Austin Weber Archives - Page 11 of 19

REPULSIVE DISSECTION: “CHURCH OF THE FIVE PRECIOUS WOUNDS”

Oct 022015

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by Repulsive Dissection, released yesterday by Sevared Records.)

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of slam-oriented brutal death metal, at all. It’s usually about as cookie-cutter in execution as deathcore is. And the reason I say that is not to bash anyone who personally enjoys slam, but merely to point out that for me the new Repulsive Dissection record is the exception to the rule. Church of the Five Precious Wounds is bizarre unorthodox madness, sort of like a more chaotic take on the kinds of deranged and technical death metal that Malignancy and Origin play. It definitely helps that the slam breaks are sparse, and used to great effect as a force of tension between the relentlessly racing nature and blasting throttle of their music overall.

Church of the Five Precious Wounds really never relents from start to finish, and more importantly, never bores or dips in quality at any point in the record. The songwriting itself is a lot more dense and busier than that of most of their peers. It’s maddening to hear how many different parts each song is composed of. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 3 Responses »

Sep 202015

(Austin Weber prepared this Sunday’s edition of The Rearview Mirror.)

As on every Sunday at NCS, it’s time again for us to reflect on music that’s been out for a while, including music you may never have heard before. Today’s time-machine trip into the past takes us into the strange world of California natives Spaceboy, who never really got the recognition they deserved for any of their releases.

Spaceboy played a particularly unusual and complex style of Progressive-minded sludge/death/doom. I’ve strongly argued for years that their two full-length records — 1998’s Getting Warm On The Trail Of Heat and 2002’s Searching the Stone Library for the Green Page of Illusion — are two of the greatest sludge/stoner/doom records of all time. They set a high creative benchmark that has yet to be bested by any group, in my estimation. Here is “Pink Domain” to check out while you read on: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ZILLAH — “THEREFORE I AM”

Premieres 1 Response »

Sep 182015

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by Scotland’s Zillah.)

We’ve been covering Zillah here at NCS since 2011 when Islander first shared their music with our readers and extolled their hard-to-categorize brand of death metal. Recently we were fortunate to premiere a song by them called “Made Flesh And Bone”, which will appear on their soon-to-be-released new album entitled Serpentine Halo. I was very surprised yet happy to see that as of this writing, “Made Flesh And Bone” has been played 1,986 times! Which to me says at least some of our readers must have enjoyed it. For those who liked that one, you’ll be equally pleased with the Zillah song we are premiering today: “Therefore I Am”.

While “Made Flesh And Bone” took its time building toward a blasting second-half conclusion, “Therefore I Am” is an adrenaline-fueled ride from start to finish. It’s a swirling maelstrom of venomous barks and chaotic, spidery riffing colliding with a deep bass low-end and an accomplished drum performance that drives the song forward into the demented void. Continue reading »

BEATEN TO DEATH: “UNPLUGGED”

Album Reviews 9 Responses »

Sep 172015

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by Norway’s Beaten To Death.)

It’s high time for grind time here at NCS, and while I’ve been very impressed with a number of fascinating grind releases this year already, it’s time to add the new Beaten To Death record, Unplugged, to that list of genuinely exciting releases that break the mold.

I recently posted a video here at NCS for a song off Unplugged called “Don’t You Dare To Call Us Heavy Metal”, a strange yet catchy grind tune whose melody will stick in your head as it lifts you up high above the ground. That song is very indicative of the sort of oddball, one-of-a-kind deathgrind that Beaten To Death do so well, and it’s also a good example of their often hilarious song titles and lyrics.

Only one other track is available for listening ahead of the album’s October 9th release, one called “Knulleviser for Barn” that our man Badwolf premiered over at Invisible Oranges yesterday. If you want to check out the song he premiered while you read, go here; or you can also check out “Don’t You Dare To Call Us Heavy Metal” embedded right here from YouTube: Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (THE POWER & THE GLORY)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 5 Responses »

Sep 132015

(Austin Weber prepared this Sunday’s Rearview Mirror post.)

While I’m not the sort of music fan who usually pines for the “good old days”, there are certainly some sounds and styles in the realm of heavy music that are no longer “in”. I’m referring specifically to the early-to-mid-2000s when bands from Botch to Burnt By The Sun and a million others crafted highly volatile yet mercurial mixtures of hardcore and metal. This is the time period when I got into metal, and I was fortunate to catch many of those bands in their heyday.

Of all the bands crafting metallic hardcore crossbreeds around that time, one band still stands out for me, mainly because they never got the respect and appreciation their music deserved, unlike many of their much better known peers. That band, my friends, was the Atlanta based wrecking crew known as The Power & The Glory. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 4): ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, WOLCOTT FALLS, BODYFARM

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Sep 112015

A few days ago I was in a sour mood because it appeared I might have to go to Alaska for my fucking day job, with the prospect of spending 10 days there in a state of metal sensory deprivation. As things turned out, I did in fact have to go to Alaska — and then turned around 24 hours later and flew back to Seattle. So while the entire escapade was ridiculous (and not worth explaining), the good news is that I can return to normal blogging activity.

Of course, while I was distracted with all this nonsense, dozens of new songs and videos appeared that were worth recommending to you. Our pal Leperkahn stepped up and wrote a 3-part post that we published earlier today featuring 16 of them. However, that collection did not cover everything on my own list of goodies, and in addition Austin Weber sent in a couple of suggestions himself. So in this post I’ve included Austin’s two songs (and I’ll identify which ones they are when I come to them), plus a couple of my own. At the risk of driving you into sensory overload, still more will follow from my list over the weekend.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

Last fall we debuted demo versions of two awesome songs from Abigail Williams’ new album, The Accuser, but today brought the premiere of the album’s first track. I actually got wind of it yesterday through an e-mail alert from Bandcamp that the song had appeared on Candlelight’s page for the album. The song’s name is “Path of Broken Glass“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GENEVIEVE — “CHARNEL FLOW”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by Maryland’s Genevieve, coming soon from Grimoire Records.)

Much like Dark Descent, Grimoire Records has really been on a fucking roll as of late. They’ve somehow managed to release several of my favorite records of the year. And it would seem from the press I’ve seen elsewhere for Dendritic Arbor, Bearstorm, and others that it’s not just our site that has been latching on to all the great things the label is doing. So with that being said, we are very proud to let you hear a song called “Charnel Flow”, the first song to drop from Grimoire’s next release, an album entitled Escapism by a Maryland group known as Genevieve.

Don’t let their innocent-sounding name fool you, because Genevieve’s music dwells in the very pits of despair and disgust. They traffic in a particularly dark blend of black and death metal that’s very noisey and stomach-churning. Listening to “Charnel Flow” brings to mind the warped riffing and unconventional nature of Portal in its death metal moments, which is intertwined with equally warped and odd black metal passages that remind me of the deliciously twisted black metal band Imperial Triumphant. Continue reading »

NAKED ROOTS CONDUCIVE: “SACRED 521”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Off Topic 3 Responses »

Sep 082015

(Austin Weber takes us far off our usual beaten paths with this review of an unusual album by a violin-and-cello duo who call themselves Naked Roots Conducive — with a full-album stream.)

I think one of the most wonderful things about avant-garde and experimental music is how it seems to transport you to a very strange yet intense place where you may have to adapt in order to fully appreciate it. Such is the case with the New York City-based duo called Naked Roots Conducive. The two members are Natalia Steinbach who plays violin and sings, and Valerie Kuehne, who plays cello and and sings as well. The range and scope of the music on their new album Sacred521 is impressive, and I’d say additionally impressive because no other instruments beyond violin, cello, and their two voices appear on the album.

Records such as Sacred521 are difficult to describe, since there aren’t many other people doing anything similar, and the musical lines they straddle coalesce into a sound that doesn’t fit into any established musical style. Naked Roots Conducive craft exquisite and intricate songs that are part classical music, and part nightmarish film score instrumentation, accompanied by heavenly singing courtesy of each member. The end result is not wholly classical music, nor simple singer-songwriter-oriented stuff either. It’s very sweeping and dramatic music, constantly traversing, back and forth, a divide between sour and sublime sounds. Continue reading »

THE RITUAL AURA: “LANIAKEA”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Sep 072015

(In this post Austin Weber reviews the new album by The Ritual Aura from Perth, Australia.)

In the past few months here at NCS we’ve had the honor of premiering two songs by The Ritual Aura from their newly released record Laniakea. Both songs (featured here and here) showed off a wide range of technical death metal influences and differing songwriting styles. The diversity of both “Time Lost Utopia” and “Erased In The Purge” is no fluke, as the rest of the Laniakea is just as varied and dense musically. To my ears, their colliding mass of many different tech-death influences sounds similar to Decrepit Birth-style progressive melodic death metal mixed with The Faceless, Beyond Creation, and Necrophagist. It’s very pissed off, yet frequently abounding in gorgeous melodies and spidery slithering riffs amidst sci-fi key/synth flourishes and interludes that help lend a sense of balance and space-like texture to their music.

While I know not everyone is into records having intro and outro tracks, at least the ones present on Laniakea are both barely over a minute while consisting mainly of pleasant piano playing. The album features two instrumental songs as well, “Nebulous Opus Pt I.” and “Nebulous Opus Pt. II”, with the latter being a very intense and complicated track in line with the rest of their music except sans vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ZILLAH — “MADE FLESH AND BONE”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Sep 042015

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song by a Scottish band we’ve been following for a while — Zillah.)

Scotland’s dissonant death metal juggernauts Zillah are a band Islander has written about several times here at NCS, and I’ve been a fan of them as well for many years. They are about to release their third full-length record entitled Serpentine Halo in early October through Sea Of Corruption Records. It’s especially exciting for me because it’s their first record since 2006 when they released an absolutely insane album called Substitute For A Catastrophe.

That record was way ahead of its time, and you should probably check it out as a further primer into the weird world of Zillah. If you enjoy “Made Flesh And Bone”, which is streaming below, check out their prior works at their Bandcamp: https://zillah.bandcamp.com/album/substitute-for-a-catastrophe Continue reading »

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