SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): GOC (GNOSIS OSCURIDAD CAOS), HWWAUOCH, ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE, NYSS

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jul 292019
 

 

Did you miss Part 1 of this post, delayed by one day from its usual spot in our schedule? Go here if you did. There were four advance tracks from forthcoming records in that Part. Part 2 may take you longer to get through, since it includes three complete albums (in addition to one more advance track). I hope you’ll find everything worth your time.

GOC (Gnosis Oscuridad Caos)

The first two selections in Part 2 came my way from Rennie of starkweather. The first of them is a just-released debut album by a Colombian band called GOC, which seems to be an acronym for Gnosis Oscuridad Caos, which is also the title of the new album. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): NOCTEM, GRIMA, TONGUE, DISPOSSESSED, TEMPLUM ANIMA MORTI, NYSS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 072019
 

 

As you can see, I’ve planned a two-part SOB again. I doubt I’ll finish Part 2 in time to post it today, and even if I do, I think I’ll defer it to Monday anyway. With so many new-music round-ups lately, I’m afraid we’re at risk of overloading people already, especially because this Part 1 includes four full releases in addition to the two advance tracks I’ve placed at the beginning (and there are additional complete releases in what I have in mind for Part 2)..

NOCTEM

We’ve been closely following the progress of the Spanish band Noctem since 2011, when they released their second album, Oblivion. Four of us have written about the band over the years since then, amassing 16 different posts about them (including two interviews). Obviously, we are fans. But we have equally been persistently curious about what they would do next.

Noctem’s music has always been a blend of death and black metal, but the sound hasn’t remained stagnant. It might go too far to say there has been a continuous trajectory over time, but in general it seems like in the earlier years they were more death-metal focused, whereas the last album, 2016’s Haeresis, leaned more toward the black metal elements in their sound. Based on the title track from their new album, The Black Consecration, it sounds like they’re leaning even harder in that direction, and have in other ways made shifts in sound from their last record. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENSLAVED, BATTLE DAGORATH, WHEN BITTER SPRING SLEEPS, VANVID, PROFANE ORDER, BÜTCHER, THE DARK RED SEED, NYSS

 Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

You might have noticed that I didn’t post a SHADES OF BLACK article yesterday — or anything else, for that matter. I was in Wyoming with my spouse from Thursday through Saturday attending a wedding, and spent Sunday getting home. On the airplane rides there and back I plowed through the NCS in-box and did some other web surfing. Found a ton of new stuff I wanted to listen to, and managed to find a couple of hours here and there over the weekend when I did do some listening, just enough to find the selections I’ve collected here, though not enough time to write anything.

The music below is a mix of full new releases and advance tracks from forthcoming albums… and I’ve included one song stream that isn’t black metal… or maybe even metal at all… except in its spirit. But I’m beginning with a news item hot off the presses.

ENSLAVED

In early July I gleefully reported the news that Jens Bogren had finished mixing and mastering the new 14th studio album by Enslaved, an album that Grutle Kjellson described as “a little re-boot, a fresh start so to speak”. Today the album art (above, hand-painted by the Norwegian artist Truls Espedal) was unveiled, and we received more details about the album, which I’ll quote here from the press release: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DEATH LIKE MASS, PURE WRATH, KAOSOPHIA, AGONIE, INFERNAL COIL, NYSS

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Dec 252016
 

burning-tree

 

To all of you who may be celebrating this day, for whatever reason, all of us here at NCS hope you have a joyous Sunday.

Actually, I have no idea whether any of the other miscreants at NCS hope that. For all I know, they hope you contract leprosy. And I’m just saying that because I’ve seen other people say it. So I said it.

With that out of the way, let’s move right into the main objective of this post, which is to put this holiday to the torch, musically speaking of course. And perhaps these gifts will also add to your joy. Continue reading »