GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, END-OF-SUMMER EDITION, 2025

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 122025
 

(Denver-based NCS scribe Gonzo wrote the following album-review roundup, covering four albums released in July or August and one released a week ago.)

As per usual with every summer, I’ve spent about 75% of it in places that don’t include being in front of my computer. And when I am seated here in this vaunted throne, I’m staring at work. The kind that pays the bills. Sigh.

But really, who am I to complain? After a three-year wait, this summer’s resurgence of Fire in the Mountainswas everything it ever could’ve been and more, highlighting a July that was filled with all kinds of uplifting moments. And while I was out galivanting in the woods for undetermined lengths, tons of new releases came gurgling out of the ether that I have yet to write about.

Let’s fix that. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DUSK CULT, BLACK SORCERY, GRÅANDE, MELTED BODIES

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 212023
 

This Sunday’s tour through the black arts is shorter than usual. Unexpected conflicts have arisen in my day. The confliction in the music was planned.

DUSK CULT (Australia)

Behold, our revelation statement
Bow down, before a dying sun
Yielding, to midnight manifesto
We’ve only just begun

Those words are some of the lyrics to “Black Cloud Worship“, a new song that this Australian band presented two days ago through a dramatic video wherein revelations occur on a rocky, wave-drenched shoreline. I had some idea what to expect from this duo (who are members of Be’lakor and Rainshadow), based on the manifold strengths of their 2021 debut album Embrace the Lunar Age, but the music still left my heart pounding hard. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIABLATION, DUSK CULT, EOS, HEGEMON, LANGENNEET, LIGHT OF THE MORNING STAR, NON SERVIAM, VELKA, WITHERING SOUL

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Sep 122021
 


After completing the humongous two-part roundup of new songs and videos that I posted earlier today I nearly gave up on the idea of making this regular Sunday column. Just not much gas left in the tank, and the first Seahawks football game of the season is already under way. But I know some people come here on Sundays for this column, and I don’t want to completely disappoint.

So, I did here what I did with those previous roundups — skimping on the artwork and links, and abbreviating my own commentary, in the hope that mainly tossing out the music is better than nothing at all. And so, with apologies to the bands and to people who actually enjoy the usual format, here we go… presented alphabetically by band name.

DIABLATION (France)

This first song is a frightening yet entrancing one. It reveals eerie, preternatural keyboards that seem to ring from fracturing heavens, and combines those with viscerally powerful rhythms, terrorizing vocal battalions, and racing storms of searing riffage and rampantly hurtling bass and drums. The effect is nightmarish yet intoxicating, menacingly magisterial and marauding. Continue reading »