May 082023
 

(In the following review our writer DGR provides impressions of the latest discharge of brutality by the Italian death metal band Devangelic. Adorned with cover art by Nick Keller, the album is out now on Willowtip Records.)

We don’t really have much of a mission statement at NoCleanSinging. We have an About page that delves into some of the things that drive us but overall, as we’ve aged, the ideas that fuel this site have either matured or become, as one of our fellow writers coined it, “well intentioned chaos”. That means for all the agents in the world, all of the PR pushes, and all of the news aggregation that we do privately, it’s very hard to tell what may actually make it through the net.

Sometimes we cover a well-known and popular band and other times a group whose social media reach may be in the single digits due to literally just starting out and one of us morons happened to be wandering by the apartment they were recording in that day. However, if there were a band you had to nominate as falling well within the NoCleanSinging wheelhouse you would probably do well by picking Italy’s death metal brutalizers Devangelic. Continue reading »

Jan 142023
 

 

No, this isn’t a weather report on what’s happening in California this Saturday. The post title is just a sign that I decided to “go big” with today’s collection of new songs and videos.

The time it takes me to write up each day’s selections for our 2022 Most Infectious Song list (and surely you’ve been looking at those, haven’t you?) has prevented me from doing any “Seen and Heard” round-ups since January 4th, and consequently the pile of new things has grown to mountainous proportions. Hence the temptation to make this roundup a big one, even though what remains still looks like a mountain.

On the other hand, today IS a Saturday, and coming up I have both a work meeting and an NFL football playoff game I need to watch, even though the odds of our local team winning are remote, so to save time I’ve mostly dispensed with album art and order links, and cut back on the usual verbiage. I’ve organized these according to genre and style. Don’t forget I’ll have another column tomorrow, devoted to shades of black metal. Continue reading »

May 082020
 

 

We have already written extensively about the new album Ersetu by the Italian death metal band Devangelic, just as we did about their previous releases. In this case, in addition to praising individual songs that have been previewed in the progress toward the album’s release, we published an enthusiastic review by our friend Vonlughlio, who summed it up as “a mandatory release for every brutal death metal fan”: These guys know their craft supremely well and have taken the time to create something special in their music that will pass the test of time”.

And indeed, despite how impressive Devangelic‘s first two albums were (2014’s Resurrection Denied and 2017’s Phlegethon), they have managed to elevate their music to an even higher (and more nuanced) plane of brutality with Ersetu. We are thus very excited to present a full stream of the record for you now, in advance of its May 15 release by Willowtip Records. Continue reading »

Apr 152020
 

 

For today’s mega round-up of new songs and videos I decided not to alphabetize everything as I’ve been doing. Instead, I’ve created five pairs of songs. By sheer good fortune, as I continued to hack my way through an ever-burgeoning listening list, I not only discovered these 10 things but found that they could be organized in this way. The songs in each pair aren’t completely similar to each other by any means, but they do share certain qualities that made them fit together nicely (at least to my addled mind).

OIL SPILL (U.S.)

Felicitously, I discovered quotations from others about this new EP by the Texas band Oil Spill that seemed quite fitting, and they had the side benefit of saving me a bit of work in coming up with my own verbiage. These two are from commenters on the EP’s Bandcamp page: Continue reading »

Mar 052020
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by the Italian death metal band Devangelic. It will be released by Willowtip Records and features cover art by Nick Keller)

This time around I feel fortunate to write about Devangelic’s third opus, Ersetu, to be released via Willowtip this upcoming May 15th.  They are one of my favorite BDM bands from Italy, and this release is their most mature work to date.

This band was formed back in 2012 by Mario Di Giambattista and Paolo Chiti, and they released a two-song promo that just blew everyone away and made me a fan on the spot.  Two years passed and they grace us with their debut album Resurrection Denie”, that is one of my top 10 debut albums from any BDM bands out there. The cover, music, and lyrics represented the full scope of this project with songs that were raw, fast, and in-your-face — 30 minutes of pure madness. Continue reading »

Feb 222020
 

 

I’m about to drive to Portland with friends to take in a mainly acoustic show by Austin Lunn (Panopticon), Aerial Ruin, and Mike Scheidt of Yob. That means I probably won’t have a SHADES OF BLACK column on Sunday, though I’ve already written a premiere for that day, so we won’t leave you completely lonesome tomorrow. As for today, I’ve resorted to the “Overflowing Streams” format because there are SO MANY new songs and videos I’ve been enjoying that I didn’t want to cut the list back, and don’t have time to write about them.

Almost everything here surfaced over the last 48 hours. Perhaps needless to say, there’s a lot of variety on offer. I don’t expect anyone (but me) to get a kick out of all this, but hopefully you’ll find at least one or two things to like. Continue reading »

Nov 032017
 

 

(Our brutal-death-minded friend Vonlughlio from the Dominican Republic wrote this review of the new album by Italy’s Devangelic, and if our damned editor weren’t so scatter-brained it would have been posted before the album was released. On the plus side, you can listen to all of it now.)

I’m honored, to say the least, that I have the opportunity to review Italian BDM band Devangelic’s sophomore effort Phlegethon.

The band was founded back in 2012 by Mr. Mario Di Giambattista (Vulvectomy, Corpsefucking Art). That same year the band released a demo of two songs, and it was raw and crushing from start to finish, one of the most-played, if not the most-played, demo for me that year.

Subsequently they signed to Comatose Music and in 2014 released their debut album Resurrection Denied, one of the sickest albums from that year, from the gory cover of a decapitated Jesus to the songs themselves, just raw and riffs for days on end with relentless blast beats. Also Mr. Paolo Chiti’s vocals may have been the best part of it all — the man is one of the best in the genre, with low gutturals and vocal patterns that are memorable. I certainly have to say that among my top debuts in BDM, Resurrection Denied is one of them. Continue reading »

Oct 042016
 

devangelic-abominated-impurity-of-the-oppressed

 

2014 brought the release of the debut album Resurrection Denied by the Roman brutal death metal band Devangelic. They followed that near the end of last year with an EP named Deprecating the Scriptures. And now the band are moving into a new phase in their architecture of destruction, working toward the release of their second full-length in 2017. To provide a a glimpse of this new edifice of sound looming ahead of us, the band have recorded a promo track called “Abominated Impurity of the Oppressed” that will become available for free download today — and we’re bringing you its premiere in this post.

The word “brutal” understates the impact of this new song. It delivers massive, planet-busting riffs operating at maximum efficiency and with maximum destructive impact, in close coordination with titanic grinding lead guitar work and a supremely militaristic drum attack. The near-atonal quality of the song’s enormous grooves, coupled with the vocalist’s ugly gutturals, give the song a cold and merciless feeling that grows increasingly chilling as the minutes pass. The song begins at a furious pace, but slows briefly to ignite a determined bit of pile-driving before resuming laying waste to everyone within earshot. Continue reading »

Jun 112014
 

The following are some of the best things I saw and heard in my ramblings through the interhole today.

TOMBS

I have idiotically failed to write anything about Savage Gold, the new album by Brooklyn’s Tombs which is out today. But because it’s out today, the entire album is also now streaming on Bandcamp, where it can also be ordered. It defies simple classification, with a mix of elements drawn from black metal, hardcore, death metal, and post-metal, among others. It’s a powerful album as a whole, and one in which each song also has its own potent identity. There is no joy in the music, but there is a lot to enjoy.

I go back and forth as to which song is my favorite, but today it’s “Edge of Darkness” (yesterday it was “Seance”), so if you’ve only got time to sample the music, you might start there. The whole album is after the jump.

http://tombsbklyn.bandcamp.com/album/savage-gold
https://www.facebook.com/TombsBklyn Continue reading »