Islander

THE SHADOW WOODS METAL FESTIVAL

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 092015
 

 

We received an e-mail yesterday about a new U.S. metal festival that really peaked my interest, initially because of the stellar array of bands in the line-up and then for other reasons as well. Somehow it managed to elude my all-seeing eyes, which I suppose just proves that I’m often asleep at the switch. The name of the event is The Shadow Woods Metal Festival. and it will take place on September 25-27, 2015.

You can see what I mean about the line-up from the flyer above (click the image to enlarge it). It includes lots of bands we’ve praised at this site, including Midnight, Falls of Rauros, Occultation, Menace Ruine, Velnias, Anagnorisis, The Flight of Sleipnir, Hivelords, Dendritic Arbor, Anicon, Fin, Unsacred, The Black Moriah, and ZUD, plus 20 more bands. I’m including details about the entire line-up at the end of this post.

(Sadly, one of the bands, Wormreich, was devastated by a fatal van accident on Monday of this week, though their place in the festival line-up has been preserved.) Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY TWO

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn reports on the second day of Oslo’s Inferno Festival 2015 and provides photos.  For Andy’s report on the pre-fest show last Wednesday, go here, and his report on Day One is at this location.)

If there’s a better way to kick off another day at one of the world’s best metal festivals than by seeing Goatwhore, I’d like to hear it. Big riffs, big spikes, big attitude, the band positively ooze confidence and bleed metal, smashing through their set with almost reckless abandon.

Bassist James Harvey had a bit of a rough night, truth be told, early songs rendering his bass-lines as little more than a barely audible rumble, while snapping a string part way through the set forced the band to play a few songs without him entirely. Still, they persevered like the stalwart soldiers of Satan that they are, and on his eventual return Harvey’s lurching low-end was much more prominent. Continue reading »

UNLEASHED: “DAWN OF THE NINE”

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Apr 092015
 

 

We don’t publish negative reviews at this site. It’s a rule: If we hear something we don’t like, we just ignore it. The mission is to spread the word about metal that makes us enthusiastic. But since I’m the dictator who laid down the rule more than five years ago, I can break it, and so I will. Here’s our first negative review.

Unleashed’s new album Dawn of the Nine isn’t very friendly. It’s actually very belligerent, even bellicose. There’s a lot of ranting and raving about blood and the spirit of Viking ancestors and the elite forces of the “Midgard Warriors” hunting down something called the “White Christ” — and it sounds like Unleashed really mean it. This is icy-cold blood lust and ferocious rage given sonic form.

Who would listen to music that frightens small children? Where’s the compassion and the tolerance? Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, NIGHTRAGE, SEPTICFLESH, PALLBEARER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 082015
 

Behemoth video still

Wheeeeee!  I’m in an airplane at about 40,000 feet, traversing the continent from Seattle to Washington, DC, where I will sit in a windowless room for the next two days doing top secret work related to my fucking day job. I know I’ve just peaked your curiosity, but to be brutally honest (which is the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), a more fulsome description would bore you to tears.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I’m on an airplane. I have wi-fi, but it’s not good enough to stream anything, so I haven’t even watched the new videos collected in this post. Fortunately, my comrade DGR has, and he pounded out a few words for each one (except the last one) when he sent me the links. Take it away DGR… Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY ONE

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 082015
 

 

(Andy Synn reports on the first day of Oslo’s Inferno Festival 2015 and provides photos.  For Andy’s report on the pre-fest show last Wednesday, go here.)

The first day of the festival proper began (for me at least) promptly at 6:15 when Spellemann Award-winning Death Metallers Execration took the stage.

Down and dirty, with a hint of something creepy just beneath the surface, the band’s blending of rolling, Vader/Autopsy–style death-grooves, Behemoth/Watain-esque stomp and swagger, and touches of eerie, Morbid Angel-ish atmosphere – accentuated here and there by unexpected progressive touches, flashes of surprising technicality, and an undercurrent of lurching sludge – should, by all rights, be an awkward mix. Yet somehow they make it work, taking this amalgam of sounds and using it to whip up an absolute cacophony of ugly, unrepentant nastiness that’s also as infectious as sonic syphilis. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: XUL — “ORBIT OF NEMESIS”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Apr 082015
 

 

Are you sitting down? Okay, good, because if you weren’t, I would tell you to sit down, because what you’re about to hear will knock you over. Also, I’d recommend putting on some flame-retardent outer wear. Hell, if you’ve got asbestos-lined underwear and a Kevlar loincloth, those would be good ideas, too.

(WARNING: MIXED METAPHORS AHEAD)

This song, “Orbit of Nemesis” from a British Columbia band named Xul, is like a Formula One death metal machine whipping around one hair-pin turn after another, with you tied to the spoiler by a barbed-wire leash and with flames coming out the exhaust, close enough to burn off your eyebrows and incinerate your nose hairs. Continue reading »

BRING BACK INDUSTRIAL: THE UNRAVELING’S “REVOLT”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 082015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides this review of a new single by Unraveling from Calgary, Canada.)

If any sub-genre in the metal family tree deserves to see the inevitable upswing in the perpetual cycle that most musical trends follow, it’s industrial. You would think Godflesh’s comeback would have spurned this. We do have Author & Punisher and Youth Code, but that is hardly a groundswell for the kind of music that dominated the 90s alongside grunge. It has yet to really see a resurgence of the magnitude it deserves. Taking their best stab westward at the genre’s more accessible side is a project from Canada called The Unraveling.

They have returned with the first new song since their lead singer fell out of commission for a year due to heath problems; it’s the band’s first new music since their 2010 release 13 Arcane Hymns. This track shows the duo evolving from just another Tool-influenced hard-rock band stuck in the 90s to something more promising. Continue reading »

MALTHUSIAN: “BELOW THE HENGIFORM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Apr 072015
 

 

Malthusian’s debut demo MMXIII (touched upon here at our site) was an auspicious start to their career, but they have taken significant strides forward on their new EP Below the Hengiform. It would not be hyperbole to say that it now places this Irish band among the elite ranks of blackened death metal practitioners on a global stage.

According to this recent interview of the band’s guitarist/vocalist, the “hengiform” referred to in the EP’s title was an Iron Age enclosure, a “ring fort” in which there is archaeological evidence that ritual sacrifices were performed, “like a gateway between the worlds of the living and the dead”. With that obscure yet evocative reference as the banner above this new recording, Malthusian have created a listening experience that suits the title: The music is obscure, ritualistic, and supernatural in its aura, and it introduces something new to the lexicon of extreme metal.

From the beginning, Malthusian have blended elements of doom into the formulas of chaos that are typically found in the blackened death sub-genre, and they continue to do so here. The music has a massive, distorted low end, filled with dissonant down-tuned riffs, deep grinding/groaning bass lines, and a percussive mix that’s heavy on the toms and the kick drum, and the band have a penchant for dropping into a staggering pace with repeating musical motifs that exude a thick atmosphere of imminent catastrophe. Continue reading »

FESTivities: UPDATES FOR MDF XIII AND HELLS HEADBASH PART 2

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 072015
 

 

I spied a couple of festival-related things this morning that I thought were worth sharing. Big metal festivals are a dime-a-dozen for people in Europe, but for metalheads in the U.S. (and seemingly everywhere else in the world) they’re like gold bars discovered in your sock drawer. Okay, maybe not quite that rare an occurrence, but you know what I mean. Also, I’m trying to deflect my own jealousy over Andy Synn’s recent escapades at the Inferno Festival by attempting to make him jealous.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST XIII

This morning the organizers of MDF XIII unveiled the official festival poster for this year’s edition of North America’s best metal festival. Gaze upon it above (and click the image to enlarge it). It features the artwork of Lucas Ruggiero. 250 copies will be printed and will soon be available for pre-order at the MDF web site. That line-up still makes me drool (correction: it makes me drool more than usual). Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY ZERO

 Concert Reviews  10 Responses »
Apr 072015
 

Svartidauði

 (Andy Synn took in the sights and sounds of the Inferno Festival on April 1-4, 2015, in Oslo, Norway, and this is the first of a multi-part report about his experience. Andy took the photos as well.)

Once again last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to attend Inferno Festival in Oslo, which this year is celebrating its 15th Anniversary, with a frankly flabbergasting line-up of bands that could almost have been hand-picked for yours truly, including some of my absolute favourites as well as a number of bands I’ve been dying to see live.

For those of you who are unaware, the Wednesday night always serves as a pre-festival “Club Night” and kick-off party, with a variety of different bands playing at different locations scattered around in relatively close proximity to the main venue. With the right pass (which, thankfully, included my fancy pink “Press” wristband) you can wander freely between the different places, picking and choosing what artists you want to see.

I decided (for reasons which will become clear) to focus my activities around the new Vulkan arena, and particularly the smaller Pokalen bar down in the lower level… Continue reading »

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