OBSCURITIES — VOLUME IX: ENDLESS SUMMER

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 012024
 

(A festival, a move between towns, and a hurricane have slowed but not stalled Daniel Barkasi‘s preparation of monthly album reviews, and today he rejoins us with a selection of eight recommended albums that saw the light of day in August.)

This is the summer that doesn’t end. Yes, it goes on and on, my friend. Yeah, I’m making my own version of the song from Lamb Chop. If you don’t know the one, I weep for your childhood, but also give a nod to your sanity. The song doesn’t end, after all. Here in the swamp that is Florida, Summer doesn’t really end a whole lot. Maybe that’s why I listen to The Midnight so much – their album Endless Summer is where the title of this column is coming from, after all. We’re not here to speak about synthwave – though that’s a subject that this guy could go on about in perpetuity. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MODERN RITES — “BLACK WOLF”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 272021
 

 

The day may come when we no longer need to identify musicians in metal (or in other artistic genres) as women or men, as black or white, as queer or straight, but simply as performers, whose creative talents will speak for themselves, for better or for worse. But that day is still far away. And so we will note that one of the two people in Modern Rites is a young American black man, Jonny Warren (who is also behind the experimental metal band Kuyashii).

But we make that observation not only because black performers are still a rarity in metal but also because Warren’s personal experience is at the heart of “Black Wolf“, the song we’re premiering today from Modern Rites‘ debut album Monuments in advance of its August 27 release by Debemur Morti Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MODERN RITES, BIAŁYWILK, VAELMYST, WITCH VOMIT, MAZE OF TERROR, DIMENTIANON, UNREQVITED

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 232021
 

 

Lots of good stuff in today’s round-up, with a variety of new black metal, death metal, and thrash, plus a towering exit song. All of the songs are off forthcoming records, with the exception of a just-released EP that I’ve sandwiched in the middle. You’ll see some really good cover art in this collection too.

Even though I and most of the NCS writers are in the U.S., the preponderance of the music we cover (along with half our readers) seems to emanate from outside U.S. borders. Thus it’s unusual that (coincidentally) almost all of the following music comes from U.S. bands.

MODERN RITES (U.S./Switzerland)

The opening song today, “Self Synthesis“, swells in sound, like what you might hear if gradually approaching an industrial metal-mangling machine, and then erupts in a hammering, searing discharge of instrumental and vocal intensity — with eerie, wraith-like tones swirling in sorrow above. It revisits those mangling sensations, which begin to seem apocalyptic…. Continue reading »