NO CLEAN SINGING

POWER OUTAGE

Mar 102016

This is the first post I’ve ever written on my phone. I’m doing this because we’re having a wind storm where I live that knocked out the power while I was asleep AND I can’t get my generator to start AND even if I could, there would be no internet access.

SO, I’m on a ferry boat headed for Seattle, where I presume I can find power, and more importantly, coffee. I have three premieres I need to write and I want to finish a round up, but everything is going to be delayed because someone out there displeased Thor. Shame on you, whoever you are.

In the meantime, enjoy that painting (“The Castle”) by Yaroslav Gerzhedovich (that name is a motherfucker to type on a phone).

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VENEFICIUM’S SELF-TITLED DEMO TAPE

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 5 Responses »

Mar 092016

Even though we’re about to premiere a full stream of the debut self-titled demo by Veneficium, I don’t know who is in the band. They are reputed to be veterans of New Zealand’s metal underground, and that’s entirely believable because this demo is masterful at what it does. What it does is unleash a hellish cataclysm of abyssal black/death savagery — but with the kind of flair and dynamism that make this a bewitching terror.

The demo is produced in a way that gives it an immensely powerful and harrowing sound; you feel the bones in your skeleton vibrate down to your feet, and the earth beneath them seems to quake in massive tremors. Yet while the storm of distortion in the stringed instruments and the reverb effects in the vocals are what you would expect for this kind of sonic warfare, the production is perhaps surprisingly sharp; the murk is not so thick as to obscure all the interesting ingredients that make the music so riveting (and unsettling). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WORMED, GLORIOR BELLI, NAPALM DEATH

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Mar 092016

I had planned a very large round-up of recent music for today. It’s not finished yet, but I still have hopes. Yet as I try to catch up on sharing metal that I discovered over the last week, I continue to be overtaken by metal that has appeared within the last hour or two. Rather than try to cram these new discoveries into that planned round-up, I’m setting that aside so I can bring you this trio of items while they’re still hot off the presses.

WORMED

I’m going to assume that everyone knows Wormed has a new album named Krighsu, and that it will be essential listening here in the first quarter of 2016. And now you can get started listening to it, because a full album stream premiered today at DECIBEL. Continue reading »

HEMOTOXIN (“BIOLOGICAL ENSLAVEMENT”) AND NUCLEUS (“SENTIENT”)

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 092016

(In this post Allen Griffin provides brief reviews of a pair of forthcoming albums.)

If Ripper’s fantastic new album Experiment of Existence (reviewed here) wasn’t proof enough, Unspeakable Axe is releasing two more records that show they have somehow tapped a special vein of Old School Death and Thrash Metal, all of which seem to mine Science Fictional lyrical themes. To a certain degree, naysayers may try to argue that these bands bring nothing new to the table, yet if hindsight is truly 20/20, these hybridizations of Metal’s past are certainly able to produce excellent material that stands on its own in this current musical climate.

HEMOTOXIN

First up is California-based unit Hemotoxin and their second full-length release Biological Enslavement. Much like the aforementioned Ripper, Hemotoxin draw much of their influence from the era when Thrash was transitioning into Death Metal, but also add their own highly technical spin to their material. But where Ripper look toward groups such as Kreator and Merciless, Hemotoxin seem to be a bit more rooted in Bay Area classics, but are well-indebted to early Death Metal as well. Continue reading »

IRRELEVANT LISTENING — VOLUME 2

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Mar 092016

(TheMadIsraeli returns with another round-up of music from yesteryear that’s been keeping him company lately. Volume 1 can be found here. As will become obvious, the post’s title is tongue-in-cheek.)

Here we are with this again. I’m feeling this idea a lot, I have to admit. Getting right to it…

Exodus – Tempo Of The Damned

I honestly believe at the end of the day this is Exodus’ best Souza-era record. It has punch, attitude, mean-as-fuck riffs, and it feels like there’s a higher degree of precision here. I know people enjoyed the wild, free-spirited nature of their earlier albums, but I do feel like the band mastered their craft here.

It also stands as a pretty solid reminder that out of all the more popular American thrash bands, Exodus are the absolute KINGS of the mid-paced stomp. “Sealed with a Fist” is the epitomizing example, raunchy and in your face while being infectious and full of that piss and vinegar thrash captures so well. Continue reading »

HIGH PRIEST OF SATURN: “SON OF EARTH AND SKY”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 092016

(Grant Skelton reviews the new album by High Priest of Saturn.)

I frequently come across new doom or sludge bands who only seem interested in replicating Matt Pike’s Dopesmoker guitar tone and failing miserably at said replication. Nothing wrong with worshipping your idols, and imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. But sometimes we don’t want (or need) a replica. Sometimes we want a diamond in the proverbial rough. Even if that diamond might be a sugar cube served with a hallucinogenic dollop of some kind of esoteric elixir.

Trondheim, Norway’s High Priest Of Saturn are a band I randomly stumbled upon. I hadn’t even heard their name, let alone their music. Perhaps it was their monicker, or the interstellar artwork for their new album Son Of Earth And Sky that initially drew me in. But one drop from their vial was all my palate needed before I yearned for another dose. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SKELETONWITCH, ABORTED, DARK FUNERAL, KVELERTAK

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Mar 082016

Over the last hour I spied four new items of interest that I thought I’d toss up here instead of waiting to include them in tomorrow’s planned round-up, which is already pretty over-stuffed as it is. The first three include new songs.

SKELETONWITCH

I think we can all agree that as the vocalist of Skeletonwitch, Chance Garnette was going to be a tough guy to replace following his ejection from the band in late 2014. Last month the band announced that Adam Clemans of Wolvhammer was the man they chose to try to fill those shoes. And now we have a chance to find out how well he is doing that. Continue reading »

THE DOOM, THE MELANCHOLY, AND PROLIFIC USAGE OF THE WORD “THE”: THE HOWLING VOID, THENIGHTTIMEPROJECT, AND EMBRACE THE DARKNESS

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Mar 082016

(In this post DGR combines reviews of three recently released albums, by The Howling Void, thenighttimeproject, and Embrace the Darkness.)

As of this writing there’s a pretty hot chance that we’ve already run the little collection of grind groups that I’ve been blasting the last few months [yes, we did]. Truth be told, I’ve actually been working on these two collections side by side, but as the best plans are often wrecked at the last minute, this one began as one review, only to be expanded out to three as I kept finding new stuff that needed to be archived.

All three of the acts here are of the slower and melancholy sort, the type that we use as the amplifier of moods for the grey skies that may be outside, and in this case we’ll be committing absolute heresy because two of the three are pretty much entirely clean sung — hell, one is more depressive rock, but that’ll explain itself as soon as you read who is involved, with the third being a more traditional melodoom band who are getting their feet off the ground. The first clean-sung one, I actually didn’t expect to be that way because of the precedent set by the previous releases, and the other one I did, but as a fan of the musicians involved I felt it had to be shared out there.

Let’s begin with one that might have bred some familiarity amongst our readers, as we last touched bases with the project in December of 2013! Continue reading »

LORD MANTIS: “NICE TEETH WHORE”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 082016

(Andy Synn reviews the new EP by Lord Mantis.)

Here at NCS we really try our best to stay out of all the inter- and intra- band drama that goes on within the metal scene, and that goes double when we’re friendly/familiar with some of the parties involved.

Still, I have to acknowledge that it’s practically impossible to talk about the new Lord Mantis EP without addressing the acrimonious, and very public, split that occurred in the band’s ranks not long after the release of 2014’s phenomenal Death Mask, with both Charlie Fell and Ken Sorceron decisively cutting ties with the group, even as drummer Bill Baumgardner and guitarist Andrew Markuszewski vowed to continue on without them.

As a result of this division, lines were drawn, sides were chosen, old alliances torn asunder… with fans on both sides of the divide pulled (willingly or otherwise) into one very un-civil war.

But, despite all this, the one question which matters more than any other is… how does the music on Nice Teeth Whore stack up to the band’s previous releases? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: ROTTEN SOUND — “ABUSE TO SUFFER”

Interviews, Premieres 5 Responses »

Mar 082016

The life expectancy of most metal bands is not much more than that of a child born in a gutter as the Black Plague was sweeping Europe. Those that have survived to see their 20s are often crippled, exhausted, and only going through the motions. And then there’s Rotten Sound.

Born in 1993, they’ve now marked the start of their third decade with a new album named Abuse To Suffer, which will be released by Season of Mist on March 25. If we could harness the energy on these 16 tracks, we could kiss fossil fuels good-by and power our cities and gas-guzzlers on nothing but… rotten sound. Countless grindcore bands (and combatants in other genres as well) have been influenced by this one’s combination of incendiary speed and skull-cleaving heaviness. Maybe it’s like being chased by your children (if they were cannibals wielding knives), because Rotten Sound just seem to run faster, harder, and angrier than ever.

What we have for you today is the debut of a full stream of Abuse To Suffer — but that’s not all. We’ve also got a track-by-track commentary below the stream from the members of the band: Keijo Niinimaa (vocals), Mika Aalto (guitar), Sami Latva (drums), and Kristian Toivainen (bass). Read that, so you can find out about the song with a rap influence, the one built on a riff received from Tommy Iommi in a dream, and what kind of music you make after two bottles of Czech Bozkov Tuzemsky Rum. Continue reading »

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