Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: IN THE FIRE — “ALLURING PARASITE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 052024
 

On April 13th, through the cooperation of Satanath Records (Georgia) and Fetzner Death Records (Germany), the U.S. extreme metal band In the Fire, whose lineup includes members of Azure Emote, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Castrator, Hypoxia, and Fragile Body, will release their third album, Test Of The Pendulum Blade — and the test proves to be deadly effective.

Attempting to sum up the stylistic influences in these 12 new tracks is a challenge, because the band so seamlessly integrate many different ingredients, ranging from death to black metal and from head-hooking thrash to blistering technical mind-benders, and with an obvious love for epic heavy metal that also emerges.

As a result, the songs all become roller-coaster rides, and not just in the number of stylistic and tempo twists and turns they provide, but in their changing moods as well, blood-thirsty barbarism one moment and sorcery the next (and those are just examples).

We have a fine sign of what we’re trying to explain in the song named “Alluring Parasite” that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME III: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 052024
 

(Daniel Barkasi returns with another collection of album reviews and streams today, focusing on records that dropped in February 2024.)

Surprise – we’re back like Legia Warsaw Ultras! What in the hell am I talking about? Quite simply the height of professional level trolling, performed by Polish football Ultras. These groups can be extreme (to put it mildly), but credit is due for a move this epic. Me returning for February can’t come close, but hopefully we’ll be able to leave you with some music that you won’t soon forget.

‘Tis been an excellent month, as you’ve seen by the plethora of quality releases covered here at NCS. The end of winter is slowly approaching, and the release schedule only gets more packed in from here. Counting Hours brought the dim melancholy, Keres crushed us with a death metal onslaught, Borknagar is still soldering on at a high level, and Solbrud put out the musical equivalent of a full marathon (way less physical exertion required).

This month brings quite a sampling that’s a tad heavy on the post-black atmospheric variety, but variety is indeed the spice of metal happiness, so there’s also a mix of progressive, death, black and doom in various forms to gnaw into like a Mackinaw Peach. Just don’t lose your taste buds when they’re in season. Buford’s got your back, though. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE LAST OF LUCY — “EMPYREAL BANISHER”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 042024
 

The global arms race within the sphere of technical death metal proceeds apace, with many participants striving for nuclear-strength blast fronts of notes and beats moving so fast they challenge comprehension. This makes it more, not less, needful for bands operating in that sphere to do something… different… something not only comprehensible but also imaginative and, well, out of the ordinary.

Which brings us to The Last of Lucy. The last time we hosted a premiere of one of their songs (2 1/2 years ago in the run-up to release of their second album, Moksha) we described it as “an extremely vicious, often unearthly, yet undeniably captivating sonic creature”, “elaborate in its creation of menace and mayhem, and far from commonplace”. Now we all get to see what they’ve done creatively in the intervening time.

What they’ve created is a new album named Godform, which like Moksha is adorned by the artwork of Pär Olofsson, even more jaw-dropping now than before and no less-mind-bending. As you’re about to discover, that’s also true of this California band’s new music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WREKTOMB — “UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER WITH NATURE’S ORDER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 042024
 


Photo by Spider Digits Studio

One look at the three members of Baltimore-based Wrektomb would lead aficionados of extreme metal to expect death metal steeped in horror and gore. But while the band’s music is indeed gut-gouging and ghastly, it’s also far more than that, revealing other dimensions you’d never guess at from their abominable, blood-stained appearances.

Those listeners who encountered Wrektomb‘s debut EP, Hollowed Socket Nystagmus in 2021, already have some idea of what we’re hinting at, but their debut album, Bovine Mockeries of Human Posturing, is an even more powerful display of just how many different musical facets Wrektomb have worked into their macabre gems.

As a prime example, today we premiere the song “Unexpected Encounter´s With Nature´s Order” in advance of the album’s release by Personal Records on April 5th. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AGNETE MANGNES KIRKEVAAG (MADDER MORTEM)

 Interviews  11 Responses »
Mar 042024
 


photo by Camilla NessetKnut J. Berget

(Our old friend KevinP has rejoined us at NCS with a very special interview of Agnete M. Kirkevaag that we’re very happy to share with you now, about one month after the release of Madder Mortem‘s latest album [enthusiastically reviewed here by Andy Synn].)

It has been 8 years since we’ve last sat down with Agnete Mangnes Kirkevaag, lead vocalist of Norway’s Madder Mortem. An abundance of things have transpired in her life since that time; 2 full length albums and a documentary about the band have been released, coupled with personal loss, mental and physical transformation.

Please join me again as I delve into the psyche of an enlightened and articulate gem of a human being. We discuss the new album, Old Eyes, New Heat (released January 26, 2024 via Dark Essence Records), how growing up in Norway and cultural norms shaped her life, who we have to thank for the band’s existence, and her journey of acceptance and gratitude. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MISOTHEIST, DEATHLIKE DAWN, GLYPH, DARK PLAGUE, BLESTEMAT, BEHOLDER, VALRAVNE, PÂLEFROID

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Mar 032024
 

Here’s the way today’s collection of music goes: The first four choices include two albums and two singles that I thought fit well together. The music by all four bands is unmistakably harsh and hostile, but it’s also adventurously inventive and head-twisting, laced with the kind of unpredictable and unexpected elaborations that might invoke in some people’s minds the amorphous label “avant-garde”, or at least the term “unorthodox”.

After that I’ve included four other individual songs as bonuses. Later I’ll explain why I used that word to explain their presence here, if you make it that far (and you damn well should). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INTER ARMA, CIVEROUS, LHAÄD, ENGULFED, SYLVAINE, KVADRAT, AORTES, OSSILEGIUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 022024
 


Inter Arma

I did a better than average job of making lists of new songs and videos that surfaced over the past week. As I knew from experience but had to re-learn, that was a double-edged sword. It made it less likely I’d miss something that would interest me, and more likely I’d be left with a big and difficult chore of deciding what to pick for today’s roundup. The choosing was somewhat (but only somewhat) less agonizing, since I moved a lot of possibilities into a virtual box for tomorrow’s black metal column.

I’ll forewarn you that, with one dramatic exception, all the music I picked for today is intense, often disturbingly intense, and sometimes pitched toward sonic and emotional ruination, though some of the songs get there more gradually than others.

Or, to put it another way, if you came here hoping to headbang, you might be disappointed. However, if you want to get wrung out, have your head spun, and find some bone splinters poking through your flesh by the end, your wishes will be granted. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PELICAN — “ADRIFT / TENDING THE EMBERS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 012024
 

It’s another Bandcamp Friday today, and the electronic ether is flooded with new possibilities. I have dozens of recommendations I could make, in addition to the dozens my colleagues and I have been making every day since the last one of these Fridays. But the one I decided to pick out from the virtual deluge is here because… it takes me back….

In looking through our many past writings about Pelican, I found the first appearance in a list posted by one of the two other people who started NCS with me more than 14 years ago, a list posted just two weeks after we began (with no idea where we would go or for how long). And of course that wasn’t the last time we highlighted Pelican‘s music — many more features followed.

Even 14+ years ago, Pelican weren’t newcomers. Just a few weeks before that list I mentioned, they had released their fourth album, What We All Come to Need. Since then, two more albums have followed, and a few EPs, but the pace of the releases hasn’t been as intense as it once was.

That’s not shocking, given that the life of the band is now about 23 years, and the slower pace of output just makes the appearance of something new even more welcome. The new thing we have now, as of today, is a two-song EP named Adrift/Tending the Embers, and although nostalgia has admittedly played a role in why I decided to help spread the word about it, that’s not the only reason. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OPPRESSIVE DESCENT — “SULFURIC WRATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 012024
 

As you may know, Oppressive Descent is a black metal band from Portland, Oregon whose sole member Grond Nefarious has been a member of many other notable bands, as a quick glance at Metal Archives demonstrates. But Oppressive Descent is obviously far more than a side project, with a plethora of releases to its name beginning in 2016. That extensive discography includes five albums, the most recent of which is set for release on March 4th by Inferna Profundus Records.

The name of the new album, Sulfuric Wrath, stands as a big banner proclaiming the nature of the music within. But as you’ll learn through our premiere stream of the entire record on this Bandcamp Friday, it offers much more than corrosive burning rage — though it definitely does offer that as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VLTIMAS (RUNE ERIKSEN)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 012024
 


photo ©Jolanda Siemonsa

(Our old friend Ben Manzella returns to NCS with the following interview of Rune Eriksen. The focus is on Vltimas, whose new album EPIC is set for release on March 15th by Season of Mist.)

While there are still a few weeks until Vltimas’ fittingly titled next LP, EPIC, is released, I’m grateful to present this brief conversation with Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen. After editing it for clarity and reading over his answers from our email exchange, I only wish we could have met in person for this conversation. He offered plenty of info, I think, for the few questions presented here.

If you have yet to pre-order EPIC through Season of Mist, the time is now. This rollercoaster of personality in recorded form hit me like a train from the first listen. The creative trio of David Vincent, Flo Mounier, and Rune is hard to match and even describe. They have crafted an extreme metal record that will stand out not only in the year 2024 but in general, and I would not be surprised to see it on many year-end favorite lists. EPIC is due for release on the 15th of March. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries