Islander

SHADES OF BLACK: RAAT, PAYDRETZ, STARER, GEISTERFAUST, HAND OF OMEGA, SALQIU, MANṢŪR, MORK

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jul 302024
 

Hopefully you noticed that we began the last NCS Sunday with a premiere. That song and video by Weald & Woe were well worth the time required to prepare the write-up, and it would have fit well into the usual Sunday roundup of new black and black-ish metal, but it did leave me with less time than I needed to pull together the usual Shades of Black column.

So, I’ve taken an extra two days to finish gathering together what I wanted to recommend this week. I’m very happy with these eight selections and hope you’ll also find all of them well worth your time. (Yeah, there’s a lot here — bookmark it, try a little here and a little there, in between trying to make a living, drinking yourself silly, washing your cat and your clothes, bathroom breaks, sleeping, etc.)

RAAT (India)

As steadfast visitors to our site are well aware, I’ve been enthusiastically following the progression of Raat‘s music since early days, and thus was eager to delve into the band’s fourth album, Enchantment, which was released about 10 days ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARNOPHAGE — “UNTIL THE DARKNESS KILLS THE LIGHT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 292024
 

As Transcending Obscurity Records has described, the Turkish band Carnophage do seem like some legendary mythical entity that arises every eight years, not slumbering as long as locust swarms but biding their time and making their plans for longer than most metal bands in between releases.

Their second album, 2016’s Monument, followed the first one, Deformed Future/Genetic Nightmare, by eight years, and eight years have again elapsed since then. Thus, it is time for a new Carnophage album to create havoc and wonder, and we will all have it via Transcending Obscurity on August 2nd.

The name of this new third album is Matter of a Darker Nature, and it’s the source of the song you’re about to hear: “Until the Darkness Kills the Light“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PHENOCRYST — “ASTONISHING DEVASTATION”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 292024
 

Even if you don’t know anything about the Portuguese death-dealers Phenocryst and had managed to miss out on their 2021 debut EP Explosions (briefly reviewed here at our site), you could take your cues about their tremendous debut album from its name — Cremation Pyre — and its brilliantly molten cover art, with skulls bobbing in the lava, eye sockets glowing.

Another cue comes from the name of the album track we’re premiering today in advance of the record’s August 30 release by Blood Harvest — the perfectly named “Astonishing Devastation“. Continue reading »

CANOPY: “EMPTY LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 292024
 

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of a new EP by Canopy from Georgia (U.S.), which was independently released earlier this month.)

Sludge has reached its peak, with a few bands still carrying that torch while others move toward the other sub-genres rising in popularity. Canopy is an Atlanta band that has persevered for over a decade and their new EP finds the band going above and beyond by reaching a balance of sonic intensity and eerie melancholy.

What keeps me listening to these songs is not screamed vocals or weighty accents they chug into, but how the chords ring out with emotion. Just being heavy for the sake of being heavy is an easy task, but pouring your pain and depression into your instruments and tangibly conveying them is more nuanced. The band has a penchant for post-rock phrasings balancing out their monolithic crunch. This allows for plenty of breathing room for the songs to flourish. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WEALD & WOE — “WINGS OF HATE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 282024
 

Last summer we had the great pleasure of premiering For the Good of the Realm, the second album by the Idaho-based black metal band Weald & Woe. Fiadh Productions, which released the album, summed it up as combining “the majesty of the medieval era with the ferocity of classic black metal inspired by Obsequiae, Véhémence, Darkenhöld, Immortal, Ensiferum and many others.” We provided our own preview, which included these words:

[T[he album as a whole, when experienced front to back, does seem like a mythic narrative. It includes episodes of dire conflict, driven by punishing drum-blasts, vicious thrashing riffage, and scorching, throat-ripping vocals, but the music also elevates into the magnificence of waving banners and steel shining in the sun, with dramatic synths unfurling above the host and solos that spiral upward and flicker like druid sorcery….

To be sure, the songs also create grim and grievous moods, and moments that might spawn visions of terrible mayhem or corpses strewn across ruined fields. But the overused yet still apt word “epic” keeps coming to mind, because there’s nothing remotely mundane about this music. It’s an elaborate and thoroughly ravishing pageant unfolding on a vast scale, in a time long lost to the ages.

Today we have an excellent occasion to revisit Weald & Woe as we premiere an exhilarating video for an equally exhilarating song named “Wings of Hate“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, MALAMORTE, GLACIAL TOMB, MORCAINT

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Jul 272024
 


photo by Weiyi Cai/The New York Times

Yesterday was a day of firsts. Among other things, it was the first time a heavy metal band performed in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. And the first time memes took off about a U.S. vice-president candidate fucking a couch. Less exciting, I’m also pretty sure it was the first day since I started this blog 14 1/2 years ago that we failed to post anything on a weekday.

I made a whirlwind driving trip with a friend to Vancouver, heading north on Thursday and coming back to Seattle yesterday. In between, we attended a blowout celebration related to our day jobs that left me not enough clear-headed time yesterday morning to do anything before beginning the trip home, even though I had a couple of interviews ready to publish.

I’m getting a late start today, and that whirlwind trip didn’t give me any time for listening to the kind of music we focus on here (my road-trip companion isn’t into that kind of music, and anyway, I didn’t bring with me my list of new stuff I wanted to check out). So I did some whirlwind catching up today, and here’s what I hurriedly picked to share with you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 1)

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Jul 252024
 

Today we embark on an unusual collaboration with the German band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records, the label that will release their new album Ontology of Nought on September 27th. What we’re doing is hosting the first of three music premieres for the album — and all three are for the same song.

That song can stand the attention. On its own it’s the length of a typical EP — roughly 18 minutes in duration. And it’s not just the song that’s long, so is its title: “The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore“.

Each of the three premieres features a part of this song, unfolding in the same sequence as the music unfolds. As it happens, “The barren earth…” is the final track on Ontology of Nought. The preceding four are also long, and so are their solemn titles: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EARTH SHIP — “BEREFT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 252024
 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, one of our writers summed up the music of Earth Ship as “raw, no-nonsense sludge metal that would rather kick your teeth in than wow you with any fancy tricks, and because of that, it’s excellent.“

Back then, the subject was this German band’s second album, Iron Chest. Since then they’ve released three more albums and a pair of EPs, and now their sixth full-length overall is on the horizon. Entitled Soar, it’s set for release on August 9th by The Lasting Dose Records.

What we have for you today is a video for a recently released single from the new album, and its name is “Bereft“. Continue reading »

GORGONCHRIST – AND JUSTICE FOR BALLS

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 252024
 

(Our Denver-based writer Gonzo prepared the following review. And with that, we’ll get out of the way and let him explain what’s going on here.)

Before I get too far into this, a few answers to questions you likely already have:

No, the UK’s Gorgonchrist is not a goregrind or pornogrind band.

No, this album isn’t a Metallica cover album.

Yes, those are disembodied human testicles on the cover art.

I think that should cover it for now. But brace yourselves, because this review is probably gonna get fucking weird.

Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INCESSANT — “ENTROPIC AEONS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 242024
 

I’ve already stomped my feet and banged on the table in a loud display of enthusiasm about “Of Disillusion and Doctrine,” the first single off Incessant‘s new EP Entropic Aeons:

Prepare for a roiling and ravishing typhoon of danger and destruction, replete with harrowing howls and unchained sky-high wails, but the mix also includes rocking grooves, feral chords, and glittering melodies with an exotic Eastern air. It’s a hell of a thrill-ride….

Less loudly, I hoped the rest of the EP by this Dublin blackened-death trio would be as good as that song. I’m here to tell you that it is, and to give you an immediate chance to appreciate it for yourselves as we premiere a full stream in advance of the EP’s imminent release by Repose Records. Continue reading »

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