(written by Islander)
Yesterday we premiered a video for a song called “Welcome to Hell“. That title sums up the events that have dominated domestic and international news over the last few days. What fresh hell will today bring? It may be hard to foresee all the details this morning, but it’s already easy to smell the sulphur on the wind.
I picked new music and videos from 8 international bands to get our day started and help get us through it. I feel pretty confident this will all be better than tomorrow’s headlines. If you’re in the U.S. and out on the streets today, stay strong and try to stay safe. Hell, I hope you can stay safe wherever you are.
ORBIT CULTURE (Sweden)
I beat myself up a bit as I listened to this first song. I felt like it was making a calculated primitive appeal to my baser instincts and that I should turn my nose up at it, but I fell for it anyway. I’ll probably even put it on my Most Infectious Song list at the end of the year.
The song, “Death Above Life“, is the title track to this Swedish quartet’s new album, which is getting a big push from their new label Century Media, a push that includes comparative references to Gojira, Metallica, and Static-X.
I do get whiffs of Gojira in this song, and of Meshuggah. The song’s primitive appeal derives from the monster grooves generated by its big atonal pounding and glitchy interstices. In addition to that, you get sounds of locusts swarming or buzzing and a raging beast behind the mic, with a few other cold and eerie accents in the mix, including a grief-stricken symphonic interlude that flows over into a resumption of the pavement-cracking hammer blows. Cool video too.
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THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM (UK/Australia)
The Akercocke alums and their fellow demons in The Antichrist Imperium are back, renewing their mission to cause apoplexy among Bible beaters the world over, who would surely become apoplectic if they saw the uncensored cover for Apocalyptic Witchcraft‘s reissue of the band’s 2015 debut album or the name of the song that’s the subject of the band’s new video or saw and heard the video itself. Which probably won’t happen, they probably won’t see or hear this, too bad.
“Kill for Satan” was lots of infernal fun when it first came out, and it’s still fun — that is, if you enjoy percussive machine-guns firing at overheating speeds, loads of maniacally writhing and rapidly jolting fretwork, demonically ugly vocals, gloriously demented guitar soloing, and a heavy and lurching bit of ghoulishness near the end, just before a final dose of blistering guitar insanity. The imagery in the video matches up well with the music.
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KONTUSION (U.S.)
Next up is the lead single from the debut album of Kontusion, the NJ/DC duo of drummer Chris Moore (Repulsion) and vocalist/guitarist Mark Bronzino (ex-Iron Reagan, Mammoth Grinder). (Todd Manning reviewed their self-titled debut EP for us here.) The name of the album is Insatiable Lust For Death. The name of the song is “Throne of Skulls“. The band’s description of its subject matter is all too fitting for today:
“Throne Of Skulls” lyrically tackles the path of destruction and death in the hell-bent pursuit of power concentrated into the hands of the few – a systematic death march humanity has endured from the time of medieval kings to the modern day boardroom. Tyrants taking their bloody throne upon the skulls of the crushed masses, set to the sounds of tremolo picked riffs and frenzied blasts.
Musically, the song is mauling and mangling barbarity, jumping around with d-beat propulsion and furiously surging with blast-beat outbursts, and inflicting riffage that’s both hideously gruesome and viciously eviscerating. A berserk (and white hot) guitar solo electrifies the song, and cavernous roars add to its malignant mien. It doesn’t last long, but long enough to wake the dead and send them scurrying.
Insatiable Lust For Death will be released by Profound Lore on July 25th.
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CLAIRVOYANCE (Poland)
Time to leap back across the Atlantic for the first advance track off Chasm of Immurement, the debut album from the Polish death-dealing quintet Clairvoyance. The big hook for this fish (in addition to the tastiness of the band’s preceding demo, which I reviewed here) was Paolo Girardi‘s cover art, and I chomped down on it without a second thought. Glad I did.
“Eternal Blaze” deploys poisonously slithering and jubilantly demented fretwork executed at tremolo’d speed, lots of dynamically cavorting drumwork, noxious abyssal gutturals, and a few doses of massive piledriver blows for good measure. Prior to a finale of berserk frenzy, the band also downshift the tempo in order to drag listeners through a musical trough of congealing viscera (with frenzied maggot swarms down in there with you). Ugly and exhilarating stuff for sure.
Chasm of Immurement will be released by Carbonized Records on July 18th.
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KHNVM (Germany)
Both Sir Andy Synn and I have written repeatedly and glowingly about the past music of KHNVM (pronounced “Khaa-nooom”), though somehow we failed to spill words about their most recent album, 2023’s Visions of a Plague Ridden Sky. Well, it will no longer be the most recent one, because a new one named Cosmocrator is coming our way in August, and my next pick today is a video for its first advance track, “Fetid Eden“.
The song’s subject matter, as described by Bangladeshi-born singer and guitarist Obliterator, is certainly relevant to current events:
This track plunges listeners into the brutal aftermath of war, where shattered dreams lie scattered like debris across ravaged landscapes, and the echoes of loss reverberate through the silence. This is a soundscape where the weight of existence is amplified by the relentless machinery of war and every breath is a struggle against the suffocating grip of despair. “Fetid Eden” serves as a stark reminder of the enduring human cost of conflict, a descent into the gore-soaked reality that lies beyond the headlines. As the lead single of our upcoming album, it signals our unflinching commitment to confronting the darkest aspects of the human condition in a world consumed by violence.
“Fetid Eden” is in line with these themes, in the sense that from the very beginning the music is both violent and agonized, both viciously cruel and wretched. It’s also packed with electrifying drumwork, tumultuous bass-lines, and loads of fast-changing, fleet-fingered, head-spinning riffage, along with furious death growls — but the band also slow down, and as the guitars miserably ring and wail, they deepen the song’s feelings of agony and despair.
In all these respects, the song is emotionally intense and powerfully gripping, straight through to the glorious soloing at the end.
Cosmocrator will be released by Testimony Records on August 29th. The stunning cover art was created by Khaos Diktator Design.
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HEAD OF CASSANDRA (Poland)
The Polish band Head of Cassandra provide a three-sentence description of themselves at Bandcamp. The first sentence is this: “Five guys so old that they were vaccinated against smallpox as kids.” That’s really all I needed to give a listen to their debut EP Duga Rmar (released on May 7th). The other sentences added allure to the humor: “Post, sludge, black, punk, experimental roots. Playing heavy and loud.”
Four songs long, the EP proves that while these dudes may be old they’ve still got a lot of fire in the belly, and good songwriting and instrumental chops to go with that. They deliver methodically bone-breaking and neck-wrecking beats and frightening, wide-ranging vocal intensity that’s both gravel-gargling and scalding, and they display a facility for crafting dynamic music that ranges from miserably doomed to viciously deranged.
The songs are jammed with both rhythmic and melodic hooks, but the band also sometimes charge ahead like a big demolition machine leaving wreckage in its wake or deliver bunker-busting percussive bombs.
They also throw in surprises too, like the frantic vocal sample and big bone-chewing bass riff at the outset of “Garaganta” or the crocodilian croaks that help launch the primitively brutish and weirdly squalling “Mataya” (which features a humongous bass solo of its own) or the freakish riff-blizzards, trippy soloing, spectral sizzling emanations, and crazed wails that segment the fiendish “Ormus“.
In short, this is a hell of a good EP, viscerally compulsive and head-hooking but pretty scary too. I have happily bought it and hope for more to come.
https://headofcassandra.bandcamp.com/album/duga-rmar
https://www.facebook.com/headofcassandra/
SUN AFTER DARK (Germany)
Now we have a sharp turn in the path, not just from that Head of Cassandra EP but really from everything else in today’s collection leading up to this point.
Given the way we divide labor at NCS, I rarely have enough time to write reviews of complete albums unless I’m hosting their premiere. Hell, I rarely have time to listen to complete albums unless I’m hosting their premiere. And in the case of Sun After Dark‘s debut album Tatkraft, I’ve not heard all of it and therefore am not reviewing it.
BUT… I’m so completely taken with the one song I’ve heard that I’d feel guilty if I didn’t do something as an expression of thanks.
“Burning Blue” is so captivating because it’s such a wonderfully evolving and genre-spanning experience. By turns it’s dreamlike and beautifully spectral, heavy and head-moving, frightening and ferocious, a hallucination that shifts like a kaleidoscope, always falling into the right place.
The song achieves these changing states in part through wide-ranging vocal variety, both clean and harsh, tremendously good in every manifestation, and in part through ghostly and panoramic synths, compulsive chug-fests, searing guitar radiations, brightly rippling keys, and immaculately crafted rhythm-section accompaniments.
By way of background, Sun After Dark is led by Benjamin König, formerly of Lunar Aurora, and includes a second member, vocalist Thomas Helm from Empyrium. The album also includes guest contributions by vocalist Matthias Jell (Azathoth from Dark Fortress), vocalist Martin Falkenstein (Mosaic), drummer Matthias Landes (Dark Fortress), and Katrin Rohde on strings. The album was released just yesterday by Hammerheart Records.
Here’s what Benjamin said about the song I’ve just tried to describe when it was released as a single:
“Burning Blue” is an almost catchy and straightforward song. The plot revolves around the ancient dream of flying: in this case, flying through the night, over ruins and through dark dungeons. Lots of clichéd themes, but atmospherically packaged and made to float and immerse yourself. Enchanted with dust from old times, like a fairy tale, almost forgotten, yet burned into our childhood. I think we all know these nightflight dreams. The basic form of the song is many years old, but has been reworked for this album. Now was the right time and place for this song.
If the rest of Tatkraft is in the same league as “Burning Blue“, or even a league away, I’ll be very happy with it. I certainly intend to find out.
https://sunaftedark.lnk.to/tatkraft
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VENUS STAR (Finland)
I’ve had glancing encounters with the previous music of Venus Star (the solo work of Atvar, also a member of Circle of Ouroboros and Black Stench) but, woe is me, I’ve never gone deep into any of Venus Star‘s five previous albums. Not because what I heard was repellent (to the contrary) but because I just didn’t have enough time at the right times. Maybe this year will be different.
Just a few days ago Terratur Possessions‘ released a sixth Venus Star album entitled Smokeless Fires. I was caught by its fantastic cover art, the work of David Glomba. But like the Tatkraft album above, I have only heard one song, and once again I feel the need to do something as a thank-you to the band, even if listening to and writing about the whole album might be better thanks.
The song I’ve heard is “Pebble“. It arrives in the seventh position on the album’s track list but is set to play first at Bandcamp. Its gripping bass riff is very heavy and very ugly and moves like a vigorously surging behemoth while an abrasive guitar sizzles, roils, and whines around it.
Like that highly addictive bass throb, the drums will sink their own hooks in your head; even though they’re not fancy, they get muscles moving. Meanwhile, the vocals echo like enraged goblins slowly screaming in dank catacombs.
P.S. Somewhere up above I mentioned our year-end Most Infectious Song list. If this one isn’t on it, feel free to whip me with a spiked flail.
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https://www.facebook.com/TerraturPossessions