SEEN AND HEARD: THE AMENTA, HARM’S WAY, VIOLENT LIFE VIOLENT DEATH, NO DIVINITY, GRUZJA, INTO THE DEEP, INCANTATION

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Aug 172023
 

Oh look! Another mid-week roundup of new music, and it’s even more voluminous than the one I managed yesterday.

To give you a bit of a roadmap to what’s ahead, I’m starting with a perennial NCS favorite from Australia, then moving into an absolutely devastating block of U.S. metallic hardcore, then veering off in all sorts of other different directions.

THE AMENTA (Australia)

The Amenta decided to record a bunch of cover songs by a very eclectic group of bands, ranging from the black metal of Nazxul and Lord Kaos to Alice In Chains, Diamanda Galas, Killing Joke, Wolf Eyes, Halo, and… wait for it… My Dying Bride.

As if the prospect of these covers wouldn’t be titillating enough on their own to pique our interest (because we know a band like The Amenta aren’t going to play it straight with any of those songs), the 40-minute “EP” that includes the covers also presents a new original song, which is the subject of a video that debuted yesterday. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GIVE ME THE GRAVE — “GODLESS”

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Aug 172023
 

Today we’re helping bring the first new music from a new band into the public consciousness. The band is Give Me the Grave, and they’re a trio from Ohio and Pennsylvania who came together to form the band just this year. The lineup features current members of Plaguewielder and Wide Eyes and a former member of Nova Prospect.

They’ve recorded an EP’s worth of songs, entitled Mind In Decay, and what we’ve got for you today is the first single off the EP, a track named “Godless“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, PRIMORDIAL, PERMADEATH

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Aug 162023
 

Happy Hump Day. To help you celebrate the crest of the week before we all fall down the other side, here’s a very short but pretty damned sweet roundup — just three brand new songs, but one of them is long.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM (U.S.)

To begin, here’s “Twin Mouthed Spring“, a breathtaking new track from a new EP by WITTR named Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LEPRA — “OLDE GROWTH”

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Aug 162023
 

Hailing from Portland, Maine, the trio who call themselves Lepra tell you right away to expect unconventional music: They call their creations “black velvet metal”, a potentially risky choice, in association with a genre whose usual trappings lean more toward spikes and iron gauntlets.

But the independence from convention goes deeper than that somewhat ambiguous characterization: Lepra don’t use guitars, though it’s pretty clear they could if they wanted to. Instead, they rely on such instruments as a Wurlitzer organ and flutes, along with a vivid bass, equally vivid drumming, and vocals that are both harsh and clean.

And on their debut album Devil’s Blood In Her Tongue, they also include a guest (Caleb Chase of Potion Seller) who performs harp, cello, and melodica on a song.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lepra you might now be jumping to the conclusion that they’re some kind of potentially dreamy folk-metal band, but that would be too conventional as well, as you’re about to learn for yourselves through our premiere of a song off the new album called “Olde Growth“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: 3RD WAR COLLAPSE — “FOMITES”

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Aug 152023
 

We live in a world where oceans no longer stand as vast barriers to human interaction, and that’s as true in music as in anything else. Witness the union of two Brazilians — guitarist/vocalist Cris Martinez and bassist/vocalist Juan Azevedo — and Finnish drummer Kalle Lindfors in the death metal unit known as 3rd War Collapse.

Martinez and Lindfors first joined forces in this formation (along with Azevedo‘s predecessor) to record the band’s debut album Damnatus, which was released in 2021 by Guttural Brutality Productions. With the new lineup, 3rd War Collapse now have a sophomore album named Catastrophic Epicenter that’s set for release on August 24th by Lethal Scissor Records.

Lethal Scissor‘s advance publicity heralds the new album as “a much-needed hammer to the face, a riff-driven assault which delivers ten tracks of brutal death metal mixed with elements of grindcore, thrash and old school heaviness.” The world has already witnessed the album’s title track, courtesy of a premiere at Toilet Ov Hell, along with a pair of other songs, and today we’re revealing yet another one — a track named “Fomites“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMA CLUSTER VOID — “SELF AND SHADOW BECOME ONE”

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Aug 152023
 

Coma Cluster Void is a Berlin-based death metal band founded in 2013/2014. After igniting flurries of intense attention in 2016 and 2017, both here and elsewhere, they seemed to become reclusive, at least in their recording output.

Those previous flurries were whipped up by their 2016 debut album Mind Cemeteries and then their follow-up EP the next year, a single long song named Thoughts From A Stone.

But at last, the band (with a revised lineup) are preparing to release a new album, this one named Absurd Romanticism. The first titillating sign of that was a single called “Plague Devourer“, but that was two years ago. Now we have fresh new signs, not only the cover art, the track list, and a release date, but also the song we’re premiering today — “Self and Shadow Become One“. Continue reading »

CUNABULA – THE WEIGHT OF SLEEP

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Aug 152023
 

(Andy Synn would like to draw your attention to the debut album from Lithuania’s Cunabula)

Common wisdom would tell you never to judge a book by its cover.

And while that’s true, I can’t begin to tell you the number of times an eye-catching album cover – such as the gorgeous one which adorns The Weight of Sleep – has drawn my attention and acted as the catalyst for me to check out (and subsequently review) a band’s new record.

Of course, it’s important that the band in question have the music and songs to back it up… and Cunabula definitely do.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOD OATH — “THE JOURNEY INTO THE DEPTHS”

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Aug 142023
 

We’re going to cut to the chase right away, because that’s what the song we’re premiering does. We’ll come back to provide some concrete information, but only after “The Journey Into the Depths” (and one other wild song) have flooded your body with adrenaline and thoroughly scrambled your brain (you probably weren’t using it for anything important anyway). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEPULCHRAL CURSE — “ONWARD THE LEGIONS”

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Aug 142023
 

Transcending Obscurity Records introduces Abhorrent Dimensions, the forthcoming second album by Finland’s Sepulchral Curse, by drawing a picture of contrasts in the music — an integration of “crushing and domineering” sensations with others that are “intricate and complex” and still others that weave together “various shades of emotion” that create “engrossing tales” within the songs. Nuance, in other words, coherently co-exists with robust power, and in this way the new album represents an advance in the band’s songwriting.

Of course, as intriguing as those descriptions are, we prefer to form our own conclusions, and no doubt you prefer to form your own too. The conclusions based on the disclosure of individual songs become stepping stones toward the final judgments that will arrive after the album’s complete release, which in this case will happen on October 27th.

Today we can all take another step, courtesy of the band’s official video for the song “Onward the Legions“. Continue reading »

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