AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DIPLEGIA — “SELF”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 272018
 

 

Diplegia, who hail from Troy, New York, made their recording debut in 2017 with the release of an EP named Squander. Since August of last year, they’ve also released two singles from a forthcoming album — “Follow” and “Bitter” — and we wrote about each of them in our SHADES OF BLACK columns (here and here). The name of the album is Abject Failure, it will be released on September 21st, and today it’s our pleasure to premiere a video for a third single from the album, a track named “Self“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: URFAUST, WALLFAHRER, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, DIPLEGIA, RITUAL, TEMPLE DESECRATION

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
May 062018
 

 

There’s a lot of new music in this week’s SHADES OF BLACK, which I suppose isn’t all that unusual. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of time for me to write about it, in part because of time spent on a rare Sunday premiere (which also comes from black subterranean realms) and in part because I have other plans for today that will separate me from the computer; I hope I don’t experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.

I’ll begin with streams of two fantastic new albums and follow those with four individual songs from forthcoming releases, one of which is paired with an outstanding video.

URFAUST

Maybe it’s not too soon to proclaim the emergence of a trend. Like an unusually high number of other occurrences this year, the august Dutch band Urfaust launched their new (fifth) album with no warning, no advance promotion, no opportunities for scurrilous scribblers to review it before release. This happened on Friday, and although I’ve only managed to listen to The Constellatory Practice once since then, my impulse is to proclaim it a triumph. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ABIGOR, OBSCURA AMENTIA, DEFECRATOR, TAPHOS NOMOS, CIEŃ, VÄKI, DIPLEGIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Nov 272017
 

 

The year is supposed to be barreling toward the end, with a deep breath and a gasping look backward, but it’s obvious that the life pulse of metal takes no breaks. If you spend too much time reflecting on the last 11 months, you will inevitably miss a lot in the 5 weeks yet to come. I’m going to have to take that break, but not quite yet.

I intended to post this particular collection yesterday in its usual Sunday spot, but couldn’t finish it before departing for some Thanksgiving weekend festivities with friends. Since then it has grown a bit, but could have become much longer.

ABIGOR

Yesterday the brilliant Austrian black metal band Abigor announced that their new album, Höllenzwang – Chronicles of Perdition, has been sent off to the pressing plant. They made clear that the release will not be preceded by “any fancy youtube video, tons of merch or other promotion campaigns”. But the band did provide a few insights into the music, as well as a stream of song excerpts, which I’ve included below. Continue reading »