Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROCELL — “OF FROST, OF FLAME, OF FLESH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 262024
 

The formidable Danish band Crocell released their debut album The God We Drowned in 2008, and then followed that with new full-lengths every two or three years, culminating in their fifth album Relics in 2018. Keeping to that pattern, we might have expected a new album in 2021, but that year they instead brought us a pair of four-song EPs on the same day (reviewed here).

Now, however, three years later, we do have a new Crocell album, and it will be coming out on June 28th via the band’s new label Emanzipation Productions. Its name is Of Frost, Of Flame, Of Flesh, and today we’re presenting it in its entirety. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: METALLUS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 262024
 

(Below you will find Comrade Aleks‘ interview with the very enthusiastic Doom Lord from the Polish doom band Metallus, who have a double-album to their name so far and a lot more to come.)

Funeral of the Sun is the first and very ambitious work of the relatively young Polish doom team Metallus formed by Doom Lord (bass, vocals), War Drum (drums!), and Hell’s Mage (guitars, vocals) in around 2018. The guys decided to start with a double album, the total duration of which exceeds an hour and a half. It contains quite a lot of traditional doom metal with very epic influences.

For example, the first track is the genre’s textbook “Witches Hammer”, which incorporates all the necessary elements of traditional doom. There are painful leisurely riffs, a short mid-tempo break that dispels drowsiness, heroic clean vocals, and lyrics that exaggerate clichés about a witch hunt. On the other hand, the massive “Great Hall of the Battle Hammer Cult” is a bit more entertaining, where you can feel the hammer-hearted Bathory’s influences set on a Sabbathian classic sound. This eleven-minute epic has a decent array of hooks, but you’ll need patience to get through each one. There’s a play on the atmosphere of the Lovecraftian issue “Shadow Over Innsmouth”, and that’s my favorite track in the album… Guess why!

So what do we have here? We have here the interview with Doom Lord, so let’s get down to business finally. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOXIS — “VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 252024
 

Almost four years ago we premiered Expanse of Hellish Black Mire, the debut EP of a Cleveland-based death metal band named Noxis. In an accompanying review, I attempted to sum up the music by saying that it was “thuggish in its bone-fracturing, organ-rupturing belligerence and disgustingly gruesome in its atmosphere, and yet also mind-boggling in its mad contortions and technical extravagances. Their music is thus thoroughly putrid and punishing but also a big adrenaline kick”.

Having experienced that EP, I wasn’t completely shocked by what Noxis have accomplished on their debut album Violence Inherent In The System, which we’re premiering today in advance of its June 28 release, but it still leaps beyond what Noxis achieved on that very impressive EP. And for those of you who might be encountering Noxis for the first time, you’re in for an enormous surprise, a surprise of genuinely explosive proportions. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TITANIA

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 252024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Tania Duarte, vocalist of the Peruvian heavy doom band Titania, whose debut album The Maverick was released on CD this past spring.)

Most die-hard doom metal fans will name two bands if we ask about Peruvian doom metal: Reino Ermitaño and Kranium. The first one was a traditional doom band with a lady on vocals, and the second one is a band with a huge history and only two albums in their discography.

Kranium (founded in 1986) released their second album Uma Tullu in 2020, so it’s okay, we know that they’re more or less active. But Reino Ermitaño… they haven’t released anything since 2014, and it seems that the band is no more.

Honestly, I almost missed it, but two years ago both bands gave birth to Titania, a traditional doom band that includes members from Kranium and Reino Ermitaño: Mito Espíritu (bass), Eloy Arturo (guitars), Tania Duarte (vocals), and Manuel Lozano (drums). Their first album The Maverick was released in late 2022, but the CD-edition was released only in 2023.

Tania Duarte gladly accepted our request and answered about the band’s current occupation. Continue reading »

KÓLGA: “BLACK TIDES”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 242024
 

(Vizzah Harri wrote what follows below. It’s best that we not spoil it by attempting any further introductory words.)

Nearly 3 months have passed since Black Tides has been released. So many things in life are timebound; news, they say, needs to be relevant, timely and fresh. Nothing refreshes more than a jump into the ocean, or smelling the salty morning breeze, I mean, 3am is morning, right?

If you don’t mind, we’re going to take a trip back in time, because that’s exactly what Kólga’s sound implores us to do. And like the evening news after an emergency, it’s best to wait until the stylus revolts unto the dead wax. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PNEUMA HAGION — “HARBINGER OF DISSOLUTION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 242024
 

The Texas duo Pneuma Hagion made an inspired choice of artwork for the cover of their forthcoming third album, From Beyond: It is William Blake’s 1795 drawing The House of Death, which was inspired by lines from Book XI of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which the archangel Michael reveals to Adam in terrible detail the doomed fate of humans — a description of a “Lazar-house” filled with afflicted people suffering in their agonies, “and over them triumphant Death his Dart Shook….”

Pneuma Hagion‘s new album, which is set for release on August 30th by Everlasting Spew Records, conjures terrible images of its own:

“From Beyond explores Lovecraftian ideas of horrifying extra-dimensional entities forcing their way into the causal universe by infecting the minds of humans.

“Each song is from the perspective of some malevolent entity of unfathomable nature trying to influence the world of mortals and trying to infiltrate our universe in order to cause its ultimate destruction.” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NEUROPOLIS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jun 212024
 

(Here we have Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with vocalist Vladimir Alekseev from the Russian doom/death metal band Neuropolis, who released their debut album in February of this year.)

The St. Petersburg death-doom band Neuropolis was founded in 2016 and had two very solid EPs in their discography – Temptation / Искушение (2019) and Golem (2020) plus a reputation honestly earned through live performances and, in general, thanks to an active position on social networks. But what we have now is this: The Neuropolis lineup has been radically updated after 2021, with vocalist Vladimir Alekseev as the only member who has remained in the group after those previous sessions.

However, these changes seem to have given Neuropolis an impetus in a new direction, and, having released the full-length album All Nothing / Всё ничего, these St. Petersburg doom-heads have not given up weekly rehearsals and are already recording new material. So doom metal is not only about inertia. And an interview with Vladimir will serve as proof of this assumption. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REPLACIRE — “THE CENTER THAT CANNOT HOLD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jun 202024
 

Behind every album there is a tale — of course there is. Sometimes the tales are mundane, but in the case of Replacire‘s new album The Center That Cannot Hold, the story brings to mind the  travails of Sisyphus, that benighted figure from Greek myth whom the gods punished for cheating death by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top.

In legend, the fate of Sisyphus is one of eternal toil. but fortunately Replacire did eventually manage to reach the summit and stay there, not only completing this new album but also achieving a new summit in their music.

We’ll give you an excerpt of information about why the completion of the album turned out to be such a struggle, but our main mission today is to present a full stream of the album on the eve before its June 21 release by Season of Mist. Continue reading »

ASCENSION FESTIVAL ICELAND: AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN LOCKHART

 Interviews, Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 202024
 

(Our editor-in-chief Islander is responsible for conducting the following interview, and the introduction that precedes it.)

The fourth edition of the Ascension metal festival will take place in Iceland on July 3rd – 6th, 2024, with a four-day lineup consisting of 30 bands. As the festival accurately says, it “prides itself on offering an eclectic, esoteric and wholly unique experience,” placing “a strong emphasis on Icelandic and international Black metal, along with alternative and experimental acts.”

The festival is produced by Studio Emissary, an Icelandic recording, mixing, and mastering studio that has played a pivotal role in the birth and expansion of Icelandic black metal (but has also worked with the likes of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Björk’s Biophilia), and by Studio Emissary‘s sister company, the Oration record label.

Ascension is the spiritual successor to the Oration festival, which ran for three years in Iceland. I attended the last of the Oration festivals in Reykjavík, and I’ve made it to two of the three Ascension festivals that have happened so far, including the 2019 edition that was hosted in the charming Reykjavík suburb of Mosfellbær, which will be the site of Ascension again this year — and I’m very excited to say that I’ll be at this year’s Ascension too.

The man behind Ascension, Studio Emissary, and Oration is Stephen Lockhart (he’s also the person behind Rebirth of Nefast, and a past participant in other Icelandic music groups). In an effort to help support Ascension, which in my festival-going experience really is unique, and to satisfy my own curiosity about a few things, I reached out to Stephen for an interview, and he graciously agreed to answer some questions. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CEREMONY OF SILENCE — “PRIMAEVAL SACRIFICE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 192024
 

On July 19th Willowtip Records will release Hálios, the second album from the Slovakian death/black metal band Ceremony of Silence. The label’s introduction of it is very intriguing:

Hálios represents the unborn luminous radiance, the all-pervading immutable light of the Universe, and our fundamental inherent nature. It is the thousand-rayed Sun, always in motion, but unchangeable, the axis mundi manifesting the sacred within our temporal world and serving as a bridge to the mythical time. The album sets forth on an eerie journey to this sacred dimension, reenacting the old stories inspired by the essence of the ancient Indo-European mythology, entwined in the obscure visions and dreams.

This introduction suggests that the music will be even deeper in its development of profound, soul-stirring atmosphere than this band’s first full-length, 2019’s Oútis (reviewed here), and that is indeed true. But it’s also true that Ceremony of Silence are still capable (indeed more so) of mounting head-spinning shock-and-awe assaults on the senses. Both the first single from the album and a second one we’re premiering today with a lyric video are proof of all that. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries