SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HALIPHRON, WAR LULLABY, CATTLE DECAPITATION, GOSFORTH, IN MOURNING, PERILAXE OCCLUSION, DRONES FOR QUEENS, KOLLAPS\E

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May 132023
 


Haliphron

Happy Saturday the 13th. The alternative title for today’s collection is Mental Scatter.

I think I mentioned in the recent past that I’ve been indulging sleep on the weekends to an unusual extent. This seems to work better on Friday nights than Saturday nights, possibly because I tend to drink more on Friday nights to put the work week behind me. Friday-night drinking is also a little reward to me for mostly staying away from alcohol during the work week for the last two months, trying to correct for what happened during the depths of the pandemic when booze became one of my best friends.

Something else has enhanced the bear-in-a-coma nature of the sleep-ins: I’ve started weight-training again, which used to be a best friend but got rudely shoved out the door by seclusion, alcohol, and general malaise during the pandemic. The downside is that now I hurt all over when I wake up. It’s easier to stay in bed when you know that you’ll feel crippled if you start trying to move in an upright position. Man, do I hurt this morning.

Now you know something about my state of mind in trying to decide what songs and videos to recommend this morning — fuzzy-headed, distracted by aches and pains, very tempted to crawl back under the covers even after 9 hours of hibernation. Which is one reason why I think of this collection as the product of Mental Scatter. The other reason is that it will probably scatter your own mind if you make your way through all of it. Continue reading »

KOLLAPS\E: “PHANTOM CENTRE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 172023
 

 

I almost never attempt to write album reviews except when we’re hosting full album premieres, and occasionally as part of the black metal column I put together on Sundays. It’s not for lack of desire, just a consequence of being squeezed for time after completing everything else I do around this joint. Doesn’t mean I don’t listen, just means I’m usually forced to keep my thoughts to myself.

And so what you’re about to read is a relative rarity for me, spawned not only by a belief that Phantom Centre, the new album by the Swedish post-metal/sludge band Kollaps\e, is deserving of whatever push I can give it, but also by an unexpected gift of free time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AENAON, KOLLAPS\E, ULTAR, MERGER REMNANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 122022
 

I devoted Friday’s round-up to new songs and videos from some of the bigger names in metal. As promised, today we’re digging deeper underground (tunneling is our preferred activity around here). But man, there were so many possible choices it may have made me cross-eyed.

To get un-crossed I fell back on four old favorites. I usually skimp a bit on the black metal in these Saturday collections because I’ve got tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column reserved for that, but the fate of this Sunday’s column is a bit uncertain because a certain local NFL team is playing in Germany with a start time of 6:30 a.m. where I live. So I’ve made adjustments.

AENAON (Greece)

I would have checked out Aenaon‘s noirish new video even if the video’s thumbnail hadn’t shown a gorgeous pair of legs and some fetching high heels, but that sure didn’t hurt. There’s also the fact that I’ve shamefully neglected writing anything about the band’s recently released album Mnemosyne, and it’s time to make modest amends for that. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2021: GRIEVING / KOLLAPSE / MONUMENT OF MISANTHROPY

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 032022
 

(After a short hiatus Andy Synn returns with the first in a series of articles focussing on some of the “unsung heroes” of last year)

Let me present to you my simple thesis for why these “Unsung heroes…” posts exist.

Quite simply, there’s too much music released every year and I can’t keep up with it all!

This doesn’t mean that I/we haven’t listened to them, by any means – in fact all but one of the albums I’m going to be highlighting over the next week or two were mentioned in my annual year-end round-up – it’s just that listening to and appreciating an album is only the first step… actually finding time to write about them, in any depth or detail, is a whole different matter.

So consider these posts a second chance to catch up with a few albums which I would have recommended (heck, one of the records featured in this article snuck its way into the “bonus features” of my “Critical Top Ten” even though I hadn’t written a word about it before) if I’d had more time to write this year!

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GOJIRA, THE CROWN, VREID, DORDEDUH, KOLLAPS\E, VALDAUDR, DECLINE OF THE I

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 172021
 

 

What follows is a collection of new songs and videos that different people messaged me about today, plus a few I had noticed in preceding days. With apologies to anyone who might care, I unfortunately don’t have the time to provide as many stumbling brilliant verbal descriptions of the music as I usually do, but nevertheless hope you enjoy all the sounds, as I have.

GOJIRA (France)

“Born For One Thing“: feverish tumult with slightly industrialized grooves, trademark atonal pounding, and gripping rhythmic interplay, plus eerie melodic accents… definitely in their comfort zone, and very good…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEAR ON A SATURDAY: AETHERIAN, AARA, KOLLAPSE, SOEN, 7.5 TONNES OF BEARD, SHEVILS

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 302021
 

 

I picked a half-dozen songs for today’s round-up, most of which I paid attention to based on friends’ recommendations. It was easy to do that because I was already a fan of every group included here. If you don’t immediately recognize all the names, I’ll forewarn you that there’s a lot of whiplash in this playlist, which is to say that the music diverges sharply from song to song. On the other hand, the variety increases the odds that you’ll find something to like.

AETHERIAN (Greece)

I was so excited to find out that Aetherian would be releasing a new song and video yesterday. For a band that only have one EP and one album to their credit since the release of their first single in 2014 we’ve written about them literally a dozen times, including reviews of that EP and album. They earned all that attention because their brand of melodic death metal is so very good. Their melodies (which tend to lean on the melancholy side of things) are beautifully crafted and moving; when they charge hard, they’ll give your pulse rate a swift kick in the ass; and they always seem to have a few surprises up their sleeves as well. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): INTEGRITY, KOLLAPSE, NECROHERESY, BARBARIAN, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 182017
 

 

Part 1 of this late-week round-up can be found here. I’m still not finished throwing recommendations your way, but Part 3 will have to wait until tomorrow. They’re closing the door on my airplane now.

INTEGRITY

Yesterday Integrity released an official video for “I Am The Spell“, a track off their new (12th) album Howling, For The Nightmare Shall Consume, which is described as “a conceptual foretelling of the final days of Armageddon”. It will be released by Relapse on July 14th. The lyrics tell you a lot about the sound of this new track: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTRAILS, AU-DESSUS, KOLLAPSE, QRIXKUOR, SATANARCHIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 042017
 

 

Things are going to slow down here at NCS until early next week. As of this morning I’ve left Seattle with Ms. Islander for a short vacation, and blogging isn’t part of any planned activities. Any attempts by me to do any NCS stuff besides hurriedly post whatever I might receive from other contributors would be met with severe punishment, or at least a cold shoulder.

I thought I’d pull together a round-up of new music before we left, but found myself with too little time to write impressions of the songs I chose. So this will be more bare-bones than usual.

ENTRAILS

The last time I wrote about this band, almost exactly two years ago, I began by saying that, “By my lights, Sweden’s Entrails can pretty much do no wrong”. Back then the context was their new album Obliteration. Now they have a new one named World Inferno, which will be released by Metal Blade on June 16th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WORMWITCH, FIN, PURE, KOLLAPSE, MOTHER MOON, FUNERAL BAPTISM

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 022017
 

 

I didn’t damage myself too badly last night, only moderately, and so I was able to prepare this selection of music that I thought was worth recommending. I’m beginning with songs from forthcoming albums by four bands and concluding with two recent EPs.

Much of the music in this collection isn’t strictly black metal, but has enough kinship to the genre that I can justify including it. Hope you find some things to like.

WORMWITCH

In another one of these SHADES OF BLACK posts last month I reported that Prosthetic Records would be releasing the debut album Strike Mortal Soil by Vancouver, BC’s Wormwitch on May 12. At that point I didn’t have any music to share with you, but now I do. Continue reading »