Islander, Author at NO CLEAN SINGING

Islander

R.I.P. IAN MCKINNEY, PAUL TRUESDALE, NICHOLAS CRISOSTOMO

Apr 072015

Wormreich

Early yesterday morning there was a fatal van accident on I-85 in northeastern Georgia. The 15-passenger van was carrying members of two black metal bands — Wormreich and Khaotika — who were touring with a third band, Kult ov Azazel. They had played a show on Sunday night in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and were driving to Atlanta, where they were scheduled to play another show last night. Reports indicate that the driver (a member of Khaotika) apparently fell asleep and the van veered off the highway, striking a tree on the passenger side. Three of the occupants were thrown from the vehicle.

Three men died in the accident: Wormreich guitarist Ian Andrew McKinney (Nazgul Vathran), Wormreich bassist Paul Truesdell, and Khaotika drummer Nicholas Crisostomo. Eight other passengers were injured, and three were listed in critical condition as of yesterday, including Wormreich drummer Christopher P. Pezzano (Profana).

In a twist of fate, we premiered a music video last Friday for the Canadian band Idolatry that was created by Ian McKinney; we were among the first to see it, and had uploaded it to our YouTube channel for the purpose of sharing his work publicly. In addition to performing in Wormreich, he was a visual artist operating under the name NVS Productions. He had created videos not only for Idolatry but also for Wormreich, Hades (Norway), and Borgne (Switzerland), as well as logos, album covers, flyers, and other graphic works. Though we did not know Ian, the coincidence of that video premiere made this terrible accident only three days later seem even more poignant. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: NATALIA ANDROSOVA (ENDLESSHADE)

Interviews 3 Responses »

Apr 062015

(In this latest installment of his “Get To the Point” series, KevinP poses 6 questions to Nataliia Androsova vocalist of Endlesshade from Ukraine.)

K: What made you choose death/doom as your style?

N: I used to listen to the music of such bands as Saturnus, Doom:Vs, Celtic Frost, Ea, Fallen, etc. I said “used to”, ’cause my tastes have changed a little. Now I mostly listen to post black, hardcore, and electronic music.

K: Even though your debut album, Wolf Will Swallow the Sun, has just been released through Naturmacht Productions, this was many years in the making, correct?

N: It took about a year to gather material and about half a year to record it. The main problem was that Michael and I couldn’t find musicians to record all the stuff. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BUCKSHOT FACELIFT — “LIVING GHOSTS OF THE NORTH SHORE”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Apr 062015

Last fall our man Austin Weber enthusiastically reviewed Living Ghosts of the North Shore, the new EP by a New York group with one of most evocative band names ever: Buckshot Facelift. Today we bring you the premiere of the band’s official video for the EP’s title track.

Before turning to the video, I want to excerpt Austin’s review, as an introduction for people who haven’t yet been exposed to Buckshot Facelift:

It’s clear from Living Ghosts of the North Shore that this is the work of a top-shelf grind band who don’t fall prey to one of the dangers that go hand-in-hand with the main strength of grind, a risk that so often becomes its weakness in lesser hands — favoring speed over memorable substance.

What Buckshot Facelift deliver here is a lot more diverse and off the beaten path, not falling within the typical punk end of the grind spectrum, nor delivering purely short songs. While there is a fair bit of death metal meat and heft to Living Ghosts of the North Shore, it’s not presented in a way that deathgrind typically sounds like, in style or in structure. As it appears here, it’s more like a monstrous slab of flesh surrounding and sloshing about between spirited grind bursts.

MONDAY IN THE MEATGRINDER: NOCTERNITY, OSHIEGO, CORPSE LIGHT, NAPALM RAID, ASS, WOLCOTT FALLS

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Apr 062015

Nocternity album cover

Happy fucking Monday. This is a collection of five new songs and one older one that I came across at scattered times over the last week. All of them take fully formed human bodies (aka “listeners”) and reduce them to their unpleasant component parts. In some cases, the remains are chunky and suitable for stewing. In others, you get finely minced hamburger-grade mounds that are perfect for sausage-making. Enjoy.

NOCTERNITY

The Greek black metal band Nocternity are preparing for the release of their third album and their 12th recording overall. The new full-length is entitled Harps of the Ancient Temples and it follows the last one by 12 years. It is my first exposure to the music of Nocternity, and from what I’ve read, it differs in significant ways from the last album, Onyx.

In January I briefly wrote about the album’s title track, as it appeared on a two-song 7″ release from 2007, which Hells Headbangers had just then posted to Soundcloud. Last week CVLT Nation premiered the album version of the song, which is somewhat different from the previous stream and so damned good that I’m seizing the opportunity to write about it again. Continue reading »

ESSENTIAL ENTRIES: MARCH 2015

Album Reviews 14 Responses »

Apr 062015

(In this post Dan Barkasi continues his monthly series recommending music from the month just ended.)

Welcome, welcome, to the March edition of essential entries. February was a decent month, highlighted by stellar releases by Crypt Sermon, Devouring Star, and Sarpanitum. Overall, it wasn’t as solid as January, and I listened to a ton of music for February. There were plenty of strong albums, but also a lot of “decent, but not great” sort of releases. Everything included here, however, is top-notch, of course!

March, however, was loaded with a metric ton of great albums. As a result, there were a few difficult omissions, but that’s a good problem to have. The following turned this guy’s head the most.

Antagoniste – The Myth of Mankind

Hailing from France – the land of oddball experimental metal – is another entry of this sort by Antagoniste. A one-man avant garde black metal project, this is the debut release, and it’s nothing short of beastly. The vocals vary wildly, with a mix of menacing growls and chants. It’s heavy, a bit out there, quite catchy, and all quality. Continue reading »

WEEKEND BLOG BREAK

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Apr 042015

I’ll be counting the days ’til I see you again. (Photo by Tim Flack.)

Today (Friday) my wife and I are leaving home to spend the weekend with some friends in a cabin on the Eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. I doubt there will be any internet. Even if there is, I think I would be fed to the bears and cougars as punishment for antisocial behavior if I tried to blog.

So this will be a rare weekend — in fact, only the second of its kind in the 5 1/2 years NCS has been running — when there won’t be posts on both Saturday and Sunday (and this will be the only post today — though it does include music). Continue reading »

DOWNFALL OF GAIA / DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT / THE INFERNAL SEA – THE RAINBOW, BIRMINGHAM 29/03/15

Concert Reviews 3 Responses »

Apr 032015

(Andy Synn turns in this review of a show in Birmingham, England, last weekend)

Here’s a fact, true believers — I’d never been to The Rainbow in Birmingham before this evening, but as it turns out it’s a cool little venue, with a nicely-sized band room in the back, equipped with a very powerful PA.

And it’s a good thing too, because tonight’s bands (only three of which I’m going to be writing about, due to one band having to pull out and the other being… kind of terrible) definitely required the sort of system that could adequately handle the raw power they put out.

TEASERS AND REMINDERS FROM UKRAINE: KRODA, KHORS, AND AUTUMNIA

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Apr 032015

I’m woefully far behind in compiling round-ups of new music. This week at our site has been loaded with premieres, and unlike some places that just say, “Here’s something. Listen to it”, I feel compelled to write about the music, even if few people care what I think other than (perhaps) the bands themselves.

Anyway, as welcome as they are, the premieres take time and tend to cut into other activities. But although I have a very long list of things I’d like to throw your way, I’m going to include only three items in this post. Two of them are teasers of new albums from bands I’ve been avidly following for a long time. The third is a new discovery and concerns the reissue of previously released albums. All three of the bands are based in Ukraine.

KRODA

More than three years have passed since the release of Schwarzpfad, the last studio album by Ukraine’s Kroda, which remains one of my all-time favorite pagan/black metal albums. The year 2012 brought us a live album (Live Under Hexenhammer: Heil Ragnarok!) and in 2013 Kroda released a compilation (Varulven) that included several departures in style, including two cover songs. And now, finally, Kroda is preparing for the release of a new full-length under the title GinnungaGap-GinnungaGaldr-GinnungaKaos. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: KILLER REFRIGERATOR — “THE FRIDGE AND THE POWER THAT IT HOLDS”

Album Reviews, Premieres 3 Responses »

Apr 032015

WAIT! DON’T LEAVE! Yes, I know you’re usually into the grymm and the kvlt, and you’re instinctively suspicious about bands whose names and album titles sound like they’re just goofing around — but suspend your skepticism for a minute and hear me out.

You see, I had the same initial reaction when we were approached about premiering this new EP. With a band name like Killer Refrigerator and a thematic focus on a war between humanity and the appliances that rule and control our lives, how could you possibly take the music seriously? While I acknowledge it’s true that we are indeed enslaved by our dependence on our smartphones, blenders, and toaster-ovens, would there really be anything worthwhile in songs named “Slaystation”, “Shower Thrashing Death”, or “Slave To the Easy-Bake”?

Turns out the answer is a resounding YES — that is, if you have a taste for thoroughly brain-twisting, ass-thrashing shred. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 2): HELLUCINATION, THROWN TO THE SUN

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Apr 032015

(This is Part 2 of a collection of five new reviews by DGR. The first three reviews are collected here. For those who missed Part 1, DGR’s introduction is repeated below.)

I’ve written a few articles where I’ve had to sort of slide back from the desk my laptop sits on, sigh, and go, “Well, that got completely out of control”. There’s something to be said about being punctual with your writing, but what initially began as a sort of archive of two real quick discoveries of stuff from 2014 that I had just found via Bandcamp became this massive and stupid roundup of five bands, with 2014 bookending a huge block of shit from 2015; so, uh, I guess fans of symmetry should really dig into this collection of sounds.

A huge chunk of this is still as originally penned, dedicated to stuff I found recently that hit last year, as I sifted from various sites I visited while trying to find stuff that might perk your ears. But I just kept finding music that seemed to be hitting right as I would type up the last little paragraph for an earlier release. Some were sent to us by bands themselves, and others I came across after a piece of album art or a random show poster caught my eye. Much of this article is death-metal-focused and much of it very cleanly produced and melodeath-leaning. However, there are a few curveballs this time around, and those are the ones that really caught my attention this time.

Hellucination

This band right here is one of the reasons this article got out of control. Yet, Hellucination are one that I felt I had to include because I was listening to their new album a lot for a fairly recent discovery. This one is a late addition that kind of forced its way into the group after I spotted its album art popping up on the social media pages of a couple of musicians I was checking in with. Continue reading »

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