Islander

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH AND PAOLO GIRARDI, SARPANITUM, KJELD, LO!

 Listmania, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Feb 092015
 

 

I’m so glad to be back home after three weeks in the bush, by which I mean Delaware. Finally, to sleep in my own bed, in which I woke up once an hour beginning about 2 a.m. and whined, because the time zone change is fuckin’ with me.  In other words, I slept like a baby. But it really is good to be home — although it appears I’m going to have to do this extended travel thing all over again in three weeks, which blows. But I’ll bitch about that more thoroughly when the time comes. For now, let’s discuss happier subjects….

BELL WITCH AND PAOLO GIRARDI

This first item of news really cheered me right up — the marriage between one of my own most fervently anticipated releases of 2015 and one of my favorite artists. As you can see above (and click that image to enlarge it), maestro Paolo Girardi has created the painted cover art for the new album by Seattle’s Bell Witch — Four Phantoms. It is beautiful, and I have no doubt that Four Phantoms will also be beautiful, in the way that the pale, cold skin of a bewitching corpse is beautiful. Continue reading »

INTO INFERNUS: “THE END OF EDEN”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 092015
 

(DGR reviews the second album by Into Infernus from Tampa, Florida.)

Sometimes you come across a band via Facebook surfing after bouncing between various band pages to the point where you don’t remember where you started. Into Infernus is one of those cases for me; I’m not sure who directly pointed me to them, but I found myself enjoying enough to share — even three months out from their album’s release.

Heavy metal as a genre is one that has embraced the idea of a concept album countless times over the years. Any other genre of music can do that, and many have plenty of examples, but it feels like heavy metal has had a lot of them just due to the theatrical aspect of the music. It often feels like bands sit around with regular concept discs and go, “Alright, now what if it was way heavier”, or, as some would argue, it feels like these groups are using the cathartic aspect of heavy metal, with all its screaming, fast-tempo songs, and heavy grooves, to really tell some dark stories. Continue reading »

BARISHI: “ENDLESS HOWL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new EP by Barishi from Vermont.)

It was April of last year when I first stumbled upon the self-titled debut by these Prog-Metal ne’er do wells, and by that point their debut was already over four months old. If you’ve read my review (here), you’ll know that I was very much entranced by their unapologetic weirdness and aggressively schizophonic sound, drawing comparisons, at various points, to bands like Intronaut and Poison The Well (amongst others), in an attempt to accurately characterise and situate their cunningly kaleidoscopic Prog-Metal/Hardcore fusion.

So imagine my surprise upon discovering that the band have just released a follow-up in the form of the Endless Howl EP, along with my pleasure when I realised that this time at least, I wouldn’t be so far behind the curve in reviewing it! Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: 6:33 — “DEADLY SCENES”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

(Austin Weber reviews the latest album from the French band 6:33.)

Love them or hate them, Mr. Bungle has had an undeniably large impact on the music world. They re-defined progressive music in the modern era by conjoining various kinds of metal with an ever-changing array of other music styles. After their break-up, the members went on to other bizarre and out-there acts such as Fantomas, Tomahawk, and Secret Chiefs 3. It’s from within this branch of oddball musical eccentricity that the French band 6:33 draw liberally on their newly released record, Deadly Scenes.

But upon closer inspection and several listens, it becomes evident that they’ve made some tweaks to this type of Dog Fashion Disco sound, and while sometimes it sounds too close to Mr. Bungle, Deadly Scenes is often brilliantly original. And in addition to playing in the vein of Mr. Bungle, their is a recurring, almost-Devin–Townsend vibe going on that really works in their favor. Continue reading »

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME DOOM WITH YOUR DOOM?

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

(About a week ago, while I was being roasted alive in day-job hell, Grant Skelton e-mailed me about some doom discoveries. I’ve decided to just paste his e-mail comments into this post along with the music. I hope it’s okay with him that I’m doing this. I subscribe to the view that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.)

CRYPT SERMON

In keeping with your interest in Crypt Sermon, I found that they are streaming another new song called “Will of The Ancient Call” over at NPR. Listen here.

If you’ve heard “Heavy Riders” or the title track, then you know this is traditional doom. I suppose detractors might call it “re-doom,” but I think it’s phenomenal. I’d love to see these guys tour with Below. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: THE WHOREHOUSE MASSACRE — “ALTAR OF THE GOAT SKULL / VI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 082015
 

 

The Whorehouse Massacre have been churning out catastrophic heaviness from the bowels of British Columbia since roughly 2005, with almost a dozen short releases, one full-length album, and a live recording to their credit. On February 20, Transcending Obscurity will release a compilation of the band’s most recent EPs under the title Altar of the Goat Skull / VI. It comes as a precursor to the band’s next album, which will be released by the same label, and at the end of this post you’ll have the opportunity to hear it in full.

But if you’re not already familiar with this band’s brand of sludge, I should probably warn you: Listening to this album all the way through risks severe spinal compression, concussion, bleeding in the brain, black eyes, and gradual suffocation. It’s a low, slow death inflicted by pulverizing riffs and gut-punching percussion. About the only light that escapes this maw of darkness are the sparks that come from the crash of cymbals. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PORTA NIGRA — “FEMME FATALE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

 

Thanks to a Facebook post from KevinP, I learned that on Friday Debemur Morti Productions released a new digital single by the German duo known as Porta Nigra. It consists of a new song named “Femme Fatale”, which will appear on the band’s second album Kaiserschnitt (due for release later this year), and a remix of “Megalomaniac” from the band’s excellent debut album Fin de Siècle. The remix was prepared by T.T. of the Austrian black metal band Abigor.

There are some truly hair-raising screams and some jagged growls in “Femme Fatale”, but it’s also an exception to our rule, as you’ll discover. You will also discover a dark, decadent, mid-paced rocker that’s powerfully infectious — the song’s central riff is licensed to kill, and there’s a cool, squalling solo in it, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENSLAVED, DEMONICAL, DOWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 072015
 

I’m finally finished with the project for my fucking day job that has kept me on the U.S. east coast for the last three weeks. Tomorrow I return to Seattle and some semblance of normalcy, both for life in general and for NCS.

I still feel like I’ve been put through a goddamn meat-grinder, and it will take some time to get over being exhausted (and to finish posting what other writers sent me over the last week), but I did spend an hour this morning trying to figure out what I missed in the way of new music over the last couple of days. As usual, given the persistent flood of new metal that’s been coming our way since this new year began, I found A LOT. I’m going to include three new videos in this post. I hope I can get another round-up done tomorrow before heading to the airport.

ENSLAVED

Enslaved’s new album In Times is one of my “most anticipated” 2015 releases, so it’s been frustrating that I haven’t had time to listen to it since our advance copy arrived about a week ago. But this morning I did listen to the first advance track, “Thurisaz Dreaming”, which began streaming as a lyric video at Noisey yesterday along with an excellent interview of Ivar Bjørnson. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OBLIVIONIZED — “CRY YOURSELF TO ASH”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Feb 062015
 

 

The head-wrecking, head-twisting grind trio from London known as Oblivionized are nearing the release of their debut album Life Is A Struggle, Give Up, and today we’ve got the premiere of an official music video for one of the new songs — “Cry Yourself To Ash”.

We’ve been following Oblivionized pretty closely, reviewing their debut EP (here) back in 2011, their second EP (here) in 2012, and one of their contributions to a split with Plague Widow in 2013 (here). They’ve already amply proven their ability to vent fury with megawatt power and technical intricacy, but this track is a good example of the band’s ability to put some interesting twists and turns into their ferocity. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: THE VOMITING DINOSAURS — “WORSHIP THE PORCELAIN GOD”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 062015
 

 

When I heard the first two tracks from the new album by Virginia trio The Vomiting Dinosaurs, I wrote that they were a blast to hear — an open-throttle, ass-kicking combo of grind, thrash, and death metal bent on ramming your head right through the wall and into the furnace next door. Now that I’ve heard the whole album, I realize that I probably under-stated the album’s impact because I failed to include some kind of reference to carpet-bombing with napalm.

The band obviously have a sense of humor, which carries over from their name and the album’s title to the individual track titles as well, but the music is punishing — in a very good way. It romps between made-to-mosh, punk-inspired thrashing,  massively headbangable grooves, and flame-throwing grind eruptions. Continue reading »

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