AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: JUPITERIAN — “CAPRICORN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 012020
 

 

It makes perfect sense that the grim hooded eminences within Jupiterian chose the name they did. Their music is so stupendously heavy that evoking the solar system’s most massive planet — twice as massive as all other planets combined — can’t really be considered an act of hubris. They’ve earned the right to align themselves in that way.

Apart from its immensity, and the glacial slowness of its spin, Jupiter is also home to a giant red storm that is itself larger than Earth and has raged for hundreds of years. And perhaps the most striking evolution in Jupiterian’s new album Protosapien is how much their new music rages, and how powerfully it creates an atmosphere of fear, without sacrificing the quality of titanic heaviness that first brought them global attention. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: ANOPHELI, CIRCLE OF SIGHS, DRAUGABLIKK, HYPERDONTIA, INCANTATION, JUPITERIAN, KATASTAH, OTTONE PESANTE, SIEGE COLUMN, VOIDOATH

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 262020
 

 

On Sunday I mentioned that I had a big block of time over the weekend that I was able to spend listening to new music. Almost everything I’ve selected for the following set of recommendations came out of that listening session. I resisted the impulse to replace a lot of those selections with things that came out this week, but I did add three of the tracks that surfaced during this week. Hopefully I’ll get to more of those in tomorrow’s round-up. The music today is presented in alphabetical order by band name.

ANOPHELI (U.S.)

I’m starting with something that’s not entirely new. It’s a debut album by Anopheli from Oakland, California (and other places), that was originally released in 2o15 (and I wrote about it here at that time). But the band had the album re-mastered by the same man who mastered the original release — the veteran producer Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden. He explained the changes: “”Things to listen for. It’s less overloaded and everything is more articulate. The overall low end is deeper, the high end is clearer. The drums snap better and interfere less with the other instruments.” Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): FRONT, JUPITERIAN, MAESKYYRN, OCEAN CHIEF, ORTRO, PANOPTICON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 042020
 


Front

 

I bit off more than I can chew. As you may recall, in Part 1 of this post yesterday I included 12 new songs and videos arranged alphabetically by band name, which took us from A through F. At that point I had 11 more songs and videos in mind for Part 2, with band names from F through W. Of course, Friday has become a “release day”, not only for new albums but also for new “singles”, so by day’s end that original group of 11 swelled in size based on new things I spotted.

Not having started work on Part 2 yesterday, and having spent more than 3 hours last night on a Zoom happy hour with all my day-job co-workers, I find myself on a woozy Saturday morning daunted by the prospect of writing-up the now-expanded Part 2 list of 16. As you can see, I decided to get these first 6 (one of which is an even more last-minute addition) ready to go before the day wears on too much longer. We’re still going in alphabetical order, and this Part 2 takes us up to P.

At this point I don’t know when or if I’ll finish the list with the 10 songs still left, because I need to make time for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK. Stay tuned… but more importantly, be well and stay safe…. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 13): JUPTERIAN, FORGOTTEN TOMB, GLOSON, HATE, MARTHYRIUM

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  2 Responses »
Jan 262018
 


Jupiterian

 

As you can probably tell, I’m beginning to feel the pressure of time running out. If I’m going to finish this list by the end of January I may have to do more of what I’m doing today — packing more songs into each of these posts than I’ve been doing. Although I doubt I’ll have time to add five each day, I’m able to do that today.

And the key word for today’s installment of the list is “crushing”.

JUPITERIAN

There’s heavy, and then there’s HEAVY.  As metals go, Lead is heavy, but Iridium is twice as heavy as lead. As metal bands go, Jupiterian is the Iridium of heavy music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JUPITERIAN — “SOL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 312017
 

 

The name chosen by this masked Brazilian band has always seemed a brilliant choice, invoking not only the mythic and occult associations of Mesopotamian Neberu, Babylonian Marduk, Sumerian Enlil, the fourth sphere of the Kabbalah, and of course the bright father of the Roman pantheon, but also the crushing gravitational force of our solar system’s most gigantic planet, whose mass is two and a half times that of all the other planets in our system combined. In their music, Jupiterian create both haunting, otherworldly atmosphere and sensations of titanic physical force.

I’ve written about the band’s music frequently in the past. In attempting to describe their last release, an EP of cover songs, I referred to the band’s ability “to club a listener senseless” and to channel “pure evil — cask-strength and undiluted”, the “stark, desolate, and devastating” moods of their music, and the capacity of the vocals alone “to give any normal person a shivering case of the night terrors”. I’ve been anxiously awaiting their second album, and it will soon be upon us.

With the name Terraforming, it will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on November 15, and continues the band’s collaboration with the brilliant Brazilian painter Caue Piloto. Three singles have been released so far, and today we present a fourth, entitled “Sol“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: JUPITERIAN, SISYPHEAN, NERGAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 312017
 


Jupiterian

 

I’m in the same situation I was in yesterday, with my fucking day job squeezing the life out of my NCS time, except now I’m being squeezed on the east coast of the U.S. instead of the west coast. As a result, this post, plus one forthcoming premiere, will be the only ones you’ll see at our site today.

Before entering the Land of Nod late last night I spent about an hour listening to new music selected at random, and heard one more stunner this morning over coffee. And because time is short I’ve picked only three of those to write about.

JUPITERIAN

I’ve written about this Brazilian band frequently in the past. The last time, when the subject was a new EP of cover songs, I referred to the band’s ability “to club a listener senseless” and to channel “pure evil — cask-strength and undiluted”, the “stark, desolate, and devastating” sensations of their music, and the capacity of the vocals alone “to give any normal person a shivering case of the night terrors”.

Little wonder that I nearly spilled my morning coffee when I saw a bunch of exciting news this morning about their new album Terraforming — including the revealing of a new song. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MORDBRAND, TCHORNOBOG, LIGHT OF THE MORNING STAR, JUPITERIAN, JUSTIN C.

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 062017
 

Mordbrand – photo by Łukasz Jaszak

 

It’s been a busy week here at NCS, one in which I’ve spent many (many!) hours readying year-end lists for posting, as well as starting the roll-out of our (i.e., my own) list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. We’ve also had some premieres and interviews and other things. And on top of all that, I got slugged yesterday by a nasty cold. The combined effect of all this has been to prevent me from preparing our usual round-ups of new music.

I’ve still been watching the appearance of new songs and videos and adding them to a list. It’s a long list. I picked a few items off of it for this post. Since the weekends at NCS are essentially all my own, I might prepare some more round-ups for Saturday and Sunday. It’s also possible this cold will cause me to curl up in a ball on the floor and whimper in misery until Monday.

By the way, it looks like we’ll finish LISTMANIA next week. I still have a few excellent lists in hand to post on Monday and Tuesday, and a few more might arrive, but I think we’ll be done soon. The Most Infectious Song series will of course continue until I pick some arbitrary stopping point, which will probably be January 31.

That’s it for an update. Onward to new music…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): ZEAL AND ARDOR, HOPELESS YOUTH, THRAWSUNBLAT, CONCRETE MASCARA, BENEATH THE STORM, JUPITERIAN

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jun 102016
 

Zeal and Ardor-Devil Is Fine

 

I spent the last three days doing some catch-up work on recent premieres and releases from the realms of black metal, and today it’s time to shift gears and begin a series of round-ups of new music from other corners of the underground. My NCS comrade DGR is working on a round-up of his own, but even between the two of us we still won’t succeed in covering everything good that we’ve found over the last two weeks (when our round-ups were scarce).

Having said that, we may still threaten to overwhelm our readers with the volume of what we’re recommending. To give you a chance to catch your breath, I’m dividing my collection of recommendations into at least two parts, with the second one to come tomorrow (Saturday). I’ve also attempted to mix up the styles of music within each of these two parts in the hope of appealing to a broad array of tastes (and keeping you off-balance, of course).

ZEAL AND ARDOR

Zeal and Ardor is the name of a music project based in New York City. I’m calling it a “project”, because I have no idea who is behind it, or whether it’s the work of one person or more than one; I’ve searched and can find no background information at all. This mysterious project released a self-titled album in June 2014 that I did not know existed, and in mid-April of this year they released a second one named Devil Is Fine — which is unlike anything I’ve heard before. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MARE INFINITUM, GOAT TORMENT, JUPITERIAN, STRAUSS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 012015
 

 

This is a collection of new music I heard yesterday that I hope you will explore. It’s all over the map, both musically and geographically (in terms of the bands’ locations).

MARE INFINITUM

Usually, the music I include in these “Seen and Heard” round-ups consists of individual new songs or videos, released in advance of the albums or EPs on which they will appear. But this first song is from an album that you can now hear in its entirety because I was too slow to jump on it — but believe me, that’s not a bad thing.

The band is Mare Infinitum and they’re based in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho). Their debut album Sea of Infinity came out in 2011, and their second one, Alien Monolith God, was released by Solitude Productions one week ago. It consists of five long tracks, totaling almost one hour of music. So exploring even one song is going to take more than a little of your time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: UR DRAUGR, REVEL IN FLESH, JUPITERIAN, ENDEMISE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Nov 062014
 

 

I’ve had a busy day today — but for better or worse I haven’t been busy blogging. Truth be told, I’m on vacation — and doing some day-job work by long distance, which I guess is some kind of karmic retribution for vacationing on the job before I ever left.

Anyway, the upshot is that I don’t have many posts to contribute to the site today. One can only hope that I’ve made up for the lack of quantity with some metal quality — including these four new songs I happily discovered while roaming the interhole and the NCS email today.

UR DRAUGR

We start this round-up with a band named Ur Draugr from Perth in Western Australia whose ranks include past or present members of Impiety, Wardaemonic, DeathFuckingCunt, and Morphica. They’ve recorded a debut album entitled Augur Unboden that’s projected for release in December, and today they began streaming one of the new songs — “Unseen Golgotha”.

I was drawn to the song by the superb painted cover art of Jeff Christensen that you see above, and by two additional Christensen pieces for the album that come next: Continue reading »