(What albums did you miss last month? Andy Synn is here to tell you about a few of them)
August was… a pretty shitty month for me, all in all. For a variety of different reasons.
That’s probably why today’s edition of Things You May Have Missed is such a dark one – sometimes you just need a dose of darkness to help put things in perspective.
Begrime Exemious
In the olden days I was able to put together a couple of new music roundups every work-week. Nowadays I’m usually able to do it only once, on Saturdays, when the NCS audience tends to dwindle. I do miss those old days, but to return to them, something else would have to give way, something related to what else I do for the site (e.g., all the daily premieres) or something related to the rest of my life (e.g., speaking to my wife).
As you can see, however, I did manage to find a small margin of time for a round-up today, so small that I nearly didn’t even bother. But the thought of shaving even three worthy songs off the gigantic list I’ll be staring at when contemplating tomorrow’s Saturday S&H seemed worthwhile. So here we go…. Continue reading »
I’m mindful of the fact that today Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share, which means that more of the money you throw at Bandcamp releases today will land in the pockets of bands and labels. So I’m trying to make a lot of recommendations, many of which were included in Part 1 of this post. But I’m also mindful of the fact that time is running out. And so although this Part 2 of today’s collection consists of complete releases rather than individual songs, I’m not attempting anything close to reviews, just a few words of description and recommendation.
Needless to say, there are dozens of other recent releases I could have included here (2020 has been ridiculously strong for metal, IMO), so there’s more than a bit of randomness in the choices I made. Nevertheless, I back each of these wholeheartedly. (I should add that this collection is heavy on the black and blackened metal, because that’s where I’ve spent a lot of my recent listening time.)
ADORA VIVOS / AMIENSUS (U.S.)
A beautiful and ravishing split that includes not only a great Amiensus song but also the magnificent return of Adora Vivos after a 7-year silence, a band that includes former Amiensus multi-instrumentalist J. Waller (on both Restoration and Ascension) and Amiensus vocalist/guitarist James Benson. This one won’t leave you the same way it found you. Continue reading »