Islander

LISTMANIA 2024: AN INVITATION FOR READERS’ LISTS OF THE YEAR’S BEST METAL

 LISTMANIA 2024  75 Responses »
Dec 022024
 

As of yesterday we are entering the final month of 2024, and that begins the final countdown to the end of the year. In the world of metal, this month we’ll also start seeing more and more lists of the year’s best releases.

Back in 2009, when this site was just a few days old, I wrote a post about year-end lists and why people bother with them. The best reason still seems to be this: Reading someone else’s list of the albums they thought were best is a good way to discover music you missed and might like.

We don’t do an “official” NCS year-end list of best albums. However, we publish the picks of each of our regular staff writers as well as a group of invited guests, in addition to lists that we re-post from a few print zines and “big platform” online sites.

Every year we also invite our readers to share their lists and we’re doing that again right here, right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARTE-X — “Երազանք֊Նպատակ”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks (the ones we use to beat you with), but not too far off: there still seem to be devils roaming these dark woods where we’re going.

What we have for you now is a lyric video for a song from a debut album named Victory by the Armenian band ARTE-X. It will be released on December 12th by a new Armenian label, Holy Mountains Music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VEENLIJK — “GALGENBERG”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re now in that “in between” time of year, a time of holidays and year-end lists, a time for “turning the page” and hoping that the mere movement of the calendar from one year to the next will somehow improve life, a time of reflection and a time of looking ahead that’s unlike any other month of the year.

As such, if we’re honest, it’s the worst time of year to try to catch the attention of listeners about new music. But people should still try to be attentive, because otherwise they’ll miss some gems — such as the startling gem of a song we’re premiering below. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2024: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2024”

 LISTMANIA 2024  9 Responses »
Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

No we’re into December and the year-end lists will start rolling like an avalanche. For example, later today we’ll post our annual invitation to readers to share their YE lists with all of us. But for now we’ve got another installment in a different segment of the NCS YE extravaganza.

As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA orgy we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites which appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words, the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that includes “most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters, which has been independently owned and operated since its inception, claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.

As in past years, PopMatters recently published a list of “The 20 Best Metal Albums” of the year, again under the by-line of Spyros Stasis and Antonio Poscic. You’ll find that list below. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ALIÉNATION, AM I IN TROUBLE?, ANTUMBRA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 012024
 

As you can see, this week’s SOB is very short. I had a late night out with my spouse and friends and a really long hibernation afterward. Also, not long from now, I’ll be heading out again to watch the broadcast of an inconsistent Seattle football team trying to beat a pretty bad New York football team. They’re playing in the East so it’s an early start here in the West.

The upshot is, I don’t have much time to write about music this morning. I thought about not trying to do anything with this column, but man, for 15 years and counting I’ve really hated to leave a void on any day at NCS.

With time short and too many things to choose from, I made the arguably bizarre decision to focus on the three black (or “blackened”) metal bands who e-mailed us most recently about their music – none of whom I knew anything about before listening. Purely by coincidence, all their names begin with “A“. Purely by coincidence, they all turned out to be good, in very different ways. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BALEFIRE, BENEATH MOONLIGHT, DREAMING DEATH, FRACTURED INSANITY, KONKHRA, OCELOT OMELET, PLAGUEFEVER, PRIMEVAL MASS, PYRE

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 302024
 

I have to remind myself that less than half of our visitors had a Thanksgiving Day holiday last Thursday. I checked, and only the U.S. and Brazil celebrated the holiday that day. Here in the U.S. it launched a 4-day holiday, because most people who are relieved from working on Thanksgiving get Friday off too, so it’s a time when lots of people check out of their routines.

It’s not an entirely lazy holiday for a lot of people because the Thanksgiving Day tradition usually involves getting together with family and friends and cooking, and the day after is the ridiculous shopping splurge of Black Friday. But for me, the holiday does make me feel lazy.

I didn’t completely check out of all my routines. We still had lots of NCS posts on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, because I’ve never believed in honoring holidays at our site, and for our writers outside the U.S. those were just two more nothing-special days.

But I admit I did succumb to long bouts of laziness and therefore didn’t listen to much new music the last couple of days. I thought seriously about taking today off from NCS, but as you can see, the old compulsion wouldn’t surrender. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TERROR — “PÉOS THANÁTOU”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 292024
 

(written by Islander)

It’s always a challenge to write about the releases of Sentient Ruin Laboratories, not because the music leaves us feeling meh (far from it!), but because it’s tough to match, much less exceed, the way Sentient Ruin describes its records. Today’s example is a forthcoming debut EP named Hymni Belli Occultum, depicted by the label in these words:

Brazilian one-man bestial black/death commando Terror emerges with its first act of ritual terrorism, an eighteen minute EP of gruesome extreme metal warfare weaponized from the cult of Archgoat, Holocausto, Tormentador, Sarcofago, Bestial Warlust and Conqueror.

Across these five edicts of third world barbarism the totality of our new world dystopia is glorified and instigated down to its most antihuman and savage traits, with the cult of all crime syndicates, gangs, slums, warfare, violence, militarism and corruption thrown into an abyss of occultism and esotericism to embody the true lineaments of the modern world antichrist.

See what I mean? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORMENTOR TYRANT — “CAPITAL OF PAIN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 292024
 

(written by Islander)

One thing leads to another, and when the one thing involves alcohol consumption it might lead to a disaster or to a triumph, you never know.

This particular tale concerns a Finnish trio who took the name Tormentor Tyrant. Two of them — S. (guitar/vocals) and J. (drums) — had a history of playing together in such bands as Cataleptic and Solothus. To complete their lineup they brought in M. as bassist and vocalist, whose resume includes Corpsessed, Pestilent Hex, Tyranny, and Profetus.

The band was born in late 2020, but we’re told that the seeds of the idea can be traced back a few years earlier “to some obscure drunken nights when the trio had the innocent idea of ‘how cool would it be to just jam some early Deicide songs together.'” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ACCU§ER

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 292024
 

(About one week ago MDD Records released a new album by the German thrash band Accu§er (or Accuser), whose roots extend back into the ’80s. In advance of the release Comrade Aleks reached out and conducted the following very good interview with the band’s founding (and still) vocalist and guitarist Frank Thoms.)

Teutonic thrash was a blast back in the ’80s; this entire movement inspired many metal bands around the world in a lot of ways. And this movement still rocks despite the passing of time, space, and whatever.

Accu§er joined the German thrash wave in 1986, and you see – they’re more than alive! The band’s 13th album Rebirthless came out on the 21st of November, and you’ll easily notice that this band has power in its veins and aggression in its fists.

So feel the wrath of Teutonic Titans! (and read the interview with one of the band’s founders, Frank Thoms) Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DYING GROTESQUE — “CELESTIAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 282024
 

(written by Islander)

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., where our site is headquartered. Among other things to be thankful for, those of us who live here are grateful that we don’t inhabit a country torn by war. The people who live in Ukraine aren’t so fortunate, and they’re on our minds today as we present the premiere stream of a new album by the Ukrainian death metal band Dying Grotesque.

This band was first created in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine in 2018 as a one-man project by Vadym ‘Silvan’ Tsymbaliuk. With the addition of new members in 2020, the project became a band, they released their debut album Sunflower Tide, and they began performing live at a number of gigs and festivals throughout Ukraine.

The name of their new album is Celestial, and it will be released tomorrow by Archivist Records. Its themes are described as follows:

The story behind Celestial depicts the violent absurdity and the grim futility of human existence, which appears to be completely insignificant comparing to the endless darkness of cosmic void and all the undiscovered mysteries it conceals.

Continue reading »

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