Apr 022023
 


Gabestok (2019) – photo by Adriana Zak

Every week we receive what mathematicians used to call a metric shit ton of black metal submissions. Maybe it’s because we tend to spend more time than many other metal sites focusing on that ever-expanding genre, and maybe because we try not to limit ourselves to well-known bands with substantial label backing or PR apparatuses.

But as some people still don’t understand, there are very few of us here, and our NCS time comes after paying work, family and friends, and every other demand and distraction that everyone else deals with on a daily basis. So, lots of worthy submissions just don’t get attention in our pages.

From amongst the worthy, there’s truly a high degree of randomness in what we choose to write about, and even more so on days like today when my own NCS time has gotten further compressed by unexpected events (including the Third World quality of internet service on the island where I live).

Yeah, I hear you — “Shut Up and Get On With It, you could have covered one more song in the time it took you to write that pathetic introduction!” I hear you, so let’s get on with it: Continue reading »

Apr 142021
 

 

I found time last night to rumble through a lot of new or newly discovered music, and enough time today to stitch together a two-part round-up. There’s not much rhyme or reason as to why I put these first four in Part 1, because the music is kind of all over the map. It would have been even more hard-to-classify if I’d included Mick Jagger‘s new jam with Dave Grohl, which I do like despite the silliness of the lyrics.

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT (Netherlands)

Having finally listened to “Gone Sour, Doomed” and watched the video that accompanied it when it debuted in February, I’m even more befuddled about why it took me so long to do that. I can’t pretend to hold all the songs of The Monolith Deathcult in my head, despite how memorable many of them are, but I will still say that this new one is among the most exhilarating they’ve ever concocted. And the video is HIGHLY entertaining, and proof that the band’s renowned sense of humor is still alive and well. Continue reading »

Apr 272020
 

 

The relatively new Danish label Strange Aeons Records is on a roll. After giving a vinyl release to a 2018 album by Poland’s Occultum, they’ve made a big move forward this year with the vinyl release of both the latest album by Horned Almighty (To Fathom the Master’s Grand Design) and the new EP by NyreDolk (Indebrændt), word of which seems to be spreading like wildfire among people I know. And now Strange Aeons is following that one with a new EP by the Danish band Gabestok.

As that list of band names would tell you, Strange Aeons has an affinity for black metal, and Gabestok are indeed a black metal band (though not, perhaps, in the conventionally understood sense). They’re part of what’s become known as the “Korpsånd circle”, a diverse group of DKBM bands who have rehearsed and recorded their releases at the venue/rehearsing space Mayhem in Copenhagen. Their debut album Tre (now sold out) was released last fall by Strange Aeons, and this new EP — På herrens brakmark — will be released on May 15th.

What we’ve got for you today is the premiere of a video for a track off the new EP named “Jeg slæber“, and both the sights and the sounds make for a hellishly good time. Continue reading »