SHADES OF BLACK: HERESIARCH, MAREA, RITES OF REGRESS, MOISSON LIVIDE

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Apr 142024
 

Well, though I feared that partying last night might make today a wasteland for me, an incipient cold kept me away from the party. The only silver lining from missing that birthday party is that I had a clear enough head to pull together this column, which includes reviews and streams of two new albums and two new songs from full-lengths that are on the way — the theme of which is that “Variety is the spice of life!”

HERESIARCH (New Zealand)

Heresiarch‘s new album puts me in mind of a stunning mountain that seizes attention from far away, looming by itself like a daunting edifice above mundane surroundings, like a Rainier or a Fuji or a Kilimanjaro. Only as you get closer do the details begin to stand out too.

Edifice is indeed the new album’s name, and we’re drawn to it initially from far away, the distance being the seven years that separate us in time from their first album, Death Ordinance, which still looms in the memory. Unlike the mountains named above, however, this one is erupting, and through its vulcanism is re-configuring as the explosions occur, the earth shakes, and the lava flows. In that way, new details take shape in the harsh crags, to leave new memories. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HERESIARCH — “NOOSE ABOVE THE ABYSS”

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Mar 152024
 

Seven years have passed since Heresiarch‘s last album Death Ordinance (reviewed here), a long gap in new music segmented only by a pair of splits in 2019 and 2020 (the second of which, with Antediluvian, we premiered here). Now, at last, Heresiarch‘s second album Edifice is on the way, with a release date of April 12th established by Iron Bonehead Productions.

Our review of Death Ordinance referred to the music as “belligerent and bestial”, “militant, violent, and ruthless”, “an obliterating war metal juggernaut”, a “fusion of bloodthirsty primitivism and inhuman mechanisation”, and “a genuine tour de force”, with emphasis on “force”.

Even seven years later, no one would expect Heresiarch to make peace with the world or with their listeners, and on Edifice they haven’t. But as we’ll explain in more detail at a later time, the album’s unforgiving assault on the senses is a multifarious as well as nefarious experience, and the song we’re premiering today — “Noose Above the Abyss” — is a vivid and extremely unsettling sign of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: HERESIARCH AND ANTEDILUVIAN — “DEFLESHING THE SERPENT INFINITY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jul 272020
 

 

Both New Zealand’s Heresiarch and Canada’s Antediluvian have already elevated themselves high up in the global pantheon of ruinous blackened death metal. It seemed inevitable that the day would come when they would join forces, and that day has arrived. They have combined their terrifying talents in a new split release named Defleshing the Serpent Infinity, which will be released on July 31st by Iron Bonehead Productions.

The split reveals both bands at the height of their powers, and displays what makes their particular forms of assault on the senses different from each other. Moreover, the split has been used as a vehicle for both bands to engage in experimentation, coupling forms of nightmarish ambient music to their more unhinged and apocalyptic sonic attacks. Today we make public the split in its entirety, preceded by a slightly revised version of a review we published weeks ago. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET (PART 1): HERESIARCH, ANTEDILUVIAN, VEGAS, LIKTAL

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Jun 042020
 

 

I’m way behind in compiling round-ups of new music and video streams, but nevertheless I thought I’d use this time to recommend a collection of recently released EPs, and to offer a few words about a forthcoming split. All but one of the EPs are debut releases; the one that’s not is actually a preview of a forthcoming album. The split comes from two well-known bands (at least in the underground) whom we’ve written about extensively in the past.  Sadly, I don’t have any music streams from the split that I can share with you at this point, which makes its inclusion here a rarity.

As you can see, I divided this collection into two parts, with the second half coming later today.

HERESIARCH / ANTEDILUVIAN

The split I just mentioned is entitled Defleshing the Serpent Infinity. It will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on July 31st. New Zealand’s Heresiarch contributes three tracks to the split, and Canada’s Antediluvian joins in with two. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SERPENTS ATHIRST — “POISONING THE SEVEN”

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Jul 102019
 

 

Dictionaries define “catharsis” as the purification, purgation, or cleansing of emotions, primarily through art — a process that results in renewal and restoration, or perhaps merely  a release of tension. Although those references usually refer to pity, fear, or grief as emotions purged through artistic catharsis, fans of extreme metal know that rage is also a subject of catharsis — and that rage is itself often the driving force in the creation of violent cathartic music.

Which brings us to Serpents Athirst, a decimating Sri Lankan black metal band whose music we’ve recommended in the past and whose discography consists of a 2011 split, a 2012 demo named Prevail, an EP entitled Heralding Ceremonial Mass Obliteration, and the new song we’re presenting today — “Poisoning the Seven“.

This new track appears on a punishing new split set for release by Cyclopean Eye Productions on July 26th. On this split, Scorn Coalescence, Serpent Adrift are joined by three other ferocious trans-continental groups, all of whom specially recorded the songs for this split — Genocide Shrines (also from Sri Lanka) and the New Zealand bands Trepanation and Heresiarch. Continue reading »

HERESIARCH: “DEATH ORDINANCE”

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Jun 272017
 

 

(New Zealand-based writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises) returns to NCS with this review of the new album by his countrymen in Heresiarch, which will be released on July 7 by Dark Descent.)

 

So here it is, Death Ordinance, the long-awaited full-length debut from New Zealand black/death wrecking machine Heresiarch. It’s no exaggeration to say that Death Ordinance is one of the most anticipated releases in the annals of Antipodean metal, and fans of belligerent and bestial metal the world over have been counting the days until the album’s release. That’s because Heresiarch deliver a singularly brute force audio onslaught –– aka everything you want in an obliterating war metal juggernaut.

Heresiarch are militant, violent, and ruthless; and hell, there’s even a whiff of spurious controversy about them too. All of that’s fuelled the band’s defiant mythos, which Heresiarch reinforce by delivering some of the most remorseless underground metal around. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HERESIARCH — “STORMING UPON KNAVES”

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May 122017
 

 

Despite its stunning physical beauty, New Zealand has long been an ominous fortress of black/death supremacy, and Heresiarch have defiantly stood on the battlements ever since the release of their Hammer of Intransigence EP in 2011, with their looming presence growing even more formidable after the release of 2014’s Wælwulf. Given the strength of those EPs, we have been eagerly awaiting their debut album, Death Ordinance, which will be released by Dark Descent Records on July 7th — and now we finally have music from the album to share with you.

The song we’re premiering today is “Storming Upon Knaves“. It’s the second track in the running order of Death Ordinance. It follows the opener “Consecrating Fire”, which is a slow, stunningly bleak decree of doom that evolves into a militaristic march. You get the sense near the end of “Consecrating Fire” that things are ramping up… and sure enough, all hell breaks loose when “Storming Upon Knaves” begins. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ANTROPOFAGUS, HERESIARCH, THY DARKENED SHADE, VALGRIND, REBIRTH OF NEFAST, VARMIA, ALFAHANNE, VESICANT

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 142017
 

 

I was tempted to name this post “Eye-Catchers“, especially since I haven’t written a post in that series for years, but since I was already quite familiar with most of the bands whose new artwork caught my eye, they didn’t really fit the theme of that series. But the new artwork is damned appealing, and so is the promise of new music from these groups.

And that’s how this post begins — with eye-catching new artwork for four forthcoming albums. Following that, I want to recommend advance tracks from four other forthcoming releases, which themselves also include eye-catching cover art.

ANTROPOFAGUS

The first piece of attention-grabbing artwork I’ve collected here (above) was created by the Chilean artist Nekronikon for the new album by Italy’s Antropofagus. Entitled M.O.R.T.E. – Methods Of Resurrection Through Evisceration, it will be released May 12 on CD via Comatose Music and on vinyl via Everlasting Spew Records. Continue reading »

PREMIERES: HERESIARCH AND MASSACRE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Feb 052014
 

For your audio-visual enjoyment, here are two brand new songs I just heard. I did not group them together randomly. I grouped them together because they make a one-two punch of merciless destruction.

HERESIARCH

Heresiarch are a New Zealand band whose last EP, Hammer of Intransigence, I reviewed here. “In the main,” I wrote, “Heresiarch’s EP is designed to provide unmitigated sonic violence, a thorough immersion in warlike atmospheres, and in that it succeeds in striking fashion…. If I’d only known, I’d have stocked up on some radiation sickness medicine before listening.”

I was stoked to learn this morning that Iron Bonehead Productions will be releasing a new Heresiarch 7″ EP named Wælwulf this coming March (the killing cover art is above), and that one of the three new tracks is now streaming on Bandcamp. “Endepræst” is the name of the song and it’s about 6 minutes of militaristic black/death, beginning as a march and moving into a frontal charge, with cannons blasting and the air filled with tremolo’d shrapnel and the howls of ravening wolves. The song devolves into a gruesome golem stomp of massive proportions, the guitars continuing to buzz like wasps, the vocalist continuing to roar and howl like something inhuman. Continue reading »

HERESIARCH, NICK KELLER, AND DARK DESCENT

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, SHORT BUT SWEET  11 Responses »
Aug 172012
 

I saw this stunning painting long before I knew what it was or that it had any connection to metal. Only yesterday did I find the connection. The artist is a New Zealander named Nick Keller, and the painting is the gatefold interior artwork for an EP named Hammer of Intransigence by a New Zealand band named Heresiarch. To see any even higher-res version, click on the image.

The cover art for the EP, also painted by Nick Keller, is also amazing (and you can again click on it to see a larger version):

Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about Hammer of Intransigence — though I’ll be coming back to Nick Keller shortly. Continue reading »

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