(written by Islander)
I had to hurry to finish yesterday’s roundup due to excessive partying the night before and excessive sleeping through the next morning. Not having learned anything, I repeated myself last night and this morning, and am paying for it by having to truncate this Sunday roundup.
I mean, it wasn’t wild partying. There was no rowdiness, no fights. No one went to jail. It was just me and my wife and a bunch of other gray-hairs enjoying each other’s company over a grilled salmon dinner and maybe a few more drinks than was strictly advisable.
In figuring out what to include today, and what to leave behind for now, I decided to give you a charred-black roller-coaster ride. It’s only three songs and an EP, but none of them sound anything alike. I also decided to root this collection deep in the underground — these aren’t “big name” bands, but their music makes big impressions, at least on me and I hope on you too.
CALLOUS MASTER (Ireland)
I had this name on my gigantic list of new music assembled over the last week, mainly because their self-titled debut album will be released by Invictus Productions, whose releases I try always to pay attention to. But I plucked them from the list because I had a brief conversation with one of my NCS comrades yesterday about Callous Faulter’s new album. You understand, I’m sure.
Well, I didn’t know what Callous Master would sound like, having missed their Inceptio MMXXIII demo tape in 2023. What I have to go one now is their new album’s opening song, also named “Callous Master“. In a few words, it’s ugly, feral, evil, and exultant.
In more words: The opening moments include a slowly creaking sound of unknown origin, rat-a-tat drums, and quivering organ tones that would be at home in the soundtrack to an old gothic horror film. And then the song proper opens up with big rocking beats, a brutish and rusted bass riff, slashing cymbals, and a haughty and scratchy guitar melody.
The music is primitive, bestial, and thoroughly devilish. The song vigorously gallops, and the corrosive guitars sizzle, swarm, blare, and spin up into an ecstatic solo. Ugliest and most evil of all are the echoing vocals, which viciously snarl as if choking on bone splinters and break open in ghastly, near-cackling screams. Eventually they become a cacophonous gargoyle choir.
At Bandcamp the Callous Master debut album has a release date of September 18th, though I also saw an announced release date of October 9th. Invictus Productions identifies the band’s inspirations as acts like Master’s Hammer, Törr, Mercyful Fate, Bathory, and Negative Plane. The lineup includes current and former Sacrilegia members.
https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/callous-master
https://www.facebook.com/InvictusProductions
VAITARANA (Germany)
I recognized the name Christian Kolf due to his membership in Owl, Absolutum, Nightmarer, and Valborg, and that’s why I checked out this next song, because he’s also a member of Vaitarana along with drummer Tentakel P. of Todtgelichter and Omega Infinity — though I had overlooked Vaitarana’s debut EP last year (Sunsets Waterfalls).
This new song, “Elisabethal“, is a stand-alone single released on July 13th through Zeitgeister and Total Dissonance Worship, and it turns out to be just fucking breathtaking.
The music is a high-intensity typhoon from the first second. The riffing generates a dense gale of whirring abrasion that slowly ascends and descends, creating sensations both dismal and painfully distraught; the drums hammer with tremendous speed; the vocals shriek as if fueled by all the world’s agony and rage.
There might be synths in the mix, but regardless, the music becomes expansive, all-consuming, but stricken in different ways — sounding vicious, infected, hopeless — yet also magnificent. The rapidly vibrating lead guitar pierces through from within the storm. The drums dramatically boom like thunder as well as ferociously blast. The bass feverishly throbs. The vocals briefly cry out in singing chants as well as scream.
Near the end, the typhoon suddenly vanishes, replaced by a diminishing sizzling, and then nothing at all.
I’ve really got to go check out that EP from last year.
https://zeitgeister.bandcamp.com/album/elisabethtal
https://www.facebook.com/owlmetal/
https://www.facebook.com/totaldissonanceworship
SKJOLDEN (U.S.)
Many of you will know the name Carl Skildum based on his membership in the tremendous melodic death metal band Majesties, his live performances with Obsequiae, and his work in the lineups of Antiverse and Inexorum. Probably less well-known is the fact that Carl also has a solo project named Skjolden.
Last year Skjolden released its debut album Insouciant Metaphysical Grandeur, and I shared some initial thoughts about it here. More recently (i.e., about 10 days ago) Skjolden released a new single, with “[a]ll proceeds from Bandcamp sales in July and August 2026 to be donated to Firekeeper Alliance, dedicated to suicide prevention in the Blackfeet Nation”. (You may recognize the name Firekeeper Alliance from its role in the Fire in the Mountains festival in Montana.)
Skjolden’s new single (an entirely instrumental one) is “Mysteries Of Sylvan Splendor“. As that title suggests, its overture of gently ringing piano keys and other shrill and shimmering tones creates an atmosphere that’s both idyllic and mysterious. But big booming drums and more expansive (though still ethereal) keys begin to announce a change.
When the change comes, it’s a sudden infliction of crashing abrasion and heavily pounding drums, although a piercing lead guitar picks up the preceding keyboard melody and carries it forward. That guitar melody is magical, and joyful, and it’s impossible not to get caught up by it — even when the bass starts surging like an enormous battering ram.
The beautifully ringing guitars sometimes sound a bit like pipes and sometimes a bit like fiddles, and the evolving melodies put me in mind of both Celtic melodies and some Native American ones (though I hasten to add, I’m not an expert in either field). The overall power in the music swells, subsides, and swells again, reaching heights of heart-pounding grandeur, aided by accelerating drum-and-bass work.
It’s really a glorious and gloriously transportive song, and one offered for a good cause.
https://skjolden.bandcamp.com/track/mysteries-of-sylvan-splendor
DEATHISTHEMASTEROFTHEWORLD (Germany)
I am not a connoisseur of dungeon synth. I’ve dabbled in the genre, but don’t spend much time there because I’ve found that it usually lacks the energetic intensity, the crushing weight, and the emotional damage channeled by the flavors of extreme metal I’m usually drawn to.
If I weren’t constantly hurrying through new music every week and writing every day I might devote the time needed to follow the recommendations of knowledgable people and deeply explore the genre. If I did that, I might find that my surface-level impressions have caused me to overlook gems. I might get into the right headspace (a less hurried headspace) to better appreciate what the best dungeon synth specialists are achieving.
I mention all that to provide some honest context for my thoughts about the last selection in today’s column, a debut EP named Death is the master of this world by the spacing-free Deathisthemasterofthisworld. I listened to it after learning that it’s the solo work of Jan Kruitwagen, who’s known for his key roles in two of my favorite Dutch black metal bands, Sammath and Kaeck. It consists of two songs, each in the 14-15 minute range.
Both songs do include ingredients I think of as dungeon synth, but other ingredients are also present. Among those other ingredients, which will hit you immediately in the first of the two songs (“Part 1“), are catastrophic sonic detonations, ominously marching drums, the shrill trilling of layered guitars (at least I think they’re guitars, instead of quivering keys), and monstrous growls. Moreover, the music’s soaring synth overlays, while eerily chilling, also seem to channel emotional damage — feelings of grief and despair.
The boom and rattle of timpani help create a solemn and daunting atmosphere. Deep droning tones, the crack of thunder, and jagged distorted voices deepen the music’s feelings of menace and gloom. Madness seems to dwell within buzzing bass tones. Those trilling guitars are exhilarating to hear, but their melody moves in slow waves and it sounds like a channel of misery and distress.
All of those ingredients (and some others) join together, often abruptly changing, to make “Part 1” a very fraught and frightening experience. “Part 2” is equally frightening. It brings the same ingredients to bear down on the listener, though this time its synth overlays also create chilling auras of celestial wonder and cosmic grandeur (again abruptly punctuated by cataclysmic detonations), as well as slowly heaving waves of gloom.
The guitars trill and glitter again, and when they do they still sound distressed, like feverish expressions of pain and yearning within the blanketing dark immensity of the synths and the episodes of detonating destructiveness and vocal horror.
The cover art is a very fitting visual representation of the EP’s musical sensations. The words within the two songs are the same:
Chaos
Curse
Chaos
Man is a rope stretched over an abyss
https://deathisthemasterofthisworld.bandcamp.com/album/death-is-the-master-of-this-world
https://www.facebook.com/sammath666/
https://www.facebook.com/Kaeckhorde/