OVERFLOWING STREAMS: PHRENELITH, MÆRE, 夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER), DRUNE, ANTI RITUAL, LHAÄD, PSILOCYBE LARVAE, SINIESTRO, LÄHDÖN AIKA, IMPENDING DOOM, VELCH, BURNING TONGUE, TEETHGRYNDER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 162021
 

 

I experienced NCS anxiety again this morning. That’s what comes from having 84 open tabs on my computer for new songs and videos, all of which I opened just since last Saturday. Not lying — 84 of them! To increase the anxiety level, I hadn’t listened to any of them until this morning.

Of course, I didn’t listen to 84 music streams, some of which are complete albums and EPs that were released over the last week, nor to all the other songs on the long list of candidates that I’d made over previous weeks. I did add all 84 to that pre-existing list, so I could stare at the band names and try to figure out what to spend time on. I stared… made choices… and from those choices here’s what I decided to share:

PHRENELITH (Denmark)

Nice to have these Danish death metal heavyweights back, with a jaw-dropping song named “Awakening Titans“. That’s what the music sounds like too, mystical and ringing at first, and then furiously slaughtering, packed with electrifying drumwork, unhinged, venomous riffing, jolting grooves, gargantuan growls, and maddened howls. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEIPHAGO, PHRENELITH, DEFY THE CURSE, ULTHA, LASCAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 212018
 

 

This has been another banner week for new metal, and fortunately I’ve had enough time to compile one more round-up to follow the one from two days ago. Of course, even the combination of the two doesn’t provide a comprehensive display of everything I’ve been enjoying this week. As usual, the choices I’ve made were impulsive, though I also made the usual effort to include variety in today’s post.

I also hope this late-week collection will make up for the fact that I won’t be writing anything for NCS this weekend because I’ll be traveling on a short vacation. However, we should still have a Waxing Lyrical column from Andy tomorrow, and our ally HGD has stepped up to do Sunday’s Shades of Black feature (I’ve seen his selections, and they’re good ones). I’ll be back in the NCS harness on Monday.

DEIPHAGO

Deiphago describe their music as “Experimental Hyper-speed Satanic Bestial Metal” — and every word of that is true, perhaps never more so than on the track I’ve chosen to begin today’s collection. It simply doesn’t sound like anything else you’re likely to find in the realms of black metal or black/death. It challenges convention, it viciously shoves us out of our musical comfort zones, it’s likely to leave you bewildered and bedazzled (or at least severely unbalanced). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 4): VAMPIRE, KROSSFYRE, GURTHANG, PHRENELITH, APOSENTO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 082017
 

 

I started what was supposed to be a two-part SEEN AND HEARD round-up last Wednesday. I couldn’t finish it as fast as I  planned, and as time passed I continued discovering new music and videos worth recommending. What was supposed to be two parts became four. So, here it ends… but only for now, because I’m sure I’ll start all over again early next week.

There are four individuals songs or videos in this collection, each from a forthcoming or recent album, plus one full album stream. As in Part 3, I’ll keep my verbiage brief.

VAMPIRE

The new album by the Swedish band Vampire is With Primeval Force. It will be released by Century Media on April 21st. Yesterday the label debuted a video for a song from the album named “He Who Speaks“, which I believe is the fourth track from the album to be previewed so far. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: HATE, SUCCUMB, MAUSOLEUM, PHRENELITH, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CRYPT ROT, SIGIL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 072017
 

 

As I looked through my list of candidates for a SEEN AND HEARD round-up, and having siphoned off some of the more blackened entries for a continuation of the latest SHADES OF BLACK column, it dawned on me that many of the remaining songs were of a deathly variety. And so I’ve compiled them here with a different post title. Different forms of death, to be sure, but plenty of heaviness and savagery is to be found below.

HATE

Tremendum is the name of the new album by the Polish leviathans (note, I did not say “behemoths”) in Hate. It will be released on May 5 by Napalm Records. This morning the band debuted a lyric video for the first single from the album, a track called “Asuric Being“. Continue reading »

OUR LAST POST OF 2016… AND OUR FIRST OF 2017 (PART 2) — WITH NEW MUSIC FROM DEVIL’S FORCE, AURI, PHRENELITH, GRAVECOVEN, NORSE, CURVED BLADE, HOODED MENACE, ALGOMA, SPECTRAL LORE, TEMPLE OF NIHIL, AND GATH ŠMĀNÊ

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 012017
 


Partied hard, smiling big.

 

Happy New Year to one and all. I hope you survived whatever you did last night, intact and with only a modicum of blood loss and brain-cell death. I would tell you in detail what I did but I’m not sure you could stand the excitement. Even I was so drained after both putting down the robot uprising and preventing the savagery of the loris horde’s celebration from overflowing their compound, armed with nothing but a few blow darts, that I was asleep by 10:30, stone cold sober and vomit-free.

I’m beginning the new year at NCS the way I ended the old one (here), by assembling a giant batch of the new music I heard in recent days that I thought would be worth your time, plus one older release I came across only recently.

As a trained medical professional (ha!), I’ll warn you that if you did suffer more than a modicum of blood loss or neuronal cell death, you might want to wait another day before exploring what awaits you below. It won’t help your recovery, and it’s no sane person’s idea of a hangover cure. Damned good metal, though.

I’ll also mention that because this post takes the place of my usual Sunday Shades of Black feature, the music is mainly in a blackened vein, though not entirely. Continue reading »