SHADES OF BLACK: BEEHIVE REVOLT, EDEN RAYZ

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Dec 292024
 

I had ideas ready for this weekly post today, and notes about the music I’d selected. When I was ready to begin writing this morning, my desktop computer shit the bed (basically, it wouldn’t start up and showed an error symbol).

I spent the next two hours following a variety of Apple instructions sourced from my laptop, none of which worked. Now I have to take the computer to the nearest Apple Store this afternoon, which is about a 90-minute commute from where I live. This is a much more miserable way to spend the day than I’d expected, but of course you and I can imagine worse ways.

In a state of extreme mental frustration and with much of the morning gone, I thought about abandoning this column for today, but as you can see, I didn’t. However, it doesn’t included all the selections I wanted to cover, or even all the words I wish I could have written about the ones below. 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 EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DREAMING DEATH — “SINISTER MINISTER”

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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 »

SHADES OF BLACK: BØNES, FUMES, KRIEG, WITHDRAWAL, LYCOPOLIS, NECRODEATH, PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS, PLAGUEWIELDER, TER ZIELE

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Dec 082024
 

I had time to pull together a large collection of music for this usual Sunday post, but not enough time to pull together the usual long-winded introduction. So we’ll just have to get right to it (please, stop applauding).

As I did in yesterday’s roundup, I organized the choices in alphabetical order by band name. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ABDUCTION, ANCIENT TOME, FANE, MONASTR, MONTE PENUMBRA, PHRENELITH, RELICS OF HUMANITY, VIOLET COLD

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Dec 072024
 


Abduction – photo by Jack Armstrong

(written by Islander)

Bandcamp Friday would have been a better time for this roundup, but I couldn’t get it done in time. Yesterday was the last one of those for 2024, and it’s not clear if Bandcamp will keep it going next year. They announced the 2024 schedule on March 11th of this year, so it’s really too early to say. Obviously, a big horde of us hope Bandcamp continues the tradition.

Well, near misses only count in horseshoes and hand grenades, so my near miss with this roundup probably doesn’t count. Still, even with Friday gone, picking up the releases collected below won’t cost you anything more, even though less of the purchase money will go to the labels and artists.

Once again I resorted to arranging the music in alphabetical order by band name. To the extent there’s any musical through-line here, anything that explains why I picked these songs instead of the many others I considered, it might be that they all made me… uncomfortable… in different ways. And it turns out that the arrangement will throw you back and forth, tempo-wise. Continue reading »

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

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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 »

SHADES OF BLACK: ALIÉNATION, AM I IN TROUBLE?, ANTUMBRA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 012024
 

As you can see, this week’s SOB is very short. I had a late night out with my spouse and friends and a really long hibernation afterward. Also, not long from now, I’ll be heading out again to watch the broadcast of an inconsistent Seattle football team trying to beat a pretty bad New York football team. They’re playing in the East so it’s an early start here in the West.

The upshot is, I don’t have much time to write about music this morning. I thought about not trying to do anything with this column, but man, for 15 years and counting I’ve really hated to leave a void on any day at NCS.

With time short and too many things to choose from, I made the arguably bizarre decision to focus on the three black (or “blackened”) metal bands who e-mailed us most recently about their music – none of whom I knew anything about before listening. Purely by coincidence, all their names begin with “A“. Purely by coincidence, they all turned out to be good, in very different ways. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BALEFIRE, BENEATH MOONLIGHT, DREAMING DEATH, FRACTURED INSANITY, KONKHRA, OCELOT OMELET, PLAGUEFEVER, PRIMEVAL MASS, PYRE

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 302024
 

I have to remind myself that less than half of our visitors had a Thanksgiving Day holiday last Thursday. I checked, and only the U.S. and Brazil celebrated the holiday that day. Here in the U.S. it launched a 4-day holiday, because most people who are relieved from working on Thanksgiving get Friday off too, so it’s a time when lots of people check out of their routines.

It’s not an entirely lazy holiday for a lot of people because the Thanksgiving Day tradition usually involves getting together with family and friends and cooking, and the day after is the ridiculous shopping splurge of Black Friday. But for me, the holiday does make me feel lazy.

I didn’t completely check out of all my routines. We still had lots of NCS posts on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, because I’ve never believed in honoring holidays at our site, and for our writers outside the U.S. those were just two more nothing-special days.

But I admit I did succumb to long bouts of laziness and therefore didn’t listen to much new music the last couple of days. I thought seriously about taking today off from NCS, but as you can see, the old compulsion wouldn’t surrender. Continue reading »

SPLIT-CEPTION: DEADBODY/TRIBAL GAZE & SUNROT/BODY VOID

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 262024
 

(Andy Synn covers four excellent bands as part of today’s article)

So today I present you a split review for a pair of splits featuring two pairs of bands… but don’t worry if that sentence is already making your brains start to hurt, all you really need to know is that you’re about to hear some seriously heavy music.

And, in the end, isn’t that what we’re all here for?

Continue reading »

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