SWALLOW THE SUN: “SHINING”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 062024
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of Swallow the Sun‘s new album, which was released a couple weeks ago by Century Media.)

Listening to Swallow The Sun‘s newest album Shining, you get the sense that this is the sort of album every doom band has in them and one that they’d slowly been building toward for some time. In that sense, Shining is a fascinating release because after hesitantly testing waters more and more with each record, much of the material on Shining sounds like the band themselves were finally ready to make the jump.

Of course, with Swallow the Sun it is always going to feel like there is an overarching narrative because – credit to the band for being as brave as they are – they haven’t really been shy about personal struggles and tragedies over the years. Maybe, Shining is an album that Swallow The Sun needed to make, as a chance to escape and set themselves free of the artistic frost that they’ve long called home. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (15 BANDS, 16 SONGS)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 212024
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday morning my fellow NCS slave DGR sent me the names of 11 bands whose new songs he thought would make good fodder for this Saturday roundup. That was on top of more than a dozen new songs and videos I had on my own list. What to do?

Putting two dozen new tracks into this roundup seemed excessive, if not for you then certainly for me. That’s just way too much work. I thought about just embedding all the streams, without any further info or my own priceless commentary. I even thought about asking someone who’s on Spotify (which I am not) to make a playlist of all the songs and sticking that in here, which would have been an even lazier strategem.

I figured out a solution. It’s not a great solution, just a compromise, and like all compromises it leaves the contending parties unhappy (the contending parties here being two argumentative parts of my brain).

The songs below are alphabetized by the name of the band that made them — another lazy strategem, but one that has resulted in some amusing and interesting contrasts and complements. Nostalgia had something to do with some of these picks (that will be obvious when you come to them). This collection also includes more than a few exceptions to our “rule” about vocals and some curveballs that dive outside our usual strike-zone (sometimes at the same time). Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, NOVEMBER 2021

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 022021
 


Kayo Dot

(Here are Gonzo’s album recommendations from among those released during November 2021.)

And just like that, November came and went.

While most of us are probably still unpacking the bullshit that 2020 brought, it’s hard to believe that we’re only a month away from 2022. Follow me for more proof that we’re living in a simulation.

Though November was a flash in the pan in the big scheme of things, the music that was released during those 30 days have sent my year-end list plans into a tailspin. Too much good stuff, not enough time to listen to it all.

That said, the stuff I did get around to spending time with was damn good. Four albums in particular have made the cut this month. Continue reading »

SWALLOW THE SUN: “MOONFLOWERS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 012021
 

 

(DGR continues an extensive series of reviews this week with the following take on Swallow the Sun‘s new album, which is out now on the Century Media label.)

Swallow The Sun are at a point now in their careers that they’ve become an institution in the realms of all things moody and melancholic. It’s been a journey too, one that has been exceedingly well-documented and at times absolutely heart-wrenching – and not just musically – and in my own personal case, one dating all the way back to 2007’s Hope album. The band are already at two decades of slow, frozen, and moody doom music and it has been interesting watching their trajectory into and out of funeral doom, fuller-sounding death metal, and even moody-rock music. Here at NCS we are very well acquainted with all of those journeys – especially since yours truly is now on the third review for the band with this most recent release.

Moonflowers arrived on November 19th via Century Media Records and comes to us nearly two and a half years after 2019’s When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light. Granted, when you consider that seven of Swallow The Sun‘s eight mainline releases have hit during a period between November and February, you could argue that the group have carved out quite a niche for themselves in the colder months of the year. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY (TOO MANY NAMES TO PUT IN A POST TITLE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 062021
 

 

Over the last few days my NCS comrades (well, mainly DGR) have been shoveling links at me for new songs and videos, in anticipation that I would put together a round-up by today — which is a Bandcamp Friday. Most of those links were for music by bigger-name bands. The thought was that I could also add more obscure names, and that the allure of the bigger names might help introduce the lesser-knowns to more fans.

The problem is that the pile of links has grown to gargantuan proportions, which has made it tougher for me to insert as many other discoveries as I might want and still write up some thoughts about everything. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow. Here’s the A-to-Z deluge I have for today, in alphabetical order.

ARCHSPIRE (Canada)

Prepare for relentless high-speed bludgeoning and crazed fretwork mania as a big rabid mastiff barks in your face at equally high speed. Exhilarating! Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 21): GAAHLS WYRD, SWALLOW THE SUN, ARCTIC SLEEP, KLONE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  5 Responses »
Feb 012020
 

 

I missed two weekdays in the rollout of this list, and I want to make up for that, so that’s the justification for breaking my promise to finish this list by the end of January. I have this installment today, and I’ll have another one tomorrow, and then on Monday I’ll tie things up with a black bow by listing all the songs from start to finish. Of course I won’t really be finished, because a ton of deserving songs will have been omitted. I will just have forced myself to stop.

Today’s four songs are all well-deserved exceptions to our porous rule about singing. The musical styles of the songs are all different from each other. All together, they make for an enthralling (and infectious) playlist.

GAAHLS WYRD

Wil Cifer reviewed GastiR – Ghosts Invited for us, and concluded with this paragraph: “This is one of the few albums this year that I have been able to just leave on a let-play all day, on endless repeat, and not get bored with it. If you do not need your black metal to live on blast alone and prefer the feel of darkness, then this is more than worth your time”. Continue reading »

SHOW REVIEW: CHILDREN OF BODOM, SWALLOW THE SUN, WOLFHEART, SUMMONER’S CIRCLE — LIVE IN ATLANTA, APRIL 11, 2019

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 182019
 

 

(On April 11th our Atlanta-based contributor Tør returned to The Masquerade venue to take in Finnish-heavy performances by Children of Bodom, Swallow the Sun, Wolfheart, and local openers Summoner’s Circle. He sent us this report, along with a large batch of his own excellent photos from the show, most of which appear after the review.)

The traffic makes me want to ditch my car in the middle of I-75 and move to Europe. I get to The Masquerade customarily late but manage to catch a bit of the openers, Summoner’s Circle.

On their Facebook page the Knoxville outfit describe themselves as “a six-piece theatrical metal band that blends elements of doom, death, black and progressive metal into what they refer to as simply Epic Metal”. While genre-blending is not my cup of tea, I am pleasantly surprised by the solid display on stage. These guys are serious about what they do and the costumes and imagery match the grandiose sound they produce. Check out their first full-length, Tome, if you haven’t already done so. Continue reading »

SWALLOW THE SUN: “WHEN A SHADOW IS FORCED INTO THE LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 052019
 

 

(DGR reviews the newest album by Finland’s Swallow the Sun, which was released on January 25th. All photos accompanying this review were made by Jussi Ratilainen.)

Of all the reviews that are currently piling up on this end of the internet spectrum — and every year there will always be a handful in this situation — Swallow The Sun‘s latest album When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light (released at the tail end of January) is one of those which has taken the longest to write — and not because you’re viewing the result of a drunken bet to see how many words we can fit onto a page.

There’s a whole swath of reasons for that: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SWALLOW THE SUN, AKROTHEISM, OUR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON US, TERRE, THE STEEL WOODS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 182019
 

 

Within the world of heavy metal, the new year is in full swing. I’ve noted more than four-dozen new songs, EPs, and albums that have been released just this week alone and that, at least on a superficial level, seemed worth checking out. But for me it hasn’t been the best week to go exploring. With multiple premieres to write each day, and the time required to compile new installments of our evolving 2018 Most Infectious Song list (one more of which is coming later today), almost all my free time has been consumed.

By chance, however, I woke up at an even more ungodly early hour than usual this morning, and got far enough ahead on today’s planned posts that I spent a bit of time digging into that giant list of new things that appeared this week. I didn’t get far, but, serendipitously, everything I checked out proved to be appealing. All those new discoveries are collected here. Be forewarned: this list includes a healthy dose of clean singing, and one not-metal track.

SWALLOW THE SUN

Swallow the Sun threw more than a few people off-balance when they released the single “Lumina Aurea“ last month. But since then they’ve followed it with two tracks from their next album, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light, which will be released by Century Media on January 25th. The first was “Upon the Water“, and then more recently they debuted a video for the song “Firelights“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: ROTTING CHRIST, SWALLOW THE SUN, ÖRNATORPET, DEATHCHANT, MORTAL SCEPTER (AND A LOT MORE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 252018
 

 

If today is a holiday for you, we hope you’re enjoying it, regardless of whether it has any ecclesiastical meaning to you. If it’s not a holiday for you, we hope it will be a good day for you, too.

We don’t observe any holidays at NCS, not because we’re against them, but because from our first year the goal was to post something every day of the year, a goal we’ve kept with very rare exceptions. I can’t exactly remember why I set that goal (come on, it was 9 years ago!), but probably because I thought our best chance of getting readers was to be out there on days when there was no competition. Now, we keep doing it out of sheer stubbornness.

Since it is Christmas Day, I thought about exclusively going with metal that has some kind of holiday theme, but with a trio of exceptions at the end of this giant new-music round-up, I tossed that idea out the window, unless you count the introductory music from Rotting Christ. And why wouldn’t you?

ROTTING CHRIST

My NCS colleagues and I seem to be having a disagreement about RC‘s new album The Heretics. One of us, who shall remain unnamed, thinks it’s repetitive and boring, a distillation of the sound of the last three or four albums but lacking in dynamic peaks and troughs. A couple of us (including me) acknowledge that it’s basically Rotting Christ firmly in their established groove, but is nonetheless a whole lot of fun. Continue reading »

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