Aug 302018
 

 

Today has been one of those days when most of the NCS slaves, including myself, have been diverted from NCS slavery by other compulsions. Without meaning to take anything away from the one review and one premiere we’ve furnished today, we just haven’t had time to do more.

This state of affairs gnawed on my brain to the point when I decided I would at least provide another quick hit of new music. I chose the songs in an odd way: I didn’t listen to them before making the choices. For a while this morning I was in a place where I could write but couldn’t listen, so I wrote first and listened later, and then wrote a bit more before having to bid NCS good-by until tomorrow.

SKEPTICISM

Admittedly, I wasn’t taking a complete shot in the dark when I picked this first song without listening to it. First, duh, it’s Skepticism. Second, I’ve heard the song before… sort of. Allow me to explain. Continue reading »

Jul 072015
 

Cruciamentum-Charnel Passages

 

I’m once again drowning in new metal. I waited more than one day to collect new music, and the tide rose up to my eyebrows. Gasping, I flailed around and randomly latched on to the following new tracks from among those I wanted to recommend. I’ll compile a second collection and post it later today.

CRUCIAMENTUM

Charnel Passages is an album I’ve really been looking forward to. It’s the debut album of Britain’s Cruciamentum and their first new music since 2011. Pity that Profound Lore won’t be releasing it until September 4. But yesterday they did release a song called “Piety Carved From Flesh”.

When I first saw the song’s title, my scrambled brain read it as “Piety Carved From Flies” — and it does sound like a swarm of flies, if flies were the size of Great Danes. The drilling riffs are thoroughly morbid, giving off a powerful stench of decay as the grisly melody rises and falls through the whirring haze of sound. The song is punctuated with booming grooves, it features an excellent drum performance, and the vocalist’s howling tirades are a perfect accompaniment for this gruesome offering of death metal illness. Continue reading »