(Let week Relapse Records released a new album by 16 [aka -(16)-], and this week we’ve got Gonzo‘s review of the record below.)
Outside of the unholy trinity of The Melvins, Eyehategod, and Crowbar, you might be hard-pressed to name another longstanding sludge band that’s left their swampy mark on the scene quite like those three have.
If that’s the case, Southern California’s 16 would like a word. Continue reading »
(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo helps us kick off the New Year with reviews and recommendations of four albums released this month.)
Beyond being miserably cold and generally lacking in the “stuff to do” department, January is customarily the month of pure crap. Big-screen movie releases are usually garbage. Music releases tend to be few and far between, and bands tend to (wisely) avoid touring due to the weather. Nobody wants a broken-down trailer in rural Nebraska at 4 a.m. in subzero temperatures with all your gear stuck in it.
So given all that, I was fully prepared to scrape from the bottom of the barrel for this month’s column. Evidently, this January is built differently.
Not only do I already have almost 60 songs on my best-of-year Spotify playlist, but I had to narrow this column down to just a few bands I wanted to include. Separate reviews of other unexpectedly awesome shit may follow – granted, if my fellow NCS scribes don’t beat me to it. (Which is likely.)
(This is Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo‘s list of 2024’s Top 25 albums.)
It’s probably a grim sign of the times when, upon assembling this list, my first thought is “which albums helped me endure the horrors?”
That’s really why we listen to music in the first place, though. In that sense, this year was no different than any other. And I’d defy anyone to name a better form of self-guided therapy than blasting a metal record at god’s volume to help them navigate said horrors of existence.
Holy shit, that all sounded a lot bleaker than I’d intended. Whatever, though. We’re going with it. Continue reading »
(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo weighs in below with reviews of three albums released in November 2024 that he heartily recommends.)
We’re rapidly approaching everyone’s favorite time around here (or most stressful, depending on who you ask) and that time, of course, is Listmania, where our dignified group of NCS scribes, contributors, friends, and an assortment of others all sound off on their favorite releases of 2024.
Before all that unfolds, though, I wanted to squeeze in one last monthly roundup of new music. Why? Because everyone should have something to read on the toilet if they need to avoid asshole family members during the holidays.
You’re welcome. Continue reading »
(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo brings us reviews of the following three albums released in October, just in time for gray days ahead.)
Call me a downer if you must, but I really hate theme parties.
Come to think of it, I don’t like “themed” anything. I once was dragged to an office party with a “The Office” theme (I shit you not) and it was one of the most excruciating hours of my life. This was the same job that occasionally held “ice cream socials” that consisted of nonverbal weirdos quietly grabbing a small cup, wordlessly putting a scoop of Breyer’s into it, and scampering back to their desks. (“Ice cream antisocial” might be the Anthrax and Weird Al collab we never knew we needed.)
That job, fortunately, was a long time ago, but my stance on themes remains. There’s a caveat now, though: after assembling this column, I realized that all three of the albums I used are all similarly dreary, doomy, and full of despair.
So, with this month’s roundup being perfect music to slit your wrists to, perhaps I’m not as averse to themes as I thought I was.
On that gloriously uplifting note, let’s get right into it.
(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo had the good fortune of seeing Blood Incantation perform in Denver on the day of their newest album’s release, preceded by the solo set of Steve Roach, and he’s given us the following show review. We’re also grateful to Denver photographer Jacob Juno for allowing us to use his photos from the show throughout this article.)
Hype is a helluva drug.
And perhaps no band in modern metal is aware of that statement the way Denver’s Blood Incantation are. Their 2019 opus Hidden History of the Human Race was released to a cacophony of effusive praise from every dark corner of the internet, catapulting the band into interdimensional stardom.
Fast forward to 2024. The past five years have seen Blood Incantation’s career become anything but predictable. There are probably fewer words that haven’t been used to describe Timewave Zero than those that have, and the Luminescent Bridge single was a nice surprise that left many (myself included) wanting more.
It felt like a culmination of all of this, then, to have the band play a special one-night-only headlining set at the foot of the Rocky Mountains last week. And to properly commemorate the release of Absolute Elsewhere, they even brought along the king of ambient sound himself, Steve Roach, to open the proceedings.
What followed was a night nobody in the Boulder Theater would soon forget.
(NCS contributor Gonzo usually helps us close the end of months with a collection of reviews, and he does so again today, but this time focusing on just two albums, both of them created by bands from Denver.)
This won’t be news to most of you, so I’ll get right to it –
The rolling thunder of the Denver metal scene cannot be denied. It’s been on a powerful sort of kick in the 2020s, and few American cities can rival the raw talent and creativity that constantly comes pouring out of it. I know this because I live here. Between the crushing ubiquity of heavy music and craft beer, this place is a veritable haven for people who wear battle jackets to bars.
And as the metal gods would have it, two new albums from two rising stars in the Denver scene have been released within a week of each other – Glacial Tomb’s Lightless Expanse and Nightwraith’s Divergence – and if you haven’t heard of either band, buckle up motherfuckers – these albums are poised to change that. Continue reading »
(With the month of August nearly over, our Denver-based writer Gonzo has brought us reviews of four albums released this month — by Summoning the Lich, Yanos, Generation of Vipers, and Zeal & Ardor.)
As we trudge through the final days of August into summer’s last inexorable gasp, there’s still a veritable battalion of quality new releases on the horizon. Hell, even by the time you read this, new albums from Amiensus, Anciients, Leprous, Nails, and Wintersun might even be out – all are set to hit streaming services this Friday.
Unfortunately, my upcoming travel schedule won’t be conducive to getting this Friday’s (August 30) releases included in this month’s roundup, but at least Andy Synn already offered a top-shelf review of the new Leprous last week.
All that being said, August had more than enough quality to kick up a circle pit or two. Dust yourself off and give these releases a spin. Continue reading »
(With July now in the rearview mirror, Gonzo has brought us another monthly collection of recommended albums.)
As a reasonably respectable writer who can form coherent sentences, I’d sooner die than kick off this column with some banal trope like “Summer’s heating up, and so are these new releases!”
Fuck that nonsense. But I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I’m sitting here in my air-conditioned apartment while temperatures outside flirt with triple digits, and that means staying inside and listening to music is a much more preferable option than sweating it out in that godforsaken heat.
And….sigh. Yes, these new releases are pretty goddamn spicy, so feel free to form any heat-related tropes at your own discretion. Just listen to these albums first.
(Our Denver-based writer Gonzo prepared the following review. And with that, we’ll get out of the way and let him explain what’s going on here.)
Before I get too far into this, a few answers to questions you likely already have:
No, the UK’s Gorgonchrist is not a goregrind or pornogrind band.
No, this album isn’t a Metallica cover album.
Yes, those are disembodied human testicles on the cover art.
I think that should cover it for now. But brace yourselves, because this review is probably gonna get fucking weird.