(NCS contributor Grant Skelton has prepared four year-end lists that we will be posting this week, beginning with this one, which focuses on his favorite thrash albums of 2016.)
Dec 272016
Oct 312016
(Grant Skelton reviews the debut album by the Dutch doom band Treurwilg. and brings us a premiere stream of all the songs.)
Earlier this year, I stumbled across Treurwilg on Bandcamp. In January, they released an album of tracks recorded live at the Little Devil bar in their hometown of Tilburg. The album art intrigued me, so I gave it a listen. Since then, I’ve been chomping at the proverbial bit for a proper studio album. So when Treurwilg unveiled the track “As His Final Light Is Fading” from Departure, their debut release, my expectations were exceeded. Readers may remember that I featured the track in a previous Seen & Heard. There, I described it thusly:
“The track is heavy and slow. Heavy like a stony albatross about your neck. And slow like the way you’d die from drowning. It’s also ambivalent, fluctuating between violence and melancholy. The last minute is absolute savagery that flays the flesh of the inner ear. And I mean all that in the best way possible.”
Oct 202016
(Grant Skelton reviews the new album by the UK’s 40 Watt Sun.)
On October 14, 40 Watt Sun birthed an album that has proven difficult for me to review. Part of this is because the music on Wider Than The Sky is just about the complete opposite of what we cover here at No Clean Singing, though surely we’ve covered many bands that exclusively employ clean singing, as an exception to our “rule.”
But there are other reasons why reviewing Wider Than The Sky has been an atypical experience for me. In a recent interview with Sarah Kitteringham for Noisey (here), 40 Watt Sun’s Patrick Walker expressed his distaste with the band’s previous record label promoting them as “doom metal”. Continue reading »
Oct 052016
(Grant Skelton steps in for round-up duty today with a trio of features.)
TREURWILG
Is it just me, or does every funeral doom band just hang out in cemeteries in the autumn? Their promo photos would lead one to that conclusion. But that’s fine by me, as I enjoy autumn, cemeteries, and funeral doom. And why not partake of all 3 together?
Enter Treurwilg from Tillburg, Netherlands. The band’s name is Dutch for “weeping willow.” Just listen to their new song “As His Final Light Is Fading” and you’ll see just how well that name fits the music. Continue reading »
Oct 042016
(We’re turning off our usual beaten paths — but just going parallel to them — as we present the following piece by NCS contributor Grant Skelton. If you’re a writer of fiction, this may interest you. And there’s music in here, too.)
I love writing about metal. I love discovering new music and sharing it with others. I love discussing current favorites and ancient gems. I love metal. And while I am not a musician, metal inspires and influences my own specific creative passion – writing fiction. Especially horror fiction. Continue reading »
Sep 192016
(Our friend Grant Skelton prepared this review of the self-titled debut album by Poland’s Monasterium.)
I have yet to reach satiety when it comes to doom metal. Each new release I come across only seems to whet my appetite rather than quench it. Perhaps a hearty diet of doom simply begets a desire for even more doom. And since I dine daily on doom, I discovered a gem of an album from Poland’s Monasterium. Their self-titled album is currently available from Greek label No Remorse Records.
The stoneclad cover art by Michal “Xaay” Loranc depicts a skeletal coat-of-arms. This banner seems to mark a threshold that, once crossed, will entreat the listener on a journey throughout various mythologies of history. Lyrically, the songs featured on this debut deal with subjects such as martyrdom (“Christening In Blood”), persecution (“A Hundredfold Cursed”), and human sacrifice (“In The Shrine Of The Jackal God”). The liner notes also feature seven unique drawings to accompany each of the seven tracks. Loranc’s artwork adds a deeper dimension to each of the tracks, allowing the listener a visual narrative into the lyrical descriptions. Continue reading »
Aug 262016
(Grant Skelton reviews the new album by the UK band Eye of Solitude and brings us the premiere of a full album stream.)
I’ve truly grown to love sad metal. A prevalent stereotype among the folks who do not understand our beloved genre is that all metal fans are depressed. Yeah, even suicidal. But sorrow, despair, depression, and even suicidal ideation are not unique to metal fans.
In a study published in Frontiers In Psychology, Ai Kawakami intended to find out just why people like sad music. While Kawakami and his fellow researchers used classical pieces for their study, the result is what counts. The participants in the study enjoyed listening to sad music. “Musical emotion,” Kawakami said, “encompasses both the felt emotion that the music induces in the listener and the perceived emotion that the listener judges the music to express.” (Find out more here.)
Certain kinds of metal are for partying and abusing your liver. Other kinds probably give many of us a healthy outlet for aggression so that we don’t wind up in a padded cell. But some metal — and I definitely place London’s Eye Of Solitude in this category — give us something else. I was recently given the pleasure of listening to their latest album Cenotaph. And what exactly does this album give the listener? In a single word, I’d say humanity. Continue reading »
Aug 232016
(Grant Skelton introduces our premiere of a video for a new song by the British band Eye of Solitude from their forthcoming album, Cenotaph.)
Eye Of Solitude will release their new album Cenotaph next week (September 1). This Friday (August 26), No Clean Singing will bring you an exclusive full-album stream of that release along with my review. Cenotaph is an album meant for solitary enjoyment. It will disengage you from all externalities and invite you to retreat inward — to places inside your soul you aren’t even aware of.
In the meantime, No Clean Singing is proud to present another exclusive from Cenotaph. Below, you will find the official music video for the track “This Goodbye. The Goodbye.” The video, directed by Razvan Alexandru, is deliberately slow and contemplative. Just like the track itself. Continue reading »
May 312016
(Grant Skelton introduces our premiere of a song from the new EP by Cloak.)
The self-titled debut EP from Atlanta, Georgia’s Cloak will be released June 20 on Boris Records. No Clean Singing is proud to present you, our diabolical denizens, with an exclusive stream of the second track from the EP.
“The Hunger” is a brooding, blackened track that’s full of ire and venom. But whereas most black metal likes to go right for your throat with a cleaver, Cloak prefer to nick slowly away. Less like an impalement and more like the Chinese “death by a thousand cuts.” The track has a bitter, foaming motif further expounded by the ghostly piano and acoustic guitar accompaniment just prior to the three-minute mark. Spooky melodic leads from guitarist Max Brigham and guitarist/vocalist Scott Taysom work in tandem with the latter’s blistered, grainy vocals. Continue reading »
May 252016
As I write this I’m somewhere over Wisconsin, about to enter Michigan air space — about two hours left before plummeting into the raging hell of Baltimore, or more precisely Maryland Deathfest 2016. I’m excited despite the fact that I’m operating on three hours of sleep and planning to go to the fest pre-party not long after landing. Weep is for the sleak. Or something.
My NCS comrades Andy Synn and DGR, plus former NCS comrade BadWolf, will also be there, plus lots of other friends I haven’t seen since this time last year or longer. Just thinking about the next four days, I smell trouble brewing. Or perhaps the lady in front of me found this a good time to pass wind. Probably both. Continue reading »