AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOXIS — “VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 252024
 

Almost four years ago we premiered Expanse of Hellish Black Mire, the debut EP of a Cleveland-based death metal band named Noxis. In an accompanying review, I attempted to sum up the music by saying that it was “thuggish in its bone-fracturing, organ-rupturing belligerence and disgustingly gruesome in its atmosphere, and yet also mind-boggling in its mad contortions and technical extravagances. Their music is thus thoroughly putrid and punishing but also a big adrenaline kick”.

Having experienced that EP, I wasn’t completely shocked by what Noxis have accomplished on their debut album Violence Inherent In The System, which we’re premiering today in advance of its June 28 release, but it still leaps beyond what Noxis achieved on that very impressive EP. And for those of you who might be encountering Noxis for the first time, you’re in for an enormous surprise, a surprise of genuinely explosive proportions. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOXIS — “EXPANSE OF HELLISH BLACK MIRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 282020
 

 

Cleveland-based Noxis have only been active since 2019 but they have wasted no time in proving their fiendish talents. Setting their sites on a particular kind of death metal, they released the aptly named Necrotizing demo in the year of their birth and are now following that with the new four-track EP we’re premiering today, also aptly named: Expanse of Hellish Black Mire. Those fiendish talents quickly hooked the attention of both Pulverised Records and Rotted Life Records, who will jointly handle the release on October 30.

In formulating their approach, Noxis owe some debts to the great NYDM triumvirate of Incantation, Suffocation, and Immolation, as well as Finnish bands such as Demigod and Convulse, and they’ve paid those debts by creating music that’s thuggish in its bone-fracturing, organ-rupturing belligerence and disgustingly gruesome in its atmosphere, and yet also mind-boggling in its mad contortions and technical extravagances. Their music is thus thoroughly putrid and punishing but also a big adrenaline kick. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GAVRANOVI, SÓLSTAFIR, CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX, ANCST, ANTUCO, MUN, THEVETAT, NOXIS, MACABRE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 052020
 

 

For me, this past work-week was much like the one before (and the one before that, and the one before that), i.e., I had to devote so much time to the fucking day job that I couldn’t keep up with the usual flood of new metal, much less pull together any new-music round-ups. This morning I spent some time trying to catch up, at least a little, and from that exercise I picked the following nine new songs and videos.

I arranged things in a particular way — beginning with something that’s rousing, then going down into sadness (verging on despair) with a block of songs that happen to include clean singing, then beginning to pull out of that mood with reminders that not not everything is horrible (and with music that’s more extreme), and then concluding with something that ought to perk you up again.

GAVRANOVI (Serbia)

Six months ago my Serbian friend Miloš pointed me to “Pjevanija prva” (“Cry of Yore”), the fantastic first song released by the Serbian band Gavranovi (a word that means “ravens”). I still know very little about the band, though now I know a bit more than I did then.

Gavranovi’s frontman is Nefas, who was the vocalist for the great black metal band The Stone for almost 20 years. A second member, Janković, who seems to be the principal instrumentalist, plays the gusle, a traditional horsehair-string instrument that dates back to the 9th century. And there are three more members, all of whom also perform vocals — Matković (who’s also credited as a guitarist), Sokolović, and Rančić. Continue reading »