Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OCTOPLOID

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Sep 202024
 


L-R: Mikko Pietinen (drums, percussion), Olli-Pekka Laine (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), Peter Salonen (guitars) – photo by Päivi Leino

(Below you will find Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Finnish musician Olli-Pekka Laine, with a focus on his band Octoploid‘s July 2024 debut album Beyond the Aeons, but touching upon other topics as well, incuding Amorphis and Barren Earth.)

Olli-Pekka Laine is a multitalented musician. He’s well-known, as he composed half of Amorphis’ legendary albums Tales from The Thousand Lakes (1994) and Elegy (1996), and later he practiced his progressive vision in the “dream-team” band Barren Earth.

The last one tended toward progressive and melodic death-doom metal too, a kind of direction which Olli always choses instinctively. But since Barren Earth is inactive, and Olli writes not too much for Amorphis, he naturally collected a good number of interesting ideas which ended in this solo-project, Octoploid.

Well, we say “solo”, but Octoploid’s lineup includes Olli’s buddy from Mannhai, Mikko Pietinen (drums), Kim Rantala (keyboards), who did an enormous input in Elegy, and young talent Peter Salonen (guitars).

And let’s not forget those honorable guests who took part in the recording of Octoploid’s debut Beyond the Aeons, released by Reigning Phoenix Music in July 2024. A few of Amorphis’ men can be found on this album, as well as Hamferð’s frontman Jón Aldará, Mikko Kotamäki from Swallow the Sun, Mannhai’s Ilkka Laaksomaa, and more. So if you’re ready for “70’s death metal”, let’s not waste any time before getting into this interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK MOLD — “IN THE DIRT OF OBLIVION”

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Sep 192024
 

(written by Islander)

“Having named themselves for a particularly nasty-looking, fast-spreading, difficult-to-remove, and potentially dangerous fungus, Portugal’s Black Mold churn out a nihilistic amalgam of black metal and punk that makes their disgusting namesake seem mild.”

That’s how we began our premiere of a song in the early days of this month from Black Mold‘s new album In the Dirt of Oblivion, which will be released by Helldprod Records on September 20th.

The label provided their own preview of what the album holds in store for unsuspecting listeners: “[T]hese true spirits of the underground only have one thing in their minds. To drain the soul out of your body and fill it with darkness, hate and despair”.

We have some more words of warning, or invitation, depending on your predilections, but the main thing we have today is a full stream of all the album’s dirt and oblivion. It proves to be a lot more interesting and varied than you might be expecting from what you’ve read so far Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BONJOUR TRISTESSE — “LIGHTBEARER”

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Sep 192024
 

(written by Islander)

All ardent and avid followers of music like to go exploring, in search of artists they’ve never heard before who might ring some previously un-rung chimes in their head. Of course, such listeners are also drawn to whatever new is propagated by artists whose previous releases have already primed their followers to expect some kind of joyful reaction, even when the music might sound wretched to un-schooled ears.

And then there are artists who simultaneously trigger both reactions, where past experience means you’re going to dive into whatever they decide to release, and where you also expect to find something unexpected.

In my case, Bonjour Tristesse is one of those bands. As you may know, it’s the solo work of Nathanael, who is also in Heretoir, and has been in King Apathy, Thränenkind, Agrypnie, and ClearXcut. Even the band’s name (“hello sadness”) signifies a focus on existential despair, and the music has historically delved quite powerfully into depressive moods, but it hasn’t been frozen in form. Surprises still lie in wait, and they do again in The World Without Us, the forthcoming fourth album of Bonjour Tristesse, which will be released on October 18th by Supreme Chaos Records. Continue reading »

NEBULOUS OBFUSCATION OF ESSENCE (RELEASES THAT STRAIN CATEGORIZING)

 Album Reviews, Off Topic  No Responses »
Sep 192024
 

(We will let our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri explain in his own words what he did in selecting the records reviewed in the following article, and why they are here now.)

What follows are other obscurities and arcane esoteric mysteries of the abstruse. If a more redundant sentence exists as title, I’m obviously ignorant of its existence. It’s almost October, I know, but my brain is still stuck in the heretofore, so the next few writeups will contain releases that happened at the end of the year of the rabbit (cat in Vietnam) and the beginning of the year of the dragon (earlier in 2024).

In signs of the times, it is easy to become but a whisper of grace wrapped in a facade of putrescence in the absolute cacophony and unceasing mass of new sounds. In this era of mass consumption, it is the underground at times where some of the truest art hides. Especially of the underground metal kind if you are so inclined. Only one of the releases to follow can be described as metal, though they all dabble in extremities in different senses. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THORIUM — “THE BASTARD”

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Sep 182024
 

(We welcome French metal writer Zoltar to NCS, and he makes his debut here with the following introductory review of a new album by Thorium which we’re premiering in full today in advance of its September 20 release by Emanzipation Productions.)

Thorium is an interesting beast. Not exactly just another side-project nor a full band per se, they do rear their ugly head whenever their leader and main man Michael Andersen of Withering Surface fame feels like it. And as it turns out, looks like lately, the man does really feel like playing good old and no frills death metal. And it shows.

In a way, The Bastard isn’t just some kind of reaction against the few years and painful gestation of the last Withering Surface – although that did play a small role, but I digress. It’s first and foremost the 49-year-old Andersen‘s love letter to the classic sound he was raised upon back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when a less confident and juvenile, yet already passionate, version of himself started dabbling in the underground through tape-trading and his own Emanzipation ‘zine.

Early reports of an album meant to originally be titled Sverige (that’s ‘Swedish’ for you in, erm, Swedish actually) proved at first to be a tad misleading as suggesting a sound firmly stuck in the early ’90s Stockholm style of Entombed, Grave, and so on. Then again, whereas there’s barely any fuzzy outpouring of the famed HM-2 pedal to be found here nor any D-beat parts and though it was ultimately retitled, it still somehow makes sense. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASGRAUW — “APADA”

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Sep 182024
 

(written by Islander)

At the end of October, just in time for Samhain night, the Dutch black metal band Asgrauw will return with their sixth album, Oorsprong. It is unusual in more ways than one, including its conceptual storyline — and it is indeed an epic story that the album tells. Drawing upon Mesopotamian mythology, it is described this way by the labels that will release it:

“The album’s narrative is inspired by the Annunaki, the ancient deities said to have come from the sky. Through a blend of storytelling and music, Asgrauw weaves a tale that highlights the legacy of these celestial beings and offers a perspective on the modern age as seen through their eyes, culminating in a dramatic portrayal of humanity’s fate.

“Asgrauw takes you through the stories of Anu and Alalu, Enki and Enlil, but also those of Gilgamesh and Nergal for example. How centuries of struggle for land and gold drove exotic species to turn primates into a slave civilization and by portraying themselves as divine beings, could keep them under control.”

Each song on the album is a chapter in this narrative about gods and men, and the rise and fall of empires, and we’re premiering a video for one of those musical chapters today — a song called “Apada“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AVERNUS — “GRIEVANCES”

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Sep 182024
 

(written by Islander)

The first new album from Chicago’s Avernus in 27 years, which will be released at the end of this week by M-Theory Audio, is something like the closing of a circle (and the opening of other circles). Having been formed in 1992, and with a couple of early demos under their belts, they caught the attention of Marco Barbieri at Metal Blade, who became primarily responsible for including them on that label’s Metal Massacre 12 compilation, and would have signed them to something bigger on Metal Blade if Barbieri had had his way.

Avernus did go on to release their debut album …Of the Fallen on M.I.A. Records in 1997, and they followed that with a few more demos plus an EP, but the band fell away, releasing no new music after 2003… until this year.

Barbieri is now the president of M-Theory Audio, and thus the label’s release of a new Avernus album is a reunion that’s been decades in the making. Avernus has itself experienced a reunion, with a current lineup on the new album that includes three of the band’s original founding members (Rick Yifrach, Erik Kikke, and Rick McCoy), plus James Genenz (also a member of Jungle Rot), who joined the band in 1997.

Reunions of any kind are generally occasions for reminiscing and nostalgia, but this reunion has led to something new, an album of new music made by people who necessarily are very different people than the ones who made …Of the Fallen and all those demos in the ’90s — different because time re-makes everyone, in ways small or large.

What this particular reunion has accomplished, you will discover today, because we’re now premiering a full stream of the new Avernus album. Its name is Grievances. and it is stunning. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RECKLESS MANSLAUGHTER — “BEFOULED COMMANDMENTS”

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Sep 172024
 


hideous cover art by Lucas Korte

(written by Islander)

Reckless manslaughter is a crime that would send you to prison for a very long time, unless you’re listening to the music of Reckless Manslaughter, which isn’t a punishable offense in most jurisdictions — at least not yet.

It must be said, however, that the forthcoming fourth album of this German death metal band, aptly entitled Sinking Into Filth, often sounds like intentional homicide (and the mutilation of the victims) rather than the recklessly negligent taking of life — as well as a descent into horrid depths where souls stripped of flesh now suffer.

You’ll see what we’re getting at when you listen to the song we’re premiering today in advance of the new album’s joint release by Memento Mori and Fucking Kill Records. The name of this evil song is “Befouled Commandments“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SØRGELIG — “INEXORABLE GREY”

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Sep 172024
 

(Written by Islander)

“In the lightless darkness of the world below, where the cold, grey waves of the river of forgetting lap against the shores of unceasing, stygian night, there the nameless and the soulless, tragic and deplorable, gather to exchange tales of bleak eternity and whisper secrets born of blood and promises. With sickle and stone they climb the thousand steps to moonlit night, there to gather the dreams of the sleeping, to reap the screams of the foolish and harvest the spirits of those who have turned the world of legends into a world of decay and ruination.”

With those chilling words Tragedy Productions sets the stage for its release of a new album named Φθορά by the Greek black metal band Sørgelig, which the label further describes as “a tapestry of tragic tales and blackest magic”, “a glorious exposition of blasting ferocity and freezing wickedness”, but also as including “haunting sounds that invoke unsettling imaginings of broken ghosts in empty ballrooms, spinning forever in dusty, tear-stained waltzes”.

To help set the stage further, today we bring you the second song from Φθορά to be revealed so far. Its name is “Inexorable Grey“, and Sørgelig introduce it with these words: Continue reading »

WANDERING INTO BLACKENED REACHES — 4 CRITICAL BLACK METAL ALBUMS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

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Sep 172024
 

(In this article our Vietnam-based contributor Vizzah Harri brings us four reviews of four unusual albums from blackened realms — albums created by Skeletal Augury, Cemetery Trip, Conifère, and Xw​î​n.)

The following 4 albums have been on my to-do list for months. You won’t find a slew of reviews on their Bandcamp pages sharing the praises from bigger media outlets. I couldn’t even find many reviews of the albums themselves out there. And partially this could be because of it being one hell of a year for black metal, but isn’t that just every year?

If you like black metal, you’re bound to love at least one of what I’m sharing with you today. The only order here is chronological because I don’t have a favorite amongst them and their styles diverge violently. There were more albums which I will hopefully be able to get to soon, but 4 is a nice number for its tetraphobic propensities in East Asia. The number 4, you see, signifies shaking hands with Elvis (I only learned that slang phrase for death today). Continue reading »

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