(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Shining, which will be released by Season of Mist on January 5, 2018.)
Wubalubadubdub! What up, my glip-glops?
That’s right, it’s time for another album of musical misery from everyone’s favourite alcoholic, misanthropic, existential nihilist Rick Sanchez Niklas Kvarforth and his merry band of Mortys… aka Shining! Continue reading »
Afgrund
(Like the good cowboy he is, DGR has stepped forward to handle round-up duty today.)
We at NCS are big fans of posts full of genre whiplash, and this roundup of things that caught our eyes and ears last week will likely be one of those. We try to always keep our giant fish net of news-and-music catching open for stuff to fall in and we like to clean it out whenever we get the chance, even though you would’ve figured that last week things should have slowed down just a bit…you would think.
However, just because it’s close to the end of the year and time for everyone to begin writing up summaries of their favorite albums of 2017, and just because our editor managed to escape from the loris horde encircling the NCS compound for a vacation, does not mean heavy metal got the hint and decided to slow down for a bit. We did here in our little comfortable corner of the ‘net, but that doesn’t mean everyone did. And so we go outside to clean off the radar dish and see what landed in the net over the past week. Continue reading »
As explained in Part 1 of this gigantic mid-week round-up, I’m trying to catch up on the flood of new videos and songs that were released on Halloween and the few days leading up to it (although a few of the items I’ve selected are a bit older than that).
Because there are so many things I want to throw at your eyes and ears, I alphabetized everything by band name, beginning with Apophis in Part 1, continuing through Heart Attack in Part 2, and now ending with Watain in this final part. And because I chose so many songs and videos for this round-up, I resorted to a tactic I’ve used occasionally in the past: Although I have dribbled a few words here and there, I’m mainly presenting everything with just basic release info and no reviews. Onward to Part 3:
INFERNAL BLAST
This is a French one-man project, and the song below (“Destruction Process“) comes from its debut EP. You can’t accuse this band of false advertising. “Destruction Process” is exactly the process of this song — kill everything, let dog sort ’em out. Continue reading »
Time to make the Sabbath black again. I had great difficulty pulling together this week’s collection of black metal, and music next door to it (I’m apparently forbidden from using the term “blackened”, at least temporarily). I have a massive list of new music in this vein that I’ve assembled over the last week alone. I wish I had time to make this collection two or three times longer than it is. In other words, just another Sunday.
Lots of eye-catching cover art in here, too.
RAVENCULT
Almost exactly one year ago Metal Blade announced the signing of the Greek black metal band Ravencult, and now, roughly five years after their last album, a new one is on the horizon. Bearing the name Force of Profanation, it’s set for release on November 11. The first song in today’s collection is the album’s first advance track, “Beneath the Relics of Old“. Here’s what the band said about it: Continue reading »
There’s definitely no way I can come up with any unifying theme for this latest trio of songs that I’m adding to our 2015 Most Infectious list, other than the fact (and it is a fact) that they are all highly infectious and I like the hell out of them.
We have three days left before this long list reaches the end. The other songs can be found here.
KRONOS
We premiered a song from Arisen New Era (though not the one I’ve chosen for this list), and DGR reviewed the album for us here. As DGR noted, this was something of a re-launch for this band whose roots extend back to the mid-’90s — their first album since 2007 and one with a new vocalist and new drummer in the ranks. Continue reading »
(DGR reviews the new album by Norway’s Shining.)
Years ago, in reviewing the then newly released album One One One by Norway’s Shining, I joked that the band were one of those groups I would listen to in order to pretend that I was much smarter than I actually was. I hypothesized that I might not get much of what the band were doing, despite a love for the album Blackjazz, with their freeform jazz routines, constant instrument abuse, and love of all things dissonant, but the parts that my brain could grasp onto would surely fool people into never figuring out that I am, and always have been, a rube with the ability to write a lot.
One One One was a drastically different turn for Shining and pretty much insured that every disc the band had put out was different from the one before it. In comparison to Blackjazz, One One One was remarkably straightforward — it still had its spazz-out moments, but overall the album was a lot easier to get into and had its fair share of infectious songs. “I Won’t Forget”, for instance, is still prime volume-way-up-blasting material and “The Hurting Game” is another driving monster of a track. Continue reading »
Well, I’m back in the saddle after getting repeatedly thrown off my horse by an exhilarating ride at California Deathfest over a long weekend in Oakland. I do plan to finish writing about the event and posting more of my crappy cell phone photos, but just to prove that things are getting back to (ab)normal here at the site, I thought I’d collect some outstanding songs and eye-opening videos that I discovered over the last 24 hours while recovering from a cataclysmic hangover-and-bangover. Presented in alphabetical order by band name…
AD NAUSEUM
The very cool cover art that appears at the top of this post attracted me to a new EP that has just been released today on tape by Broken Limbs Recordings for a Floridian band named Ad Nauseum. Two of the songs from this four-track release — “Walls” and “Locked In” — are currently streaming on Bandcamp, where the EP is available as a “name your price” download, and the cassette can be ordered HERE. And those two songs are hellishly good. Continue reading »
(DGR steps up for round-up duty, and he prepared a really big round-up, so big that your humble editor decided to divide it into two parts. Part One is here.)
In case you missed it, Friday was a kind of slow date for the site. We’ve had times like this before, where various outside influences conspire to make sure that we post with the speed at which animals are able to escape the La Brea Tar Pits. That doesn’t mean we weren’t up here in space, lookin’ down on you and keeping track of various rumblings going throughout the web.
I’ve gathered together eight fairly recent developments in the heavy metal world for you all to enjoy. As usual, I’ve tried to catch stuff that has flown under the radar and mix it in with a few things that have likely made a big splash across the web already. This collection of stories covers a pretty good swath of the globe in terms of distance but has a foot heavily planted in the death metal and doom metal realms, making a few labored grasps to the outside genre world.
SHINING
We turn next to Norway’s blackjazz entourage Shining. The group have been building up to the release of their new disc International Blackjazz Society, and recently the song “Last Day” found its way to the web. Continue reading »
I’m still moving pretty slowly after a late night of live metal, but I’m not so bleery-eyed that I’m completely oblivious to the continuing discharge of good new music this morning. The latest discovery is a new video for a new single by Norway’s Shining — “The Last Stand”.
The song comes from a new Shining album entitled International Blackjazz Society, which will be released by Spinefarm Records on October 16. This of you who can’t get into the skronk and screee of sax in your metal and hard rock will have some trouble with this song, because Jørgen Munkeby does cut loose with it, both at the start and again later in an extended solo. I myself love the hell out of the sound when it’s employed by Munkeby and a band like Shining. And this song fuckin’ rocks. Continue reading »
(Our man Andy Synn was lucky enough to attend the second annual Incineration Festival in the UK and turns in this report, with videos.)
Let me preface this review with a quick round of thanks to the people who made the festival, and my presence there, possible.
My main thanks go out to Daniel of London Metal Monthly (for whom I also write on a semi-regular basis these days) for arranging my press pass and feeding my ever-expanding ego (though at no point did I have to utter the immortal words “do you know who I am?”… which was a shame).
I also want to thank Steve and Stephen for dealing with the masses of people queuing for wristbands and for sorting my access on the day itself, as well as for all their work behind the scenes in booking the bands, venues, crew, and everything else that must have gone into a mammoth undertaking.
However, they, along with Nimai, are only the names I know of the people who were involved. For an undertaking this big – one that’s only in its second year no less – there must have been a host of other helpers and organisers working alongside them. And although I don’t know their names, I thank them as well. Continue reading »