AN NCS INTERVIEW: OMINATION

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

(With pleasure, we present Comrade Aleks’ extensive interview with Fedor Kovalevsky of the Tunisian extreme metal bands Vielikan and Omination, whose critically acclaimed new album NGR was just recently released by Hypnotic Dirge Records.)

This Tunisian funeral doom-death project offers high quality material. Created in around 2016 by Fedor Kovalevsky (who has Ukrainian roots), Omination consistently developed ’til it became the size of a trio consisting of Fedor at the helm and his bandmates from progressive death outfit Vielikan – Zied Kochbati and Nassim Toumi. With a full lineup and the support of Hypnotic Dirge Records, Fedor presents Omination’s second full-length NGR (New Golgotha Repvbliq), which has been out since the 5th of February.

The last times are upon us! So be forewarned! And don’t forget to take a listen to NGR. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GATEWAY, VIELIKAN, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, BURNING PALACE, NUBIVAGANT, OSI AND THE JUPITER, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 022021
 

 

Last night I decided not to post anything today and instead spend the time trying to figure out how to begin rolling out my 2020 Most Infectious Songs list next week, and to get my shit together for when my day job starts whomping me in the head again on Monday. I have spent some time on both of those projects but my NCS obsession got the better of me, and I took a break to listen to some things on my ever-burgeoning list of music to check out. From that listening session, I picked what you’ll find in this round-up.

I have made a few compromises, compared to what I usually do in these posts, so I can get back to the other projects a bit faster. The main compromises were to dispense with tracking down, re-sizing, and uploading album art, and to write less.

GATEWAY (Belgium)

Been anxiously awaiting the first preview of music from this death/doom band’s new EP, Flesh Reborn, and it finally arrived today. The ferocity of “Slumbering Crevasses” will maul and mangle you, and the cavernous monstrosity of the vocals and quivering eeriness of the leads may put the hair up on the back of your neck too. When the song slows, it’s still punishing, and even more apocalyptically frightening. Continue reading »

VANUM / VARAHA / VIELIKAN / VIMUR

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 292019
 

 

(This is a quartet of reviews written by Andy Synn, gathering together impressions and streams for four excellent new albums by bands who happen to share a first letter.)

Did you know they’re planning on doing a full-length movie version of Sesame Street?

I didn’t until recently, but I guess it just goes to show that anything which the studios believe can be turned into a movie will be turned into one eventually.

Still, as long as they avoid the temptation to make it a “dark and gritty reboot” I suppose it can’t be that bad, right?

Anyway, this has very little to do with the bands I’m writing about here today, other than to act as a cheeky little segue into me saying that today’s article is brought to you by the letter V and the number 4. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KAATAYRA, WOE, FLAMEN, VIELIKAN, ADYIRE, NITERIS, ORDEM SATÂNICA

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Mar 172019
 

 

As I mentioned in yesterday’s round-up, my NCS time is being dramatically squeezed by my fucking day job, which hasn’t given me a break even over this weekend. I’m repeating that here partly because whining is therapeutic and partly to explain why my writing in this Sunday’s column is more truncated than I wish it were. There’s a tremendous amount of music in what I’ve chosen — including three full albums — but it’s one of those situations where I’m only able to provide brief introductions, and hope they’ll be enough to induce you to investigate more deeply on your own.

In organizing this post I’ve alternated those three albums with three shorter works — three songs from forthcoming releases and a two-track EP.

KAATAYRA

Kaatayra is a one-man black metal band from Brasilia, Brazil, whose music (he says) is motivated by overcoming the shame of being human by communing with the green of the land and the life of rivers, and by dreaming — “sonha-se as vidas de ascendentes”. His debut album, No Ruidar da Mata que Mirra, was released on March 11th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SARASTUS, AIHOS, VUKARI, VIELIKAN

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Feb 172019
 

 

I think I was overly ambitious about what I thought I could accomplish today. I did enjoy spending time with, and writing about, the music I collected in today’s first post, but that exercise wound up leaving me with too little time to write about all the black metal I’d chosen for today’s SHADES OF BLACK column. Originally conceived as either one giant post or a two-part collection, I’ve had to cut it back: The music of four bands is featured here, instead of eight.

Maybe I’ll find the time to write about the other four in time to do a second SOB post tomorrow before the turbulence of the work week and the resumed flood of more new music inundates me, but that’s tough to predict at this moment. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these four selections as much as I have (two of the bands old favorites, and two are recent discoveries).

SARASTUS

Having spent time with Enter the Necropolis, released on February 8th by the Finnish black metal band Sarastus, I’m feeling foolish for failing to explore the previous releases of this duo (composer and multi-instrumentalist Vardøger and vocalist/lyricist Revenant) — which include a debut demo (I) from 2015 and a debut album (II-Toinen Tuleminen) released in 2016 — because this new album is a real thrill. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): VUKARI, VIELIKAN, KALMANKANTAJA, RINGARË, LIMINAL SHROUD, Y I Y

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Jan 062019
 

 

This is the second part of today’s usual column on black metal, which I began here. The first three bands are old favorites; the next three are new discoveries. The focus is still mainly on new tracks from forthcoming records, but I’ve included one brand new single and a full EP that came out near summer’s end.

With more time, I could easily include a third part, but there’s too much on the table for Monday — and I think you’ll want to be here to discover what happens then.

VUKARI

I first came across this Chicago quartet via their En To Pan EP (which I partially reviewed back in July 2014), thanks to a recommendation by Panopticon’s Austin Lunn. Subsequently, Vukari and Panopticon became label-mates: Vukari’s second album Divination was released by Bindrune Recordings in 2016, and I thought it was stunningly good. It appears that the band are now working on a new album, and on January 3rd they released a demo track from it named “Entire Worlds Encased In Ice“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PESTILENCE, ATARAXY, WHOREDOM RIFE, TALSUR, VIELIKAN, HOLYARROW

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Dec 222017
 

 

After a nearly two-week vacation in which I blogged very little, I returned to Seattle late last week and was promptly slammed by my fucking day job, unforeseen personal obligations, bad weather, and a whole bunch of NCS articles to write or edit, including the continuation of our LISTMANIA series, interviews, reviews, and a bunch of premieres. I can’t really say I need another vacation already… but I kind of do.

Anyway, I haven’t written one of these round-ups in 12 days, and I’m way behind in even listening to all the new songs that have appeared since my vacation began 19 days ago. I started working on this collection early this week but decided to include a couple of songs that have appeared more recently. I hope to do more catch-up round-ups this weekend, including a Sunday SHADES OF BLACK feature, because holidays don’t mean shit around here.

PESTILENCE

Roughly four and a half years after their last album, Pestilence will release a new one via Hammerheart Records named Hadeon, and earlier this week Hammerheart previewed the album with a single called “Multi Dimensional“. It didn’t take long for my NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli to send me an alert about the song, wth a positive message. Continue reading »