AN NCS INTERVIEW: HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 292024
 

(Daniel Barkasi has brought us a fantastic interview with Enrico Schettino from the Italian death metal powerhouse Hideous Divinity, whose newest album, reviewed at NCS here, is out now on Century Media Records.)

Some have been calling recent times a sort of death metal renaissance. It’s true that an enormous amount of quality releases from bands old and new have been laying waste to our eager ears in the last few trips around the calendar. Hell, the sheer volume of new bands churning out innovative metal of the deathly variety alone has been inspiring. Death metal’s future is indeed strong. Ever leading the charge of the upper echelon is Rome’s Hideous Divinity.

Ever since their first foray Obeisance Rising in 2012, the band hasn’t slowed down a whole lot, dropping four albums that have continuously set high standards for both themselves and their peers. On to album number five, we have Unextinct, which stands out as their most ambitious, from a band who haven’t quite sat still record to record. It’s a massive album that goes straight for the throat, all while displaying multiple layers of intricate craftsmanship that adds significantly to the whole.

We got the opportunity to have a chat with lead vocalist Enrico Schettino on a myriad of subjects. From the obvious regarding all aspects of Unextinct, the absolutely wild “Against the Sovereignty of Mankind” throat cam video, what’s next (including a hint of an upcoming tour), and an odd question to attempt a practical joke on their incredibly cool manager Tito. We hope you enjoy – and pick up the damn album! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BLAZE OF PERDITION, CAVE, CORPUS OFFAL, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, INSECT ARK, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, ОБРІЙ (OBRIJ), TEN TON SLUG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 232024
 


Blaze of Perdition – photo by Justyna Kaminska

My day job is in an extended period when it’s leaving me alone. This is a double-edged sword for my unpaid work at NCS. I’m able to notice a lot more new songs and videos, but that also leaves me feeling overwhelmed. The flood of new stuff is insane, and equally insane is how much of it is good.

A lot of listeners are so wedded to specific sub-genres that they’re unimpressed by much of what falls outside their solemn vows. I guess I’m wedded too, but am very much a polygamist and feel the need to give all the brides, even the ugliest ones, their fair share of attention.

OK, that was gross, but the point is that I’m enamored of metal from many sub-genres (the more extreme ones), as today’s large roundup demonstrates (though I still think power metal wears too much makeup and flashy clothes). Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “UNEXTINCT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 062024
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album from Italy’s Hideous Divinity in advance of its March 22nd release by Century Media.)

A new Hideous Divinity album will loom large in the distance. We’re now well into the group’s career as a generator of overwhelming and unrelenting death metal, for those who might think that standing at the bottom of a mountain while a crew does avalanche preparation during snow season is a fun way to experience music.

Hideous Divinity started with the intensity of their music ratcheted way past the standard red line and have effectively stayed there. Somehow, with each album, they’ve found new ways to twist and mutate that intensity into something different and malformed every time, often with enough there to make those releases a different experience from one another.

Yet for just as much as the band play mad scientist with their musical compositions there’s still the theme of whether or not their vocalist or their drummer is going to pass out from exhaustion first as the group continually push themselves harder and harder. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DISRUPTION, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, KAWIR, SELBST

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Feb 222024
 

With paying work still leaving me alone, at least for the time being, I’ve found time to compile another roundup of new songs and videos. I can’t remember the last time I was able to do this on back-to-back weekdays. I have high hopes for three in a row tomorrow, though I did see that a refrigerator-sized satellite is supposed to fall to earth soon.

Like yesterday, we’ll go in alphabetical order.

DISRUPTION (SWEDEN)

To kick things off I’ve picked something that will kick you in the teeth but get your sluggish motor running hot too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HASARD, BURIAL CLOUDS, NEÀNDER, DJATLOW, HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 012023
 

Still playing catch-up on all the new songs and videos that surfaced last week… and before….

I suppose I should include some kind of April Fool’s joke, but I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be obvious. We’ve been nominated for a Pulitzer? We’re starting a clothing line? We’re merging with Rolling Stone so their year-end list will become our own? An AI wrote all the song descriptions in this article? Well, maybe that last one might be believable, if the writing were better.

Anyway, no jokes in the following music, though I have made these selections with the intent of keeping you off-balance.

HASARD (France)

I, Voidhanger Records has once again dropped a bunch of pre-orders and advance tracks for forthcoming albums in one fell swoop. I’ll probably get around to saying something about all of them, but impulsively chose just one today — a new song from Hasard‘s debut album Malivore. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2021’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 21): THE LURKING FEAR, ANTI RITUAL, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, HUSQWARNAH, ΣΧΕΔΟΝ ΝΕΚΡΟΣ, GATECREEPER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  No Responses »
Jan 312022
 


The Lurking Fear

 

We’ve had an unusually high volume of content at NCS on this last day of January, but our flood of posts on this Monday now comes to an end with this one, though not in the way I originally expected.

I had vowed to myself and to you  to close the rollout of this Most Infectious Song list today. But over the weekend I realized just how much I had overlooked, even after 20 installments and 65 songs (all of which you can find here). In part this was a result of consulting with my long-time NCS comrades Andy Synn and DGR (this is, after all, called “Our List”, even though the song choices are always my own decision). And so I’ve decided, after all, not to end the list today.

How much longer I’ll continue isn’t something I’ve figured out yet, but at least for a few more days and possibly to the end of the week, but not past that.

With all that said, here are five more songs for the list. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AT THE GATES, NIGHTRAGE, AGRYPNIE, CLOUD RAT, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, BONES OF THE EARTH, PRAISE THE PLAGUE, MENTAL CRUELTY, PROGENY OF SUN, DELUSION, INFESTATION, ANTUCO, TRIALOGOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
May 292021
 

 

To improve your Saturday, and quite possibly your whole weekend, I’ve collected a baker’s dozen of new songs and videos (including a couple of previously hard-to-find tracks from forthcoming reissues).

I grouped these 13 offerings in ways that I thought made sense. As usual for these kinds of posts, I didn’t take time to track down and upload artwork or purchase links, and I decided to organize my meager introductory comments by the categories I’ve arranged. (Don’t punch me too hard because of the category labels I chose, because I do realize they’re not 100% accurate.)

MELODIC DEATH METAL

The first two choices here were recommended by DGR, and the above label clearly applies to both. Andy Synn recommended the third one, and although most people wouldn’t categories Agrypnie as melodic death metal, I do think their new song fits well alongside the first two. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “LV-426”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 232021
 

 

(DGR tends to move in fits and starts with his NCS writing, and this week he’s had a fit, with this being the third of his posts for us in almost as many days. Today’s subject is the new EP by NCS favorites Hideous Divinity, which is being ejected today (like a blooming facehugger) by Everlasting Spew Records and Century Media Records.)

Hideous Divinity‘s chosen subject matter of different films to frame their overwhelmingly hostile take on brutal death metal has proven fruitful for them over the years. The recent Cronenberg deep-dives have given them much to work from as they take their chosen genre and morph and contort it to fit their musical equivalent of a bulldozer being launched downhill in a mudslide into a suburb. Often stretched into full-albums, the film nods have been blatant, but LV-426 represents the biggest and most upfront statement of subject matter to date.

It’s already struck a chord around here, given the NCS crew’s fondness for the Alien moves to begin with, and so the group’s decision to tackle a more focused subject over the course of an EP was one we were guaranteed to be looking into. LV-426 consists of two original songs and one out-of-left-field yet surprisingly pragmatic cover song for a total of sixteen minutes of blindingly fast music. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, THE DROWNED GOD, CONAN, THY CATAFALQUE, SHINY DAGGERS, REAPER, GYAOS:DIABOLICAL, HALLUCINATION, BEAST MODE, THE SECOND FOVEA, WHEEL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 132021
 

 

I’m going to indulge myself and let you know what’s recently been going on behind the scenes here at our putrid site before we get to the music below.

As I moaned and bitched about over the last couple of weeks, I have indeed been crushed by a project for my day job. For many days last week I couldn’t do anything but write premieres I had promised to do, and for two of those days I couldn’t even do that. Thankfully, Andy Synn stepped in and did the editing and posting of some things written by others (and by himself) so that the site didn’t go dark.

While consumed by work, I couldn’t even pay much attention to our email or announcements on social media and music-related messages from friends. But the worst part of that project ended yesterday, and I did a little catching up (just a few days’ worth), enough that I made a list of 47 songs and videos to check out (I’m not making that up). Of course I’ve only randomly jumped around in that list. I’ll probably never get to the rest of it, much less everything else that came out while I was missing in action. From that random darting around I picked the following songs and videos. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 11): CATTLE DECAPITATION AND HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  1 Response »
Jan 202020
 

 

Welcome to Part 11 of our Most Infectious Song list. If you’re just joining us, you can see the preceding installments by following this link. The themes of today’s two selections are rage and violence. Given that, it might be an overstatement to call them “catchy”, but they’re both addictive as well as cathartic.

CATTLE DECAPITATION

Things seem to have calmed down since Andy Synn‘s review of Cattle Decap‘s latest album stirred up an on-line hornet’s nest among the band’s fanatically devoted followers, or at least among those who didn’t bother to read the full review (or maybe any of it). Some people apparently overlooked such sentiments as these: Continue reading »

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