OSLO DEATHFEST: DAY 2

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 052024
 

(This is our Oslo-based contributor Chile‘s report on the second day of the second edition of Oslo Deathfest, which took place on November 29-30 this year, accompanied by his photos.)

Saturday morning came too early, the sweet aching of the body’s night excursions seemingly still present. A couple of cups of coffee later, all is well again, the mysteries of the organism. A perfectly choreographed self-hypnosis ritual. The ice has retreated from the streets and given way to the rain in a move surprising absolutely nobody here. We are ready to go.

Second day of Oslo Deathfest keeps the format of the previous day, but goes even harder with eight bands in total and starting at four in the afternoon to accommodate them all. We are once again greeted by the organisers and the good people at Vaterland for the first two bands.  Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 282023
 

(In the following interview Comrade Aleks caught up with drummer/vocalist Steffen Brandes from the German metal band Cryptic Brood, and covered a lot of the ground that has passed by since their last discussion 3+ years ago, plus taking a look into the Brood‘s future.)

Steffen Brandes performs drums and vocals in the German death metal (with a bit of doom edge) band Cryptic Brood. We did an interview with him in January 2020, and that was fun. And three years later, during January 2023, I found that I somehow skipped Cryptic Brood’s newest release, the Caustic Fetid Vomit EP produced by Lycanthropic Chants in September 2022. That’s just a two-song-long recording, but there’s always something to talk about with the deep underground dwellers.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 022020
 

 

(Here’s Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Steffen Brandes, drummer/vocalist of the German death-doom band Cryptic Brood, whose latest album, Outcome of Obnoxious Science, was released in late November by War Anthem Records.)

Deep-rooted in a bloody and filthy death metal aesthetic, Cryptic Brood of Wolfsburg steadily walk their path remaining true to rules set by their predecessors in the ’90s. It’s one of those death doom bands which keeps the underground spirit of rot filled with disgusting images.

The Graveyard Brood, Wormhead, Brain Eater, Inevitable Death, and Infectious Decay — when you see the titles of Cryptic Brood’s releases you know what will come next. And yes, these Saxons kept their brand with two new releases in 2019, as the full-length Outcome Of Obnoxious Science and the split cassette with their more straight Italian colleagues Ekpyrosis titled In The Grip Of Death won’t disappoint fans of Asphyx or more modern bands like Anatomy, Hooded Menace, and Coffins.

Steffen Brandes (drums, vocals) tells us a few cryptic things in this fresh interview. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GRUZJA, VILLAINOUS TEMPLE, CRYPTIC BROOD, CONSTELLATIA, DIPLOID

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 122019
 

 

It’s been a hell of a week, and I do mean HELL. I’ll spare you the details, because no one likes a whiner (except the core supporters of our current President), but mishaps befalling a loved one and demands by my fucking day job have interfered (again) with my NCS time. These round-ups are always the first casualties when such things happen, so I thought I’d use this relatively placid Saturday morning to catch up a little.

I picked the following songs a couple of days ago after a rare opportunity this past week to do a bit of listening. Many other new songs have come out since then, adding to the long list that already existed, but I decided not to listen to anything else new and just get this done.

GRUZJA

Jeszcze Nie Mamy Na Was Pomysłu is the name of the second album by the Polish black metal band Gruzja, whose line-up includes members of Furia, Mentor, and Biesy (among other groups). It’s set for release (CD and digital) on October 22nd by Godz Ov War Productions, but the whole album is already streaming on Bandcamp. Google Translate tells us that the album’s title, in English, is “We don’t have an idea for you yet”. But Google Translate has a habit of mangling its translations of the Polish language, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in that rendition.

When I began the process of selecting music for this round-up, I only found one song from the album (“800 ZŁ”), which grabbed me in a head-lock, and only this morning discovered that the whole record had been launched on Bandcamp. Consequently, my impressions of the album as a whole may be a bit mangled, too, and have certainly been rendered hastily.
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AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYPTIC BROOD — “SLURPING REEKING SLIME”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 102017
 

 

Somewhere, sometime, there must be a convening of psychotherapists and musicologists who will devote themselves to analyzing why large factions of metalheads revel in the sound of rot and bathe their minds in the filth of suppurating decay. I certainly can’t explain it, but I certainly do enjoy it — and I’ve found a new group of ghouls who deliver the experience with precocious mastery.

I’m referring to a trio from the wonderfully named town of Wolfsburg, Germany, who call themselves Cryptic Brood. In 2015 they self-released a demo cassette named Morbid Rite, which was soon released by different labels that same year, and then Xtreem Music vomited forth the band’s debut EP Wormhead in September 2015. Now the same death-loving Spanish label is going to release Cryptic Brood’s debut album Brain Eater on the first day of March.

In advance of that foul event we have a song to share with you. Not mincing words, the band named it “Slurping Reeking Slime”. Continue reading »