May 022021
 

 

Part 1 of today’s column is in the vein of the giant round-up I prepared yesterday — a lot of music and not a lot of words. Though the music is of course “in the vein” of black metal, or at least in spiritual/aesthetic kinship with it (according to my own perceptions), you won’t find any two bands here that sound like they were raised in the same litter.

Part 2, which may appear later today or may appear tomorrow (because I haven’t written it yet), is devoted to four songs from a forthcoming (and long-awaited) four-way split, and a frightening album I meant to include in this column last week before I ran out of time.

ANAPILIN (Lithuania)

Rennie (of starkweather) pointed me to the song and lyric video I’ve chosen to lead with. At that time, it was apparent that an album by these gas-masked Lithuanians was on the way, but neither of us could find a name for it or a release date.

Those mysteries were solved this morning when the album just dropped out of the sky, fully formed. But by the time I awakened and saw Rennie’s message about the full release, I didn’t have time enough to listen to it, so I’m sticking with the original plan of focusing just on the one song and video — but including the full stream as well. Continue reading »

Jun 192020
 


Acârash

(This is a collection of reviews and full-album streams assembled by Andy Synn.)

As everyone knows, the devil has all the best tunes, so today’s “Alternative Release Day Round-Up” has a demonic, Black/Death theme to it.

It also, for once, actually includes quite a few albums which are only just seeing the light of day today… although even the “oldest” albums featured here were all released within the last month or so. Continue reading »

May 082020
 

 

I’m hurrying to finish a couple of other NCS posts scheduled for today, but wanted to begin this Friday with something to occupy you while I do that. I’ve picked three new songs that I noticed over the last 12 hours, one of which comes with an intriguing video.

TABLEAU MORT

Within the last two hours London-based Tableau Mort (pictured above) released a professionally filmed video for “Ignorance (Tapestry Sewn Pt. II)“, which premiered at Antichrist Magazine. It follows their very impressive 2019 debut album Stigma Book 1: Mark of Delusion (released by Loud Rage Music), which drew symbolic and thematic influences from Romanian Orthodox Christianity, and embroidered their core framework of black metal with other stylistic ingredients, including Orthodox choral chants. Continue reading »

Mar 102019
 

 

I didn’t lose an hour of sleep last night. I just feel less moronic because I woke up at 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning instead of 3:30 a.m. Thank you Daylight Savings Time.

Of course, I’ll still feel like shit when it hits me around mid-afternoon that I only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep on one of the few nights of the week when I could have gotten 8 or 9. On the other hand, being awake so early does mean that I have extra time for this Sunday column, enough extra time that I can write a two-parter before having to deal with the rest of my life. Hopefully, my moronic misery becomes your savage pleasure.

DEIPHAGO

Deiphago describe their music as “Experimental Hyper-speed Satanic Bestial Metal” — and every word of that is true. As I’ve written before, their music doesn’t sound like anything else you’re likely to find in the realms of black metal or black/death. It viciously shoves us out of our musical comfort zones; it’s likely to leave most listeners bewildered and bedazzled (or at least severely unbalanced). Continue reading »

Aug 082017
 

 

This is, obviously, a humongous round-up of things I’ve recently discovered. I’ve organized it in this way:

First up there are two news items that feature imagery and info about eagerly anticipated new releases but no music. Then I’ve got new videos and music streams by (or related to) a quartet of venerable and revered bands, followed by new advance tracks from two younger favorites who are returning with new releases this year. And then I’ll close this out with music from two bands whom I’ve just discovered.

BELL WITCH

On most days I post a piece of usually dark or surreal artwork on our Facebook page. I keep an archive of what I’ve posted over the years, as a way of trying to avoid repeating myself. In that archive I’ve counted 22 paintings by the Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski that I’ve posted over the years since I began doing that, which I think is proof of how strongly I like his creations. But as far as I can recall, he has never created artwork for the cover of a metal album… until now. And his cover for the new Bell Witch album will surely stand as one of the best album covers of the year, if not THE best. Continue reading »

May 222016
 

Sxuperion-Cosmic Void

 

I continue my efforts to char your weekend to a crisp with this second part of a two-part post I started yesterday, collecting music in a blackened vein that I’d like to recommend. This collection is heavy on blackened death metal rather than unadulterated black metal, with a couple of other twists and turns thrown in. Yesterday’s offerings were mostly on the melodic side of the extremity scale. We’ll eventually get to something like that today, but not until the end. In the meantime, prepare for some monstrous, apocalyptic experiences.

SXUPERION

I discovered Sxuperion only this past January through the band’s split release with a Nebraska black metal band named Verräter (discussed here), although Sxuperion had preceded that split with two full-length albums and an array of shorter releases. For those who might not be familiar with Sxuperion, it’s the solo project of the drummer (Matthew) for two other excellent bands, Valdur and Weverin. Continue reading »

Jan 082016
 

Deströyer 666-Wildfire

 

You may have already guessed from the title of the post that it includes a shitload of new music — and I still haven’t exhausted the new discoveries that I want to write about, not by a long shot.

The last few days have indeed brought a typhoon of new metal that’s intensely good. In this post I’ve collected recommended new songs that are especially dire and destructive, which is why I’ve chosen a different title than the usual “Seen and Heard”. At some point this weekend I’ll bring another post that gathers together the rest of what’s been kicking me in the teeth.

DESTRÖYER 666

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new album (Wildfire) by these Australian marauders, and at last we now have a song to stream, fittingly titled “Live and Burn”. Continue reading »