GHOST BATH: “MOONLOVER”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the debut album by Ghost Bath, which comes out on March 17 via Northern Silence, with a full-album stream at the end.)

The Deafheaven comparisons will overflow Ghost Bath’s ethereal tub, but at its heart Moonlover favors its depressive black metal side over any of the shoe-gazing it flirts with. The opening “Golden Number” uses more synths and piano than Sunbather had as an entire album. On “Happyhouse” the band make it even clearer that the depressive elements are more important to them than the shoe-gazing. They drill into the blasting section, their drummer attacking with more feral precision than Deafheaven.

The crystalline ringing of the guitars in “Beneath the Shade Tree” is darkly beautiful, though it is just an interlude that gives some breathing room before the first part of “The Silver Flower”. From this point on the album takes a turn away from more vocal-centered music into atmosphere and ambience, dragging you along for a session of melodic hypnosis before the blast beats kick you off the cliff. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RITUAL BUTCHERER (ARCHGOAT)

 Interviews  4 Responses »
Feb 182015
 

photo by Duffi-Graffie

 

(Wil Cifer interviews Ritual Butcherer, guitarist, composer, and co-founder of Finland’s Archgoat, whose new album The Apocalyptic Triumphator is one of 2015’s high points so far.)

Your new album The Apocalyptic Triumphator has really set the bar high for metal coming out in 2015. One of the most impressive things about Archgoat is the fact that despite being incredibly heavy, you guys pull this off and still write good songs instead of placing all the focus on the heavy element. What do you attribute this to?

Our whole composing process is guitar-riff orientated and everything builds around the guitar parts. If the guitar riff is good and in company of 4-5 equally good riffs, it is then easy to add tempos with the drums to keep things interesting, but if the guitar part is weak or mediocre the drumming or vocals will not help the situation. We have in the two last recordings really wanted to get a heavy and thick sound because it just works with our hymns. And the drop tuning we use adds even more beef to the whole barrage of sound.

 

How has the songwriting process changed for you guys over the years?

In the beginning we all participated equally in hymn writing, but I have been taking more and more responsibility than in previous years and now have alone composed all the music from Heavenly Vulva as for The Apocalyptic Triumphator. It is, though, irrelevant who of the members does what, as the band is a band, and not for personal glory but for the glorifying of Lucifer. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AWAY (VOIVOD)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Feb 132015
 

 

(We present Wil Cifer’s interview with Voivod drummer Michel Langevin (Away).)

Here’s an interview I did with one of the most underrated drummers in metal — Away from VoiVod, who I caught up with on the Space and Grind Tour, where they continue to steal the show from Napalm Death.

******

Caught the show last night and you guys were amazing, one thing I thought was interesting was that all of the songs except for the new one were from Nothingface” and back, and when I heard Target Earth I thought, “Wow, this is the album that should have come after Nothingface” just from the vibe it had.

Away – We have three sets and songs from Target Earth are on two of them, but we have been debating that, since we are on tour to promote that album. What do you think, should we play more from Target Earth? Continue reading »

VENOM: “FROM THE VERY DEPTHS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 042015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Venom.)

One of those bands whose name alone makes them legends. They often get credited for creating black metal, due to an album called, well… Black Metal. As a kid I took down their poster upon realizing they only used satanic imagery as a gimmick, like Slayer (and finding out Slayer were not satanists was like finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real). So this album puts Venom in the hot seat as it’s time to once again prove themselves.

The last album I paid attention to was Prime Evil which came out in ’89. This had “Demolition Man” on it rather than Cronos. So Venom really came to an end after Resurrection, and this is more of a Cronos solo album than a Venom album. The rest of the band is Danny Needham, who also bangs the skins for Tony Martin, and guitarist Stuart Dixon from Order of the Black Sun. Of course, using the Venom name is smarter than calling this Cronos. No one will buy a Cronos shirt, but you better bet they will be buying Venom shirts. Continue reading »

AN NCS FULL-ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ARCHGOAT — “THE APOCALYPTIC TRIUMPHATOR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 132015
 

 

(We bring you the premiere of a full-album stream of the new work by the primordial Finnish horde Archgoat, preceded by Will Cifer’s introductory review.)

This album is another argument in favor of the dominance of European black metal. This Finnish band have been spreading the unholy word since the church-burning second wave of black metal in the early nineties. They have left a trail of splits and EPs in their wake, but this is only the band’s third full-length… so it’s kind of a big deal.

Archgoat combine the more classic metal sounds of early black metal with elements of a more grime-coated flavor of death metal than an entity like Mortuary Drape does, even though the two bands circle a similar sonic landscape. Archgoat’s strength is in mid-paced and even crawling tempos, and the mood of the music is often shrouded in a heavy cloak of doom. Continue reading »

A YEAR-END LIST OF THE BEST METAL BY WIL CIFER

 LISTMANIA 2014  2 Responses »
Jan 052015
 

 

(Last month we posted Wil Cifer’s list of 2014’s best black metal albums. Today we post his personal list of the year’s best metal, regardless of genre.)

Here are the top 10 metal albums. None of these are black metal, even though some of these bands might have once leaned that way. Of course, it’s partial to doom, but death metal fared pretty well this year with some old favorites coming back to kick ass.

10- Wormwood – S/T

These sludge merchants were crushing enough to keep the album in rotation.

Continue reading »

WIL CIFER’S TOP 10 BLACK METAL ALBUMS OF 2014

 LISTMANIA 2014  13 Responses »
Dec 242014
 

 

(In this post Wil Cifer presents his list of the year’s best black metal albums.)

At this point half the bands in metal today are trying to be blackened something, so here are the top ten black metal bands, that aren’t death metal bands trying to grim it up or post- rock bands with some anguished screams mixed in… these are all bands that are so pure… so cold. The cream of the crop this year came from not only Norway, but also France, Canada, Sweden, Chicago, and the Deep South. So here we go… Continue reading »

UNSACRED: “FALSE LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Dec 012014
 

 

(In this post, guest contributor Will Cifer reviews False Light, the forthcoming debut album by Virginia’s Unsacred.)

This Virginia band explodes from the start with an impressive burst of feral black metal. The vocals are as hateful a rasp as anything you could ask for from the States. The vocals sit up front in the mix rather than the more typical buried placement. There is a constrained chaos to the attack, making the triumphant gallops stand out.

With most heavy releases, the opening song is impressive by virtue of the sheer violence this sort of music invokes, so it’s up to the band from that point on to prove they can not only maintain the quality, but also continue to write actual engaging songs. So when Unsacred followed the opening title track with the more punk-paced “Idle”, I began to adjust my expectations. In this song, they lean heavily on blast beats and tremolo picking, sticking to the more cookie-cutter black metal approach that they defied on the first song. Continue reading »

UNFATHOMED OF ABYSS: “ARISEN UPON OBLIVION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

(We welcome Wil Cifer to NCS with this review of the debut album by Unfathomed of Abyss of San Antonio, Texas.)

Like everything else in Texas, Kevin Price thinks big, so he employed Kevin Talley of Dying Fetus / Daath fame to provide the drums. Price forsakes the organic approach taken by the flux of American Black metal bands to weave his own path. This path is filled with discordant geometry and angular atmosphere.

Opening with the 14-minute, piano-inflected “To Unequal the Balance of the Cosmos”, the album has an oddly uncertain beginning. While Kevin Talley is certainly not shabby as a drummer, he is not a black metal drummer and a drummer more versed in the genre would know where to throw in the appropriate blast beats to create the desired sound. Nevertheless, Talley does more than dial it in, adding a few creative accents of his own. Continue reading »

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