Austin Weber Archives - Page 5 of 19

LEPROUS VORTEX SUN

Jan 122017

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by the Belarusian band Leprous Vortex Sun.)

Try as I might, it’s just not possible to catch every new gem that dropped in 2016, especially among releases that dropped in December, such as the Youdash which Islander covered and I recently covered myself elsewhere. But, since Youdash has been covered here, let’s focus instead on the Belarus black metal band Leprous Vortex Sun, who dropped a terrifying new album on December 21st. Thankfully, my fellow geeky friends often tip me off to stuff like this, so thank you Amir for sharing this with me!

I had to translate the album title (По направлению к Солнцу, плавящему изнутри кости), as it’s originally written in the band’s native tongue using the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, if I’m not mistaken. Roughly translated, what it comes out to in English is: Towards the sun, melting the bones inside. Couple that creepy title with the freakish artwork, and the vibe is set for something grim and otherworldly before you even hit play.

Once you do, it’s a veritable carnival of feverish horror at every turn, mainly consisting of lengthy lumbering songs punctuated by intense chaotic shifts. It poisons you with skin-crawling dissonance masked as “riffs” amidst waves of bestial hoarse screams and growls, while the drumming alternates between a lurch and a full-on weaponised full-throttle assault on a whim. To call this fucked up and deranged-sounding is almost an understatement. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: PROG AND EXPERIMENTAL METAL AND NON-METAL (MORE YEAR-END LISTS FROM AUSTIN WEBER)

LISTMANIA 2016 5 Responses »

Dec 262016

(Last week we published the first three installments of Austin Weber’s year-end lists, which were devoted to death metal, black metal and grind, and mathcore and instrumental metal. This is the fourth and final installment.)

My goal has been to bring you a massive alternative list of my favorite lesser-known releases of the year, divided into several parts. Which means I won’t post a lot of releases that you see on other lists. Not because I didn’t dig a lot of them, but because you already know about them and will be seeing a lot of the same names being repeated elsewhere.

Undoubtedly some of the releases will be ones you’ll know or heard mentioned in passing, but hopefully you’ll find more new bands and music you were unaware of overall. Quotes that appear below the following releases were pulled from my reviews, multi-band articles, and song premieres from music covered here at NCS and my 2016 posts from Metal-Injection. You’ll also find some new mini write-ups for releases I didn’t get a chance to cover anywhere this year, but loved as well. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: MATHCORE, MATH-ROCK MANIA, AND INSTRU-METAL (ANOTHER YEAR-END LIST FROM AUSTIN WEBER)

LISTMANIA 2016 2 Responses »

Dec 232016

(This is the third part of Austin Weber’s four-part year-end list series. To check out Part 1, which focused on variants of death metal, go here, and to see the lists focusing on black metal and grind, click this.)

As 2016 comes to an end, I remain quite thankful to Islander for allowing me to contribute here over the last few years. I really believe in this site and our mission of sharing more of what’s out there than most other sites. So with that in mind, if anyone about to intake this hasn’t seen my prior year-end lists here at NCS, I try to do something different than most people.

My goal is to bring you a massive alternative list of my favorite lesser-known releases of the year, divided into several parts. Which means I won’t post a lot of releases that you see on other lists. Not because I didn’t dig a lot of them, but because you already know about them and will be seeing a lot of the same names being repeated elsewhere.

LISTMANIA 2016: CVLLED KVLT COLD CVTS AND INTELLI-GRIND (MORE YEAR-END LISTS FROM AUSTIN WEBER)

LISTMANIA 2016 10 Responses »

Dec 222016

(Yesterday we began the roll-out of Austin Weber’s year-end NCS lists with a feature focused on variants of death metal, and here we present his second list, with a focus on black metal and grind.)

LISTMANIA 2016: LIFE METAL (A YEAR-END LIST FROM AUSTIN WEBER)

LISTMANIA 2016 6 Responses »

Dec 212016

(This is the first of several year-end lists assembled by Austin Weber that we’ll be posting this week.)

My goal is to bring you a massive alternative list of my favorite lesser known releases of the year. Which means I won’t post a lot of releases that you see on other lists. Not because I didn’t dig a lot of them, but because you already know about them and will be seeing a lot of the same names being repeated elsewhere. Continue reading »

TERAMOBIL: “MAGNITUDE OF THOUGHTS”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Dec 012016

(Here’s Austin Weber’s review of the new album by Montreal’s Teramobil.)

Some of you may have caught Teramobil’s initial 2013 release, Multispectral Supercontinuum, which we covered here at NCS in 2013. It got a lot of coverage elsewhere too, and for good reason. The line-up and the music were jaw-dropping.

The band is a power trio consisting of Dominic “Forest” Lapointe (Augury, First Fragment, ex-Beyond Creation) on six-string Bass, Mathieu Bérubé (Unhuman) on Guitar, and the always amazing Alexandre Dupras (Samskaras and Unhuman) on drums.

Out of nowhere, without any warning, the band dropped their second album yesterday called Magnitude of Thoughts. Even Luc Lemay gets in on the experience, playing some incredible stuff on second guitar on all of “Thanatonaut”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MICHEL ANOIA — “LA TERREUR D’EXISTER”

Premieres 1 Response »

Nov 232016

(Austin Weber brings us another premiere, this time a video for a song from the new album by Michel Anoia.)

Way back in the early days of 2016, our esteemed editor Islander premiered a song called “Two Mountains” by the mind-boggling metal force from Lyon, France known as Michel Anoia. As he often does, he then tipped me off to the group, figuring it’d be right up my alley. He couldn’t have been more correct, as their new album Plethora has become one of my all-time favorite albums for the entire year. Now, as usual, things somehow strangely have come full circle as we unleash an exclusive music video premiere for one of the songs on Plethora called “La Terreur d’Exister”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KARMACIPHER — “NECRORACLE”

Premieres No Responses »

Nov 162016

(Austin Weber brings us this premiere of the title track to a new album by Karmacipher from Hong Kong.)

As of late, it seems the growing influence of groups such as Gorguts and Ulcerate is bringing about a new wave of death metal fixated on twisted ugliness and immersive sorrow. This year alone, many groups have proven how much room there is to explore beyond (or without) solely copying their influences. Today’s premiere from the Hong Kong-based group Karmacipher is yet another fine new addition to this terrifying modern take on death metal.

From what I can tell, the band’s upcoming full-length, Necroracle, will be their first release. But given the quality of the music on today’s single of the title track, these guys aren’t amateurs by any means. Punishing drumming and super-heavy and nasty riffing immediately kick off the song, though it continues to shift into a more off-kilter rhythmic place as the track progresses. Ultimately, it leaves the listener feeling like a helpless subject within a massive, world-destroying, meat-grinder apparatus. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THAETAS — “ISIXHENXE”

Premieres 22 Responses »

Nov 142016

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song by the New York band Thaetas off their forthcoming 2017 album.)

Right now I’m kicking myself, because I could have sworn I covered this year’s Thætas three-song demo here at NoCleanSinging, but it seems that so far I only wrote about it at Metal-Injection. Technically, they did get name-dropped here recently when we covered the new Buckshot Facelift, but that’s because Buckshot Facelift shares a guitarist with Thætas. So, for anyone who is new to the group, gather round, because Thætas are a very promising new band you need to check out.

Today we’ve got an exclusive premiere for you of “Isixhenxe”, a live-in-the-studio recording of a new song by the band that will be appearing on their full-length that’s planned for a 2017 release. Given that, it’s a bit on the raw side production-wise, but I think it gives the song a grittier feeling that I can get down with all the same. Overall, Thætas state that they are a brutal death metal band, but given the diversity in their music, they really deserve a shot from a lot of people who normally aren’t into that sound. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: RETURN TO THE TALENTED DEPTHS OV OBSCURE MADNESS (PART 5)

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Nov 012016

(This is the fifth and final part of continuing series prepared by Austin Weber putting the spotlight on recent releases, and today he focuses on music from these three bands: Vaulting, Octexosis, and Pyrrhic Salvation. To check out Part 1, go here; Part 2 is at this location; Part 3 can be found here, and this link leads to Part 4.)

Vaulting – Vanitas

German technical death/grind weirdos Vaulting have been active since 2006, but like a lot of groups, I’m late to the party, having only gotten into them recently through their 2016 release, Vanitas. I suppose a comparison to the strange sound of See You Next Tuesday might give you a small ballpark with which to think of the music here, but there’s so much more of progressive and eloquent side to Vanitas beyond its mathy miniature death-crushing songs. Continue reading »

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