Islander

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): MASTIFF, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, KOSTNATĚNÍ

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  4 Responses »
Jan 072026
 

(written by Islander)

There will be days when an installment of this list has a theme, something that connects the songs, at least in my head. The connections may not mean the songs live in the same musical time-zone or camp out in the same sub-genre territory. There might be some similarities of sound, but there might not. It might just be that the bands went off on their own unexpected and hard-to-classify jaunts. Yesterday’s installment was an example of that.

But even in my own addled head I had no connecting theme for today’s trio of songs. I was just scanning my long list of candidates and for no identifiable reason (other than the fact that they’re infectious) I decided to put these three together. If you perceive some connecting theme, please speak up in the Comments. That would be cheaper for me than booking time with a psychotherapist. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 3): IGORRR, FLOATING, GORLEBEN

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  5 Responses »
Jan 062026
 

(written by Islander)

As I’ve explained before, I think a song can be infectious because it’s catchy but also because it’s memorable, and those two qualities aren’t necessarily the same thing. Even when “catchiness” is a stand-out quality, that doesn’t necessarily mean the song is straightforward. Even quirky, twisted, and otherwise unorthodox songs can be catchy, though it might take a band with a special kind of creative lunacy to make that work.

These thoughts were running around my head as I decided to stitch together the following three songs in this third installment of the list, and if you haven’t heard all of them before, you may understand why if you listen to all of them now. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VÍGLJÓS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 062026
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks’ very interesting discussion with the Swiss band Vígljós, whose latest album was released last September by Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions.)

These days, it’s incredibly difficult for bands of any genre to surprise listeners. Of course, not everyone is interested in the thrill of jazz syncopation in extreme metal or groundbreaking special effects performed by artificial intelligence, but you’ll agree that, despite our reverent attachment to certain genre staples, sometimes we crave something new.

The Swiss black metal band Vígljós found an original solution by basing their first album, Tome I: Apidæ, last year on etudes about the life of bees, or something similar. This year, the band of beekeepers invited a new member with his own instrument, the mellotron, and recorded a concept album about ergotism epidemics in Medieval Europe. Vígljós cleverly played with the famous imagery of Bruegel’s creepy beekeepers on the new cover, retelling the story of mass insanity and death in the universal language of music.

The unadulterated aggression of blast beats and the supreme inhuman screams set the tone of the album, but they are softened by a morbid melancholy, bitter as the noxious poison of metaphysical ergot. In short, the atypicality and originality of Tome II extends beyond the band’s visual image, and that’s truly remarkable. Of course, we couldn’t pass by a band with an imagination of such a scale, so here’s the interview with Vígljós’ collective mind.

Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): DORMANT ORDEAL, ANCIENT DEATH, ASIDHARA

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  1 Response »
Jan 052026
 

(written by Islander)

As a reminder, I plan to post a new installment of this Most Infectious Song list every weekday until January ends, and so here’s another one to begin the first full week of the month.

If you’re like me, this is a dismal day. The holidays are over, jobs command obedience again, and the calendar just seems to stretch endlessly ahead into this new year, one footfall after another into whatever new miseries or joys 2026 holds for us. (Hopefully it won’t bring a war in Venezuela, but bozos are running this country so who knows?)

However, although the day has a dismal cast from that perspective, these next three songs in our list should brighten it, and by “brighten” I mean bust it into fragments and set it on fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JEFF WAGNER

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jan 052026
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks’ excellent interview with veteran metal author Jeff Wagner, whose latest book — an extensive official biography of Voivod — is out now.)

Jeff Wagner is a writer and journalist who dedicated over 35 years of his career to the metal scene working with labels like Relapse, InsideOut, Century Media, and The End as well as being an editor of Metal Maniacs magazine. Besides that, Jeff is the author of Peter Steele’s biography Soul on Fire, an overview of 40 years of the progressive scene titled Mean Deviation, and Destination Onward, Fates Warning’s biography as well.

His new book is Always Moving – The Strange Multiverse of Voivod, a 540-pages-long journey into the realms of one of the ever-evolving and most exciting metal bands. Needless to say, no stone was left unturned during Jeff’s research, and he performed a great work reaching out to a lot of people connected with the band. More information on Jeff’s quest and his work ethics in the interview below. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WOE, INNER CLOISTER, PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 042026
 

(written by Islander)

I had grand ambitions for this column but they were derailed when I spent more than five alcohol-assisted hours yesterday afternoon and evening watching an especially important football game with my spouse and friends, and then celebrating the outcome. When all was said and done I must have needed a really long period of sleep, because that’s what I got. As I write this, the day is well underway but my head hasn’t caught up yet.

Well, enough about me. I should turn to the music I’d like to recommend, even though the lateness of the hour and the slowness of my mind have conspired to make this column shorter than originally planned. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FROST, EXCAVATED GRAVES, DWELLNOUGHT, A LIGHT WITHIN, GROS ENFANT MORT, NEON SCAFFOLD

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 032026
 

(written by Islander)

Here we have the first Saturday NCS roundup of new songs and videos in 2026. It’s a temporal and stylistic mix of things. Temporally, some of it is from records released in 2025 and some from releases slated to happen this year. Stylistically, it will jump you around like popcorn kernels getting hot, including one new song and video that’s well outside our usual musical focus and a closing selection that’s beyond categorization.

I don’t expect everyone to enjoy everything I’ve assembled here, even though I do. That would be too much to expect. I do hope you’ll find at least one thing to brighten your day (i.e., to darken it like a storm cloud). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HARROWED — “BLOOD COVENANT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 022026
 

(written by Islander)

I suppose I should make one thing clear right up front: The song we’re about to premiere is from a forthcoming album by the Swedish death metal band Harrowed, not the British metallic hardcore band Harrowed about whom our Andy Synn has sung praises here a couple times in the past.

The Harrowed that’s our focus today has an enticing pedigree, featuring as it does guitarist Tobias Alpadie, who has spent time in VAK and previously as a member of Tribulation’s live lineup (among other things), and vocalist/drummer Adam Lindmark, a member of Morbus Chron before their dissolution. Harrowed’s live lineup now also includes bassist Dag Landin (ex-Morbus Chron, Tøronto) and guitarist Estefan Carrillo (Hazemaze, Morbid Breath).

What’s coming our way in February is Harrowed’s debut album The Eternal Hunger, previewed on behalf of their label (Dying Victims Productions) as “a twisted mass of putrid filth, incorporating elements of old-school American and Scandinavian death metal, a lethal dose of punk riffage, and mind-bending weirdness (and even some shattered shards of skewed melody, if we’re counting).” That’s enticing too, isn’t it? Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): CORONER, NITE, PIECE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  3 Responses »
Jan 022026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we begin the final part of the annual NCS LISTMANIA orgy:

This particular series isn’t about best albums or best shorter releases, and it isn’t even about best songs. As the title says, it’s about “most infectious” songs. Some of those might be among the year’s best songs, but in every year there are stand-out songs that aren’t immediately infectious, and actually might never be. Conversely, there are some highly infectious songs every year that most people wouldn’t critically acclaim as great works of art.

The process of compiling this list, as in every previous year, is a bit bizarre, or at least very poorly planned. Let me explain (again): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A NEW YEAR’S DAY: KARLOFF, TOMBSEEKER, HEXER, 1986, KATHAREIN, HURSAN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 012026
 


Seattle Space Needle in the fog, Dec. 31, 2025, photo by Akash Pamarthy for The Seattle Times

(written by Islander)

Yesterday a newsletter I subscribe to (“This, Not That“) compiled quotations by many famous writers about New Year’s Day and the ending of the previous year, some of them humorous, some of them depressing, some of them wise. One of the quotes, by Charles Lamb, seemed to sum up all the others: “No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.”

I’m certainly not indifferent. I’m determined… determined not to let the day go by without posting here about new music, notwithstanding the likelihood that many people are too hungover or sleep-deprived to wreck their heads with our preferred sonics today. It’s a compulsion of long standing, one that has resulted in our making some kind of music post 365 days a year, or close to that, with fewer than a dozen missed days over the 16+ years of our site’s existence.

As it always does, the new year of heavy music won’t waste much time taking off and achieving orbit velocity. We’ve already seen and spotlighted lots of songs from albums slated for release in the new year’s first quarter, and more will begin surfacing at an accelerated rate after this relatively slow week ends. I’ve picked an array of recent surfacings in this New Year’s Day column.

But, for better or worse, we haven’t completely finished reflecting in other ways on the music that 2025 brought us, including a few of today’s picks. Continue reading »

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