Apr 272024
 

In considering what to do for this weekly roundup of new songs and videos I felt like a rabbit surrounded by wolves at every point on the compass rose, scrambling and darting this way and that. Too many wolves, not enough space to escape. Wild-eyed, here’s what I decided to do.

CAINITES (Italy)

The cover art for Cainites‘ new album is a very good clue to the music in the album’s first single, “Darkness Awaits“. The feverish riffing, which rings and swarms, is an evil, hungering manifestation, and you can feel its famished heart beating in the drumwork as it snarls and gasps.

But the song is a shapeshifter. The music mysteriously soars and haunted singing (haunted, but still sinister) comes around the corner, and around another corner the music rings like chimes and the creature sings again, forlorn. More changes come, with fast-throbbing guitars and beleaguered doom-ish chords. Continue reading »

Aug 062021
 

 

Over the last few days my NCS comrades (well, mainly DGR) have been shoveling links at me for new songs and videos, in anticipation that I would put together a round-up by today — which is a Bandcamp Friday. Most of those links were for music by bigger-name bands. The thought was that I could also add more obscure names, and that the allure of the bigger names might help introduce the lesser-knowns to more fans.

The problem is that the pile of links has grown to gargantuan proportions, which has made it tougher for me to insert as many other discoveries as I might want and still write up some thoughts about everything. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow. Here’s the A-to-Z deluge I have for today, in alphabetical order.

ARCHSPIRE (Canada)

Prepare for relentless high-speed bludgeoning and crazed fretwork mania as a big rabid mastiff barks in your face at equally high speed. Exhilarating! Continue reading »

Jun 272020
 

 

This is a follow-on to another gigantic round-up I posted yesterday, and almost all of the songs and videos below were released during the last five days.

I may have mentioned that although my day-job (which still hasn’t reopened) is in Seattle, I live on an island in Puget Sound. Living here has lots of pluses and a few minuses, one of which is that whenever one of the weather gods so much as sneezes the power and the internet go out, which is what happened this morning.

So, I’ve been using my phone as a hot spot. That has slowed me down, and has made doing this tedious enough that I’ve not only cut back on my words but also largely left these items without the usual purchase links, Facebook pages, and other info about the records. I’ll try to go back and fill all that in when doing it is a less annoying process.

CIRKELN (Sweden)

An epic musical narrative, both gloom shrouded and frenzied, melancholy and murderous, haunting and majestic. Seemingly a Tolkein-esque tale told by an orc bred in the subterranean halls of Utumno and raging against his enslavement, the dramatic song blends numerous heavy metal styles to very good effect. Continue reading »

Mar 222019
 

 

I guess this week has been like every other week: It brought a flood of new metal. Unfortunately, it was a week when the job that pays the bills left me no time for round-ups. It was a mad scramble just to get everything else done around the NCS compound. Confronted with a list of way too many new songs to write about, most of which I haven’t even heard yet, I made completely impulsive choices from among those I have heard, three of which are videos.

Not sure how much further catching-up with new music I’ll manage in the posts this weekend, but I’m going to try. We’ll see how that goes…

FULL OF HELL

I had to lead off with this new song from Full of Hell because it’s just such a shrieking, roaring horror. One of those things that makes you sit bolt-upright and prevents you from thinking about anything else, which was a blessing, given my scrambled state of mind when I first heard it. Continue reading »

Jul 122018
 

 

For the second year in a row, NCS was proud to co-present Northwest Terror Fest, which took place this year on May 31 – June 2 in Seattle, Washington. Several of us in the NCS family helped organize and present the fest, and I guess that makes us a bit biased, but we’re not the only ones who thought it was a fantastic event. The feedback from bands, fans, and the venues has been uniformly very, very positive — so much so that we and our co-conspirators are already at work planning the third installment of NWTF for 2019.

We will of course be bringing you news about next year’s fest when the time is right, but we now want to take one more look back at NWTF 2018. And to do that, we’re fortunate to be able to present some of the amazing photos that New Orleans-based photographer Teddie Taylor took while the festival was in progress. Continue reading »

Aug 122017
 

 

Yesterday I launched the first two parts of a week-ending round-up (here and here). As promised (every now and then I do keep a promise), I’m continuing the flood of new music today with Part 3. There’s more to come tomorrow, but the remaining songs I picked out will be packaged in our usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK feature.

Some of what you’ll find below are full album streams, though I’m just sketching out some brief thoughts about them and hoping you’ll be intrigued enough to dive deeper into the releases. Wish I had time for more complete reviews, but in the words of American clergyman Robert Schuller, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”

CAUSTIC

I admit that my current mood (fairly black and pissed off) may have influenced the first three picks in this Saturday collection. It certainly influenced my decision to listen to Caustic’s new two-track single… because it’s named Murder the World. Continue reading »

Mar 112017
 

 

To begin our series of weekend posts I’ve assembled the following collection of diverse new songs, one of which comes with a video. Tomorrow we’ll have a premiere and an extra-large SHADES OF BLACK post. I might try to work in something else, time permitting.

Apart from the quality of the music, I also chose the following songs for this post because of the quality of the cover art for the forthcoming albums that will include them.

AU-DESSUS

I dipped my toes in the roiling dark waters of this Lithuanian band’s music when I impulsively selected their self-titled debut for an episode of the now nearly defunct MISCELLANY series two years ago. Now they are returning with a debut full-length entitled End of Chapter, which will be released on May 19 by Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions. Continue reading »

Aug 182016
 

Migration Fest poster

 

This is a recap of the third and final day of the first edition of Migration Fest, organized by 20 Buck Spin and Gilead Media and conducted in Olympia, Washington, on August 12-14, 2016. My recap of the pre-fest show and Day One can be found here, and the Day Two write-up is here.

I’m not as prompt in concluding this review of the festival as I was with the first two parts, but other commitments to our putrid site plus inconsiderate intrusions by the routine of daily life have screwed with my time since I got back to Seattle on Monday. On the other hand, the delay enabled me to upload videos of Day Three performances to YouTube, and I’ve collected those at the end of this post. I still intend to add more videos to the other write-ups as well. Continue reading »

Mar 232016
 

The Body-Full of Hell-One Day You Will Ache

 

(Early last month Allen Griffin brought us a round-up of three power electronics releases, and that provoked enough interest that he returns with another collection.)

It is time once again to go trawling around the abyssal outside of the Extreme Music scene to find the harsh and unknowable. But what is somewhat surprising this time around is how much some of these releases are popping up in more conventional circles.

THE BODY AND FULL OF HELL

Case in point is the new collaboration between The Body and Full of Hell titled One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache, out on March 25th via Neurot. Despite being classified as  a Grindcore/D-Beat band, Full of Hell are no strangers to harsh sonic abstraction and worked with Merzbow on their previous album. The Body are also no strangers to collaboration, bringing in guests on almost all their releases. What we have here is an intermingling of The Body’s punishing Industrial aesthetics with Full of Hell’s more experimental noise-based side. Continue reading »

Mar 192016
 

Ashcloud-Children of the Chainsaw

 

Last week was another one in which I noticed lots of new songs and videos but didn’t have time to round them up, in part because I was writing about a flood of new songs that we were premiering ourselves. So now I’m doing what I failed to do earlier — but because I waited, the round-up has become jumbo-sized. Consequently, I’ve kept my introductions to the music brief and haven’t taken the time to consistently add album art or links as I usually do. When I did something like this last weekend (except with even fewer words), I said I didn’t intend to make a habit of it. I still don’t.

For those who pay attention to such things, I also failed to post Part 3 of the Shades of Black series I began at the start of the week. But I will do that tomorrow. Now, presented in alphabetical order, here are new songs and videos from 17 bands.

ASHCLOUD

On May 1, Xtreem Music will release the new album by Sweden’s Ashcloud. The album’s title tells you a lot of what you need to know about the music: Children of the Chainsaw. Here’s the title track — smoking, tree-felling, crusty Swedish death metal that’s awfully damned sweet. Continue reading »