you one or two gems a week that you might otherwise have overlooked.

Gems like Inversions, the long-gestating debut album from Atlanta’s Gorging Shade.

SHADES OF BLACK: KILDONAN, ATRA HAERESIS, DEWFALL, HORNWOOD FELL, THULCANDRA, SAMMATH

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Nov 102024

(written by Islander)

This column comes later in the day than usual, just like yesterday’s did. Yesterday’s was late because I went overboard with how much I tried to cover. Today’s is late because I spent a bunch of time this morning reading things that have nothing to do with music, still trying to process “current events”.

It’s also late because I still tried to cover as much as I could, though not quite as overboard as yesterday. Like yesterday I’ve alternated between recent singles and complete new records, and at the end I’ve added a couple of new videos for songs that aren’t new, though in different ways they’ve been made new again. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: EZOV, DIZZINESS, [4672], THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT, SLUG SALT LAVA, SAHG, DAEDRIC SHRINE, KTANA

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Nov 092024

(written by Islander)

I was going to begin by sharing some thoughts about “current events”. I started writing them. Then it dawned on me that if you wanted to read some dude’s thoughts about current events right at this moment, you wouldn’t be here. You might even be trying to forget about current events, to put off thinking about them until another hour, another day, another month.

And anyway, trashing what I started writing rather than finishing it provided more time for thoughts about another couple of songs. You might not want to read those either, but you might listen, and that’s good enough.

Once again, there’s a lot here. I’ve alternated between complete albums and preview tracks from forthcoming records, followed by a couple of clean-singing head-knockers and something quite out of the ordinary at the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FIASKO — “AMOK ꓘOMA”

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Nov 082024

(written by Islander)

The Polish blackened sludge metal band Fiasko gave the world the first tastes of their new album AMOK ꓘOMA through videos for two of the album tracks, “Wniwecz” (“Into Naught”) and “Sztuczne kwiaty” (“Fake Flowers).

In the first of those, Fiasko showed their current colors in a slow-moving display of miserably moaning and wailing melody, backed by gut-punching percussive blows — and then they shock the listener with a sudden detonation of blasting drums, frantically swarming riffage (which still sounds dismal but vastly more deranged), and furious screams.

In that typhoon surge of sound you can still detect the grim opening melody, but it has been spun up into something substantially more frightening, and as the riffing evolves, it becomes both more feverishly unhinged and more disturbingly agonized. Even the sudden singing sounds emotionally shattered, elevating into screams again. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, OCTOBER 2024

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Nov 082024

(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo brings us reviews of the following three albums released in October, just in time for gray days ahead.)

Call me a downer if you must, but I really hate theme parties.

Come to think of it, I don’t like “themed” anything. I once was dragged to an office party with a “The Office” theme (I shit you not) and it was one of the most excruciating hours of my life. This was the same job that occasionally held “ice cream socials” that consisted of nonverbal weirdos quietly grabbing a small cup, wordlessly putting a scoop of Breyer’s into it, and scampering back to their desks. (“Ice cream antisocial” might be the Anthrax and Weird Al collab we never knew we needed.)

That job, fortunately, was a long time ago, but my stance on themes remains. There’s a caveat now, though: after assembling this column, I realized that all three of the albums I used are all similarly dreary, doomy, and full of despair.

So, with this month’s roundup being perfect music to slit your wrists to, perhaps I’m not as averse to themes as I thought I was.

On that gloriously uplifting note, let’s get right into it.

CANIS DIRUS: “BY THE GRACE OF DEATH”

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Nov 082024

(Here is Todd Manning‘s review of the latest album by Minnesota-based Canis Dirus, which will be unleashed December 21st on LP by Bindrune Recordings and on CD by Alte Seelen.)

Bindrune Recordings have long been one of the most trusted yet still thoroughly underground labels of the 21st century, specializing in all things atmospheric metal. Their latest release from Canis Dirus, By the Grace of Death, keeps the label’s excellent standard of quality alive with their folk-infused take on black metal.

Album opener, “Once Cursed Path Glistens in the Sun”, is an epic black metal piece constructed from a minimal number of parts. The primary riff is mid-paced and heavy, yet also meditative and melancholy. They eventually find a blast beat and display their ability to conjure violence as well. Yet a synth line underneath the maelstrom keeps the atmosphere intact. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AURIFEROUS FLAME — “THE INSURRECTIONISTS AND THE CARETAKERS”

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Nov 072024

(written by Islander)

The last time I attempted to find words for the music of Auriferous Flame I deployed adjectives such as “dire and deleterious,” “hypnotic” and “mystifying,” “deranged and dervish-like,” “molten” and “exotic.” The occasion then was an album named The Great Mist Within, released by True Cult Records in the summer of 2022. Now we have a new occasion because of a new album by this Greek black metal entity, which is one of the several guises assumed by the masterful Ayloss (with Spectral Lore being the best-known of those).

The new album, The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers, will be released tomorrow by the same True Cult Records. It is three songs long, and its overarching subject is revolution. Continue reading »

BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK: AETHYRVOROUS / DEADSPACE / SUN WORSHIP

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Nov 072024

(Andy Synn highlights three recently-released examples of the blackened arts)

A couple of nights ago I went to see the documentary film “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story“.

It’s a movie about heartbreak, and about hope. About the toll which a loss like that takes on a man, and upon his family, yet also about resilience and how the simple act of perseverance – in the face of despair – can represent the greatest heroism.

Quite honestly, it moved me to the verge of tears several times – not just because of the power of the story being told by all those involved, but because in those people up on the screen, often captured in moments of candid openness and raw vulnerability, I also saw myself and a reflection of my own humanity.

But, then, that’s what art does – it allows us to communicate something ineffable about what it is to be human.

After all, we may all share this planet together, but each of us, in a very real sense, is an island unto themselves… and it’s through our art that we try to bridge those gaps between us.

Ultimately this has very little to do with the subject(s) of today’s article – which covers three recently-released Black Metal albums which I believe more people need, and deserve, to hear – beyond the fact that each of them, in their own way, is art.

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME X: THE SEQUEL WE DIDN’T ASK FOR

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Nov 072024

(We welcome the return of Dan Barkasi with another one of his monthly collections of reviews, this time focusing on eight albums released in September of this year.)

Sequels – the often lame, half-baked follow-up to a film that sullies and dilutes what made the original great. Or worse – a next chapter to something which wasn’t anything you wanted to see in the first place. The latter aptly describes our time since our last rendezvous on this fine site.

I mentioned the devastation of hurricane Helene, which grazed past our specific location with minimal issues, other than a day without power (we were incredibly lucky). Then, the dreaded sequel named Milton showed up. Seemingly seeking vengeance for being given such a name – apologies to the fine folks who have been bestowed said moniker – Milton was the most destructive storm to hit west central Florida in over 100 years.

We ended up having to evacuate along with our large army of fuzzy family members to Ft. Pierce and the wife’s cousin’s place, who were incredibly accommodating in hosting us for a few days. The wild part is that an EF3 tornado struck a few miles from their house. This showcases the wide and frightening impacts that this storm brought. Continue reading »

A TRIP ON THE WAYBACK MACHINE: SIX MORE ALBUMS FROM EARLIER THIS YEAR YOU PROBABLY MISSED

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Nov 062024

(After a bit of a break our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri returns to our miserable halls with reviews of six albums that struck some chords in his head, and may have damaged them.)

On the 9th of October ominous news surfaced that a group of hackers decided to lay siege to an internet institution that can generally be considered as a universal good. It was universally seen as a dick move. The Internet Archive is a library of audio, visual and textual resources as well as old website archiving with the mission of providing a library with omniversal access to all knowledge.

Flummoxed at the stupidity, because 99.9% of hackers love this site, and unable to use the Wayback Machine (it is back up now so this link is not compromised as of this writing), I simply had to take a hard stare at my ‘Catching Up’ list. October has been another stacked month for releases and November still has some serious offerings before the end-of-year bonanza. The list of what we weren’t able to get to is not always a question about quality or subjective – or even objective – partiality, it’s the sheer volume of content out there.

With the year almost over, I took it upon myself to go on the ‘way back machine of metal’ and jump back 282 days to January 26th. On its own an insane day for metal releases, two of the releases below fell on that same day. Continue reading »

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