THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 052023
 

(Andy Synn recommends four more albums from last month that he doesn’t want you to miss)

As has been well established by now, if it comes down to a choice between covering bigger names or lesser-known bands… we’ll almost always plump for the latter.

Sure, it decreases our potential reach a little, but it also increases the impact of what we do – one more positive review in a sea of hyperbole isn’t exactly going to “move the needle”, but a bit of praise (usually mixed with a bit of constructive criticism) from us can do wonders for a band with more limited exposure.

In that vein, then, today we’ve got some punky, d-beat loving Thrash (Colony Drop), some terrific “true” Black Metal (Cvinger), a genre-bending riff-odyssey (Hekser) and a shamelessly OTT slab of symphonic extremity (Sanguine Glacialis), all of which you may have overlooked during what was an extremely busy August.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WARCRAB, KRONREST, JUST BEFORE DAWN, CVINGER, AFTERBIRTH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 052023
 

Hey there, how’s your weekend shaping up? Is it shaping up like this, or like this? Either way, after you make your way through what I’ve picked for this Saturday’s roundup it may be re-shaped into something like this.

I decided to arrange the following new songs and videos in reverse alphabetical order by band name, mainly so I’d be able to start with…

WARCRAB (UK)

When I think of WarCrab‘s music I think of the kind of whumping sound that would be produced by a giant battering ram pounding against concrete pylons and ejecting the rebar out the other side. I also sometimes think of Bolt Thrower and Crowbar, and not just because Transcending Obscurity Records refers to those bands in the context of describing WarCrab‘s forthcoming album The Howling Silence.

But in the case of the first two singles from the new album, those aren’t the first impressions that come to mind. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HOUR OF PENANCE, DEVOURING STAR, HENRY KANE, CVINGER, HANGING GARDEN, DISILLUSION, MYLINGAR, EMPTINESS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Oct 122016
 

hour-of-penance-cast-the-first-stone

 

Yes, there are quite a lot of names in the headline of this post, but what follows isn’t quite as daunting as you might think. The first two items consist of news and art for forthcoming releases, but no music yet, and the last two items are just brief teasers of new music. In between I’ve sandwiched four full songs and videos, and I’m quite happy with what I’ve chosen, not only because the music is very good considered in isolation but also because collectively they make for a nice, varied playlist (and the two videos and album covers are quite eye-catching, too). At least it should be nice for people who have eclectic tastes. Here we go….

HOUR OF PENANCE

That’s a hell of a metal album cover up there, isn’t it? It was disclosed yesterday by Italy’s Hour of Penance and Prosthetic Records, who will release the band’s new album Cast the First Stone on January 27, 2017. The cover was created by Gyula Havancsak, whose work we’ve praised before in these pages.

The announcement was accompanied not only by a quote from our site (yay!) but also by the following statement from the band’s vocalist Paolo Pieri concerning the concept of the album, which revolves around the idea that “the injustices suffered during the Crusades and Colonialism do not justify the chain of hate that propagandizes the destruction of the West”: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: CVINGER — “EMBODIED IN INCENSE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
May 272016
 

Cvinger-Embodied In Incense

 

More than two and a half years have passed since I last wrote about the Slovenian black metal band Cvinger, in connection with their excellent 2013 EP, Monastery of Fallen — and then failed to pay proper attention to the band’s debut album, 2014’s Enthronement ov Diabolical Souls. But I’m not making that mistake again.

Cvinger’s new album Embodied In Incense will be released by Art Gates Records worldwide on May 30, and it definitely should not be missed. To make sure you don’t miss it, we’re helping to premiere a full album stream in this very post. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (Pt. 1): SOL SISTERE, TERRA TENEBROSA, CVINGER, VELNIAS, THRAWSUNBLAT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
May 212016
 

Sol Sistere-Unfading Incorporeal Vacuum

 

Over the last week I’ve accumulated a long list of new advance tracks and recent releases that I’d like to recommend. As usual, it’s too much stuff for me to cover completely or in depth. What I’m planning to do is make two collections for this weekend, focusing on black (and blackened) metal, and then compile some additional releases for a Seen and Heard post on Monday. So here’s the first part of a two-part Shades of Black post; the second one will appear tomorrow.

SOL SISTERE

Sol Sistere are a Chilean melodic/atmospheric black metal band composed of veteran members from other groups. Their debut album Unfading Incorporeal Vacuum (which follows a 2014 EP on the Pest Productions label) is set for CD release on June 6 by Hammerheart Records, but a digital version of the album has recently become available for download on the label’s Bandcamp page.

Hammerheart describes the music as a “combination of past elements such as Dissection, Vinterland and Dawn, completed by influences of today” — referring to such bands as Altar of Plagues, Drudkh, and Wodensthrone. These are all worthy reference points, and pretty accurate ones as well (though there’s also a noticeable post-metal ingredient in play as well). This album was intriguing on a first listen and my affections for it have only grown stronger with repeat spins. (The album cover by Misanthropic-Art is also fantastic.) Continue reading »

SUNDAY SAVAGERY: DICHOTOMY, WARCALL, DEMONICAL, CVINGER, AND PSEUDOGOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Sep 152013
 

I took  a rare break from metal for most of yesterday, but not a complete break. I did spend time last night checking out new music and found a handful of savage items that I thought were worth featuring in this post. So here we go:

DICHOTOMY

Dichotomy are a band from Dublin, Ireland, who self-released their debut album Paradigm last month. I haven’t heard it, but I did catch a video they premiered through Terrorizer on Friday for one of the album’s songs. The song’s name is “Of Strife Of Discord”, and according to the band: “The song’s title is a reference to Eris, Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord. The song is about the destruction of the self and allowing chance to rule one’s course; about becoming the embodiment of chaos.”

The song is a dichotomy, too. On the one hand, it’s a jet-fueled blast of melodic death metal with a lot of flying fretwork and some pleasingly serpentine guitar solos. On the other hand, it delivers a boatload of galvanizing grooves that should get heads banging hard. I had fun listening to it. Continue reading »