(This is NCS writer Todd Manning‘s list of the year’s best metal albums (an un-ranked Top 15), plus a handful of favorite EPs.)
Brutal music for another brutal year. As always, I’m partial to quite a bit of weird mixed in with my metal, but its all dark. You can feel the darkness just beyond the light of our tiny candles. It’s pressing in from all sides. Continue reading »
(Here is Todd Manning‘s review of the latest album by Minnesota-based Canis Dirus, which will be unleashed December 21st on LP by Bindrune Recordings and on CD by Alte Seelen.)
Bindrune Recordings have long been one of the most trusted yet still thoroughly underground labels of the 21st century, specializing in all things atmospheric metal. Their latest release from Canis Dirus, By the Grace of Death, keeps the label’s excellent standard of quality alive with their folk-infused take on black metal.
Album opener, “Once Cursed Path Glistens in the Sun”, is an epic black metal piece constructed from a minimal number of parts. The primary riff is mid-paced and heavy, yet also meditative and melancholy. They eventually find a blast beat and display their ability to conjure violence as well. Yet a synth line underneath the maelstrom keeps the atmosphere intact. Continue reading »
(In late August the Berlin-based Israeli band Har released their debut album on Dark Descent, and Todd Manning has given us and you the following impressions of it.)
Some releases just possess a visceral impact that some of their contemporaries lack. Such is the case with the debut full-length from Berlin’s Har. Cursed Creation, issued recently by Dark Descent Records, displays Har’s ability to draw from many of metal’s most extreme niches to create a harrowing listening experience.
Tim Grieco’s monochromatic artwork might be the first clue to unlocking the various elements of Har’s sound. Eschewing some black metal bands’ pastoral album art, this cover looks like some kind of gridwork blurred into abstraction. It betrays a certain coldness that reminds one of the urban and sometimes bleak futurism embraced by the Norwegian scene in the mid-to-late ‘90s. Har does sidestep the more techno elements that sometimes came from that scene, but albums such as Mayhem’s Wolf’s Lair Abyss and Satyricon’s Rebel Extravaganza do seem to inform their sound. The mid-paced break that interjects itself between the blasting of “Chronocide” seems to veer in that direction. Continue reading »
cover art by Ettore Aldo del Vigo
(We present Todd Manning‘s very enthusiastic review of the new album from Suffer, which was released by Wise Blood Records on March 29th.)
Most death metal bands define themselves by emphasizing one aspect of their sound. Maybe it’s speed or lack thereof, technicality versus primitivism, seeing how guttural they can be, and so on. On their latest, Grand Canvas of the Aesthete, which just came out on Wise Blood Records, South Dakota’s Suffer take a different approach; they define themselves by the balance they strike of all the elements of death metal that they incorporate. Continue reading »
(This is Todd Manning‘s review of Prisoner‘s sophomore album, due for release on March 15th by Persistent Vision Records.)
While certainly not the first to combine metal with industrial influences, Richmond-based unit Prisoner justifies their efforts with their excellent sophomore album Putrid | Obsolete.
Starting off as a quartet featuring Pete Rozsa on guitar and vocals, Justin Hast on bass, Dan Finn on guitar, and Joel Hansen on drums, they added Adam Lake as a full-time member to handle synths, samples, and programming, resulting in an immersive and hellish listening experience. Continue reading »
(This is Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review of the new album by Hulder, which will be released on February 9th by 20 Buck Spin.)
It is the critics’ temptation to always glorify the radical and experimental, but sometimes it’s important to realize genius when it is executed within a genre’s traditional confines. Such is the brilliance of Hulder. Their latest full-length, Verses In Oath, is an exercise in everything that has made black metal such an addictive sound. The embrace of ancient violence and forest mysticism is strong here and they don’t radically deviate from the template, they are just doing it better than almost anyone else right now. Continue reading »
(We present the following review by Todd Manning of the sophomore album by Colorado-based Spectral Voice)
Spectral Voice is composed of three-quarters of the members of Blood Incantation and is equally as formidable a death metal unit.
But if Blood Incantation have their vision firmly fixed on the stars above, Spectral Voice lurks in the subterranean shadows.
If their 2017 debut Eroded Corridors of Unbeing didn’t place them at the pinnacle of the Death-Doom genre, their latest, Sparagmos, should do the trick.
Due out on February 9th courtesy of Dark Descent Records, it is certainly a shoo-in for year-end lists. Continue reading »
(As we continue rolling out the year-end lists of our writers, today we move to selections from Todd Manning.)
I think I found the formula for my year-end list last year. Every year, once my own list is finished, I pour over every other list I can find and I am reminded I am a fan first, musician and writer after. So I will keep it brief and give you a bunch of records I loved and I hope you find something new and exciting to check out. Continue reading »
(We’re pleased to present Todd Manning‘s review of the latest album by a band who’s a favorite among all the old-timers around here — and should become one of your favorites if they’re not already. The full album stream debuted today, and you’ll find that below as well.)
California-based Vastum is becoming a death metal institution. Their latest, Inward to Gethsemane, is due out on November 10th and is their fifth full-length on 20 Buck Spin.
Vastum has always looked to legendary acts like Autopsy, Incantation, and Cianide for inspiration. Yet, they create an atmosphere that’s equal parts haunting and nasty that sets them apart from the rest of the old-school death metal crowd. Continue reading »
(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of a new EP from the Salt Lake band Deathblow.)
It’s a bit baffling to me that the word ‘crossover’ does not appear a single time in the press release for the latest E.P. from Salt Lake City-based Deathblow because that’s exactly what kind of damage they’re dealing out. Rotten Trajectory spewed forth into this decaying world on September 29th, courtesy of the appropriately monikered Sewer Mouth Records.
For the youth not familiar with the term crossover, it was used to describe that late eighties-early nineties blend of punk and thrash characterized by acts such as D.R.I., Crumbsuckers, and early Excel. Deathblow tread similar territory but update their sound with a smidge of death metal brutality. Continue reading »