BEST OF BRITISH: DECOHERENCE / DEITUS / THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 022023
 

(Andy Synn presents a killer collection of British Black Metal to tantalise/traumatise your ears)

As I may have mentioned a few times already, my experience of 2023 so far has been that the proggier side of the spectrum has been producing a lot of the most interesting and impressive albums of the year.

Sure, I know there’s been a lot of digital ink spilled about the health and fertility of the Death Metal scene as well but, to my ears at least, most of it has erred more towards just “good” rather than “great”, with a lot of the praise seemingly confusing “quantity” for “quality”.

But we also shouldn’t count out our more blackened brethren either, as there’s been a slow but steady drip-feed of absolutely fantastic Black Metal albums coming out over the last six-seven months too, and today’s edition of “The Best of British” features three more examples that could well throw some discord into your end of year lists come December time.

Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BAXAXAXA, BLUT AUS NORD, CELESTIAL, DECOHERENCE, FABRICANT, FORTIÐ, FREYA, HARM’S WAY, MANTAR, SKÁLMÖLD, THY CATAFALQUE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 182023
 


Baxaxaxa

Today is the 199th day of 2023. On this day in history, among many other instances of idiocy and abuse, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. It’s also the birthday of Nelson Mandela, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Hunter Thompson, Vin Diesel, Geno Suarez of the Seattle Mariners, and maybe you, as well as the death-day of Caravaggio, Jane Austen, Benito Juarez, Machine Gun Kelley, and hopefully not you.

It also happens to be a rare weekday when I had time to pull together a roundup of recommended new songs and videos, which has nothing to do with commemoration of any of the preceding events. There’s so much here that I’ve throttled my usual descriptive verbosity (Satan knows there’s more than enough hot air in the atmosphere today already) and left aside some of the cover art until I can upload it later today. (Presented alphabetically by band name, which led to some interesting juxtapositions).

BAXAXAXA (Germany)

Prepare for: low-end rumbling and thrumming plus grim vibrating riffage, immense jolting chugs and ethereal gothic synths, dragging tones of agony and fanatical serrated-edge yells. The experience is menacing and morbid, feral and ferocious, infernal and infectious…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FALSE GODS, VENOMOUS ECHOES, DECOHERENCE, NUCLEAR WINTER, RITUAL DICTATES

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 242023
 


False Gods

“Excess is best?” Well, sometimes it is. In fact, given how much music NCS throws at people every day, one might even say that should be this site’s sub-header (remember when we used to change the sub-headers every week?). But today the latest edition of Rennie Resmini‘s starkweather SubStack, which landed in our in-box overnight and which asked that question in its title, made me think, “No! Not this morning!”

I already had some ideas for this round-up, and then saw Rennie‘s recommendations and bookmarked a dozen of them that I hadn’t been aware of — too many to explore in full, unless I was willing to delay this collection for many more hours, which I’d be anxious about doing. I did investigate a few of them, and you’ll see two of those below, followed by a few I’d previously found in other ways.

Hope you find something to brighten, or ruin, your weekend, even including the astonishing curveball I’ve thrown you at the end. More selections of a blackened variety coming tomorrow…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DECOHERENCE, COILED AROUND THY SPINE, MEPHARIS, TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD, ISSOLEI, GASTRIC PHANTASM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 222021
 

 

This is a rarity. In fact I can’t think of another time during the last miserable year when I’ve managed to pull together three round-ups of new songs and videos in three successive days. But my fucking day job has been leaving me alone and my spouse has been out of the house a lot with her visiting sister, so here we are. And on we go….

DECOHERENCE (Mutinational)

As mentioned above, this is the third day in a row when I’ve managed to compile a round-up, but it also happens to be the third in a row that includes a cover song. The pandemic year has produced a ton of covers, perhaps because that’s been easier to pull off than writing and recording new music when band members have been indefinitely separated from each other physically. Many covers have been quickly forgettable or never should have been attempted, while others have been very impressive. The first song in today’s playlist is in the latter category. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: DECOHERENCE / THE INFERNAL SEA / ODOACER

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Sep 092020
 


The Infernal Sea

 

(Andy Synn again focuses on the music of bands from his homeland, this time leaning into black metal with reviews of three new albums.)

As the sole British member of the NCS crew (and therefore the only one who can actually write worth a damn… kidding!) it’s my responsibility, and my privilege, to use the platform afforded me here to highlight some of the best and brightest bands who hail from these green and pleasant lands.

Of course, that responsibility is kind of a double-edged sword.

If I’m too critical of a band or album there’s always someone more than happy to attack me for “not supporting the scene”.

But if I’m too positive about someone/something then I’ll inevitably get accused of being biased because I’m a part of the scene.

Hell, it’s actually a blade that cuts three ways when you think about it, because even when I don’t write anything at all about a band’s new record it inevitably leads to people to assume I have something against it/them… it’s a classic lose/lose/lose situation!

Still, as masochistic as it may seem, none of that’s going to stop me from continuing to separate the wheat from the chaff, and today’s column features a bountiful harvest of British Black Metal for your ears only. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: QUESTION, DECOHERENCE, SKELETON, UTZALU, DÖDSVARG, HOSTIA, HAUTAJAISYÖ, EXECUTIONER’S MASK, MONUMENTAL, BERSÆK, MELT, BAUME

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
May 132020
 

 

As you can see, it’s time for another gigantic round-up. I took extra time and included artwork for this installment. I’m also very happy with the variety of what I chose, which I’ll forewarn you includes a batch of songs at the end which include singing.

QUESTION (Mexico)

Two tracks off the new album by this death metal band from Santiago De Querétaro, Mexico, are now streaming. They provide vivid reminders of just how good Question are, providing ravaging vocals, unpredictable rhythmic shifts, and equally surprising fretwork that moves the music in eerie and freakish directions while also generating an atmosphere of unearthly menace and unhinged mania. Continue reading »

DECOHERENCE: “EKPYROSIS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Nov 222019
 

 

(Today Sentient Ruin Laboratories is releasing the debut album of the multinational black metal entity Decoherence, and to commemorate the occasion we have Andy Synn‘s laudatory review of the record.)

It still never fails to surprise me, although I probably should have learned by now, how conservative and parochial some Black Metal fans can be.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that every genre (not just Black Metal) has certain key features, certain boundaries, which define them, but it’s not hard at all to find bands pushing and exploring and expanding these boundaries in a way which still maintains the fundamental essence of the style.

That’s not enough for some people though, especially in Black Metal, where the issue of what is “true” and what is “false” often gets simplified down to “whatever I happen to like is real Black Metal, and whatever I don’t like isn’t”.

Still, even the most obsessive and obdurate of refuseniks will have a hard time denying that Ekpyrosis is one of the best Black Metal albums of the year. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ARKONA, THE SPIRIT, MARA, SVARTTJERN, DECOHERENCE, GOAT TERROR

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Nov 102019
 


Arkona

 

Just a few opening notes:

First, all of the following songs are the first advance tracks from forthcoming albums, The opening four in today’s collection are absolutely wild, and the first three of those put me in mind of the kind of full-throttle, all-enveloping extravagance that often forms the closing movement of a classical symphony.

Second, today I’m just launching immediately into thoughts about the songs I picked, and providing the details about the bands and the releases only after that.

Third, I’m so far behind in mentioning recently released full albums from the black realms that I have in mind another one of these columns tomorrow, which won’t include full reviews of those albums but only teasers. Because that won’t take me as much time, there’s a greater likelihood I’ll be able to follow through. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ROTTING CHRIST, BETHLEHEM, DECOHERENCE, KAPALA, NIMBIFER, FALSE, FALLS OF RAUROS, YELLOW EYES

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Apr 072019
 

 

This edition of SHADES OF BLACK is different from most, in two respects. First, my paying job (i.e., not NCS) has been crushing me lately, including this weekend, and I don’t have time to accompany what I’ve chosen with my usual impressions and links. Second, there’s not as much music in this post as you might guess from the title of the post. I’ve made the rare decision to include three album announcements at the end of the column even though there’s no music available for streaming yet. I did that because I’m so excited about those announcements.

ROTTING CHRIST

The first item I’ve chosen is Rotting Christ‘s new video for “In the Name of God“, one of the tracks on their latest album, The Heretics, which was released in mid-February and reviewed here by DGR. As he wrote, The Heretics follows what the band have established as their “blueprint” — a “sort of larger-than-life, titanic paradigm of martial prowess turned black metal.” It doesn’t push the genre or the band’s music forward as much as it represents a summing-up of their career so far, playing to their most familiar strengths. “In the Name of God” is but one example of that. Continue reading »