Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IDOLATRY — “CLEFS AU CHAMBRE DE TRISTÊSSE (A KEY TO THE ROOM OF SADNESS)”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Apr 032015
 

Idolatry (photo be Pandemic Photography)

We have a video premiere for you. The song is brand new as well. It’s a stand-alone single by Idolatry from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and its title is “Clefs Au Chambre de Tristêsse (A Key To the Room of Sadness)“. It will appear exclusively on a split release with the Ohio black metal band Unrest. The video was created by Nashville-based NVS Productions, who has also produced videos for Wormreich (US), Hades (Norway), and Borgne (Switzerland).

Of course, you can skip the rest of this verbiage and just go hit the “play” button, but then you would miss a few warnings, which could be important for those with heart conditions or photosensitive epilepsy.

First, a warning about the music (or a teaser, depending on your tastes): This is grim, savage, skin-flaying black metal that cares nothing for trends. It is a horned salute to the regime of bands such as Gorgoroth, Behexen, and Sargeist. The music’s atmosphere is saturated with a sense of predatory menace and steeped in the ichor of gloom. When it’s not racing headlong in an explosion of barely controlled chaos, it’s stalking like a dirge. It’s also a riveting listen. Continue reading »

A PAIR OF REVIEWS: CROM DUBH (“HEIMWEH”) AND A SPLIT BY AKROTHEISM AND SEPTUAGINT (“SPHINX: THE GREAT ENIGMA OF TIMES”)

 Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 022015
 

 

(We welcome back Norwegian guest contributor Gorger, who has provided us with a review of a new album by Crom Dubh that originally appeared in his native tongue on Gorger’s Metal, as well his review of a new split by the Greek bands Akrotheism and Septuagint.)

I tipped Islander off to a track by London-based Crom Dubh not long ago, but he’s a busy bee, and I think these guys deserve some attention, so I asked if he wanted me to present a few words on their first album. Today I discovered yet more delightful metal, this time from two Greek bands. What has crawled into the drinking waters of Greece and infected the metal community of the nation lately? I’m adding them as a bonus.

CROM DUBH – HEIMWEH

When the British quartet Crom Dubh released their debut after more than ten years of existence, that is something we could take delight in, for these lads deliver rapturous grimness and a poignant fresh take on “melodic” extremity. Continue reading »

SIFTING (Part 1): BLIND SPITE, MANIFEST, THE RAGNAROK PROPHECY

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 022015
 

 

(DGR provides this collection of reviews of new releases by five bands. The first three reviews are collected here, and Part 2 will follow tomorrow.)

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.

Blind Spite

One of the fun things about just combing through Bandcamp and various other sites is the forehead-slapping discovery of releases that hit last year and flew completely under the radar. This one in particular hit in September of 2014, and yet it is one that deserves to get out there. We usually try to be on the somewhat forefront when it comes to new releases, but a late discovery is easily excused when we get to share it out there for all of you folk. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SERPENTRANCE — “THE BESEIGED SANCTUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 022015
 

 

I first came across the Russian band Serpentrance almost one year ago because a Facebook friend had posted a link to their first single, a killing track named “Obeisance To The Antiquity of Sin”. Details about the band were virtually non-existent, but I wrote about the song and I became their 60th “like” on Facebook. Two months later, a second Serpentrance hymn surfaced, a track named “Aphotic Temples”, and I wrote about that one, too. I still couldn’t find any details about the band, though by then their Facebook presence had risen to 294 likes. The word was spreading by word of mouth.

More months passed, and then in February of this year I saw the announcement that those worshippers of Total Death in Canada’s Vault of Dried Bones had released the first Serpentrance EP, a limited cassette edition named The Besieged Sanctum. It includes both of the songs identified above (though the title of “Obeisance” has been shortened to “Sin”), plus two others — and today we shudder to bring you a premiere of one of those other songs, a monstrous offering of primeval death metal named “The Tongueless Oracle”. But first, a few words about the EP as a whole. Continue reading »

TRIBULATION: “THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 022015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides some thoughts about the new album by Sweden’s Tribulation.)

Up until this point Tribulation has been a more fascinating creature on stage. The Children of the Night carries those wandering moments of majick the band summons on stage and transfigures them into a more solid form.

Often the album trades the traditional metal crunch for a more multifaceted organic tone that just happens to be played loudly. This is very much a guitar-centric album. The riffs are more than hammers that pound your head until you begin banging it, but tools to entrench the dark melodies into your hungering ears. On first listen, certain songs have the brighter epic metal tone that might cause Enslaved comparisons to abound, but the band is setting the stage for something more sinister lurking under the surface, while Enslaved sails their prog power longboats into Norse lore. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PAGANLAND — “THE VOICE OF THE CARPATHIANS”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Apr 012015
 

 

On April 27, Svarga Music will release the second album by Ukraine’s Paganland. Entitled Fatherland, the album is dedicated to Ukraine’s ongoing struggle against Russian encroachment to the east, while remaining rooted in Carpathian traditions. Today we bring you a premiere of the new album’s second track, “The Voice of the Carpathians”.

Though the band’s pride in their homeland and anger at the actions of its larger neighbor may have inspired the music, you don’t need to be politically engaged to be moved by it. “The Voice of the Carpathians” is blood-pumping, soul-stirring metal that feels genuinely heartfelt, and it’s easy to be caught up and carried away by the drama and the intensity of its fervor. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DAWN OF AZAZEL — “VASSALPLASTY”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Apr 012015
 

 

Six years after 2009’s Relentless, New Zealand’s long-running Dawn of Azazel are poised for the release of their fourth album, The Tides of Damocles, via Unique Leader Records. To give you fair warning of the death metal devastation to come, we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the new album’s third track, “Vassalplasty“.

The new album was recorded, mixed, and mastered last year at Mana Recording Studios (Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, Goatwhore) in Tampa, Florida by Brian Elliot and J.J. Hrubovcak, and they did a superb job capturing the band’s raw ferocity without obscuring the intricacy of their compositions or their technical skill as performers. And as further icing on the cake, the album cover features the typically striking artwork of one of our favorite metal artists, New Zealand’s Nick Keller.

The lyric video, produced by Scott Rudd Film makes full use Keller’s dramatic creation, which captures the album’s conceptual theme — “the ocean as a metaphor for the forces of life that constantly assail and erode the will of those who seek power”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHBLOW — “MEANS TO AN END”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Apr 012015
 

 

About 10 days ago NCS contributor KevinP introduced us, in cryptic fashion, to a thrash metal band from Salt Lake City, Utah, named Deathblow, and their new EP The Other Side of Darkness. At that point, Deathblow had released the EP’s title track, and today we bring you yet another song:  “Means To An End”.

In that earlier post KevinP hinted at the EP’s thematic subject matter, but only in a way that would be understandable by those already in the know — which did not include yours truly. I had to do some googling to figure it out. I’m not going to give the game away, so I’ll just mention the name “Seinfeld” and move on to the music — which kicks massive amounts of ass.

From the way the song begins, you wouldn’t guess that you’re about to be thrashed within an inch of your life. It’s a lead-heavy, doom-drenched dirge — but it’s a fitting introduction, because the music stays heavy even when it erupts in a volcanic spray of molten riffs and thundering percussion. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: GLOSON — “YEARWALKER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Apr 012015
 

 

Last month we had the pleasure of premiering the final track on the new album by Sweden’s Gloson. Now we bring you a premiere of the entire four-song EP: Yearwalker.

Gloson drive like a V-8 Interceptor across the wasteland, but not as fast. Speed is not the object, the destination is not the point. The point is the relentless hammering of the pistons set against the desolation of the surrounding vistas, and the hypnotic power of the melodies.

Gloson’s engine is driven by thick, vibrating sludge riffs, prominent bass lines, and spine-shaking drum beats. In each song the band establish a repeating motif in the low end and then drive it forward inexorably, relentlessly pounding their messages of gloom and woe like the chanting of a mantra. But as powerful (and powerfully hypnotic) as these repeating motifs are, they are not the whole story. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HENRY BONES (CARONTE)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 012015
 

 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks presents his interview with Henry Bones, bassist of Italy’s Caronte.)

There are a lot of bands who use the tag “occult” in speaking about their music. But the Italian dark masters in the doom stoner band Caronte are not ordinary followers of this genre. They play their songs with true and darkest passion and energy in practicing their mystic sacraments and sharing this experience with Caronte’s listeners. The second full-length album of this Italian cult was released by Van Records under the name Church of Shamanic Goetia in 2014, and once again Caronte have shown their best, revealing new heavy super-hits, as if Danzig himself were playing with them! I’ve used a chance to speak with Henry Bones (bass) about this new record.

 

Hello Henry! Caronte has released the album Church of Shamanic Goetia through Van Records in 2014. And though the band’s core remains the same, I hear some advancements in your music. How do you class the band’s evolution?

From the previous releases we are all matured a lot, both on a human level and at the level of composition. On our last album we really expressed ourselves as never before.

 

By the way, how many virgins did you put on the devil’s altar to gain such driving riffs and catchy tunes?

You should ask at our drummer Mike. Normally he is dealing with the virgins. Continue reading »

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