OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XI: CHAOS REIGNS

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 282024
 

(Daniel Barkasi returns to NCS with another monthly roundup of reviews and recommendations, this time focusing on eight albums released in October 2024.)

I don’t want to harp on this for too long, as NCS is an outlet that many use as an escape from the perils and frustrations of day-to-day life. We choose to reside within the realm of positivity, embracing the music that we collectively love. However, as someone who steadfastly believes in honesty, truth, facts, science, and logic – the US just by a razor-thin majority decided to embrace disinformation, fallacy, wild conspiracy theories, and authoritarian populism.

It’s sad, and it will harm people. People that we love and care about. If we want to get practical, it’s going to hit the pocketbooks of US citizens hard. Healthcare – while already a cruel joke – could get a whole lot worse. As a type 1 diabetic who is dependent on artificial insulin to exist, it’s scary. A lot of folks are scared, and rightfully so. Fundamental rights have been already taken away, and there’s plenty of risk for more.

Aren’t we tired of living in interesting times? Personally, bring on the quiet, boring, and mundane. Just not in our music. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: COSMIC PUTREFACTION, EGREGORE, HÄXENZIJRKELL, AL-NAMROOD, SUNCZAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 082022
 

 

I had a premiere scheduled for today that unexpectedly fell through, so I decided to scurry around and grab some new songs and videos for a round-up. The scurrying didn’t allow much time for writing, so you won’t find much of that here. I did try to create a genre-spread, because unlike me not everyone likes every formulation of metallic extremity. Have a listen, and pick your poison. (Some very good artwork in this collection too.)

COSMIC PUTREFACTION (Italy)

You’d know if someone slipped this poison into your drink, because it doesn’t go down easy. Prepare for churning, gut-punching, fret-leaping, brain-broiling death metal mayhem by a virtuoso practitioner (Gabriele Gramaglia, with help this time from drummer Giulio Galati). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COSMIC PUTREFACTION — “ABYSMAL RESONANCE PROJECTION”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 132020
 

 

In the spring of last year we had the pleasure of premiering At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm, the debut album of the Italian death metal band Cosmic Putrefaction. Of that album we wrote:

“The songs are constantly veering, the rhythms and tempos in continual flux, the fretwork freakishly intricate and destabilizing. That overarching air of dementia ranges from crazed melees of rampant viciousness to brooding, muttering insanity — with moments of soaring magnificence.

“The album is not exactly loaded with catchy riffs, not made for frequent headbanging, not content to follow straight-forward, well-paved paths. Instead, it’s the kind of album that delivers a thrill-ride — a hellish sonic roller-coaster you experience blind-folded so you don’t see what’s coming. And while the atmosphere, at a high level, is one of derangement, it has other atmospheric qualities that lead the listener off into eerie pan-dimensional and cosmic realms”.

Wasting no time, Cosmic Putrefaction has prepared a second album, with the extensive title of The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers. It will be released by I, Voidhanger Records on May 22nd, and today we’re again privileged to make a premiere — the third and final advance track to be revealed before the album’s release. Its name is “Abysmal Resonance Projection“. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): AVERSIONS CROWN, BLACK CROWN INITIATE, CEMETERY FILTH, COMMON WAR, COSMIC PUTREFACTION, CRYPTEX, CRYPTIC SHIFT, CURSE, DESTROYERS OF ALL, EX DEO, FUNERAL LEECH, FUNERALOPOLIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 142020
 

 

Yesterday was crazy. And no, I’m not talking about the latest coronavirus developments (though those were depressingly crazy too). I’m talking about the ridiculous flood of new songs and videos that were discharged into the electronic ether. Nowadays there are always a lot of new releases on Fridays, but yesterday was a Friday the 13th, and that always triggers a rabid Pavlovian response among bands and labels.

Rather than try to winnow down everything I thought was appealing into a five-or-six song SEEN AND HEARD column, which would have over-stressed my feeble brain, I decided to throw up my hands and resort to the Overflowing Streams format — just shove all these new songs and videos at you with only brief commentary by me.

The thing is, there’s SO DAMNED MUCH STUFF HERE, particularly because I also included a few things that surfaced in the few days preceding Friday the 13th, that I decided to cut it into two parts to make it a little more digestible. Everything is arranged in alphabetical order by band name. If I don’t get the second half ready to go today, you’ll find it here tomorrow along with our usual SHADES OF BLACK column.

AVERSIONS CROWN (Australia)

I was inclined to include this first video simply so I would have an excuse to put Eliran Kantor’s cover art at the top of this page, but wound up digging the song too. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): COSMIC PUTREFACTION — “AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE GREATEST CHASM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 162019
 

 

Those of you who are already familiar with Gabriele Gramaglia‘s work in his progressive black metal project The Clearing Path, or his progressive-sludge-post-metal endeavors under the name Summit, know that he is technically accomplished, compositionally inventive, and continually evolving. In his new project, Cosmic Putrefaction, he has turned all those talents in the direction of death metal — and the results are predictably unpredictable.

With the aid of some talented guests, he has recorded a debut album entitled At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm, which will be released by the always-distinctive I, Voidhanger Records on April 19th, and today it’s our fiendish pleasure to present a full stream of this savagely head-spinning record. Continue reading »