Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORCOLAC — “MEMORIALMOON NARRATES THE MORBOSE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 242024
 

Metal navel-gazers such as us here and many of our friends could probably kill hours debating whether “Vampiric Black Metal” is really a genre. It’s certainly a term we see thrown about in descriptions of music, but does it really mean anything?

It certainly has lyrical and inspirational meaning for some bands, who relish tales of the ancient undead and their horrid nutritional needs. Those tales are sometimes rooted in the folklore of an artist’s native region, but regardless of geography they’re also attractive to misanthropes who smile at the idea of human beings as cattle to be consumed, and to people drawn to visions of deepest nights and full moons, to graveyard mists and red eyes shining in the dark.

But the question remains, is there anything we can point to beyond lyrical themes and fonts of inspiration as a way of defining “Vampiric Black Metal”, anything in the music itself? Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OBSCURA QALMA — “OPHIDIAN ENTHRONEMENT”

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Jan 232024
 

After a break of nearly 20 days in our daily publishing of premieres due to this writer’s submergence in the awful pits of his day job, we mark our return to the sharing of new music in truly spectacular fashion, with a jaw-dropping sonic spectacle from a forthcoming EP by the Venetian blackened death metal band Obscura Qalma.

From the beginning, Obscura Qalma have done nothing by half measures. If it is worth doing, they seem to think, it is worth doing in ways a listener can’t possibly overlook, on scales that dwarf the daily scrabbling of human ants and with the kind of power that overwhelms. Their lyrical themes have been equally far from the mundane.

Some might suspect that what you’ve just read is linguistic hyperbole, especially if you haven’t yet encountered this band’s heavily orchestrated amalgam of black/death, but the song we’re presenting today — “Ophidian Enthronement” — should banish any such doubts (along with any sluggishness that might be afflicting your minds). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2023: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

 LISTMANIA 2023  13 Responses »
Jan 202024
 

We are basically finished with our 2023 Listmania series, having concluded with DGR‘s five-part series of lists last week.

What’s still missing is our annual “wrap up” post, which provides links to every 2023 list we posted from our staff writers and other contributors and guests.

That wrap-up has been delayed due to Islander’s temporary absence, but the delay allowed us to discover another list that has found its way into our Listmania series in previous years.

This particular list is a mathematically calculated “List of Lists” that amalgamates lists from a variety of online zines in order to create a Top 50 list. Continue reading »

LORD DYING: “CLANDESTINE TRANSCENDENCE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 172024
 

(Didrik Mešiček reviews of the new album by Lord Dying ahead of its January 19 release)

The utter nonsense of “new year, new me” is surprisingly somewhat true for me this year as I’m delving into some sludge metal, a subgenre I’ve not really followed much before.

I wasn’t aware of Lord Dying before they had a show here, in Ljubljana, and I was told they were very impressive live and that I should check them out.

It turns out that was a good suggestion and I’m now not at all bitter about missing them. Absolutely not. Continue reading »

BIZARRE / DEMO-ESQUE BLACK METAL OF 2024: SO FAR, SO GOOD, SO WHAT?

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 142024
 

(Axel Stormbreaker returns… with his list of top obscurities released so far in the current year)

2024 has been a fun year so far. So much so that I’m giving you a short list of random goodies I’ve been enjoying. Since most selections here have only been released digitally, better mark my words, dear tape labels, ‘cos untold riches lie before you. You’ll be earning so much cash you won’t ever know how to spend it.

I’m pretty sure, now that I wrote this, that every band on my list gets filthy rich beyond their wildest imagination. Because everyone is hanging on my lips. I’m truly that amazing.

P.S.: Expect to read a lot of nonsense that may hopefully make a whole lot of sense. It’s the only serious thing about this prologue, anyway. Continue reading »

AXEL STORMBREAKER’S TOP 15+1 DARK-HORSE NOMINEES OF 2023: MIND-FUNK EDITION

 LISTMANIA 2023  No Responses »
Jan 072024
 

(We’ve already presented a 2023 year-end list of “Dark Horse” records compiled by Axel Stormbreaker, but the ones he left out to make the list more digestible kept chewing on him to be observed, and so now we have this supplement.)

So, here’s what didn’t make the final cut of my 2023’s Dark-Horse list. As you may have guessed, any reasons vary in each and all circumstances. There’s some stuff I found out about after I compiled my final picks. And then there are some comps / EPs I had to exclude for the sake of homogeneity. And there’s also the issue about artists who either sound commercial, or end up too popular to be considered a current part of the underground.

Plus, shoving 30+1 albums from every possible genre down your sore throat in one go seems kinda unproductive. Being a labor worker who sleeps with Sharon Stone, while remaining clueless he’s an international spy whose not-so-Mexican girlfriend is waiting for him on Mars to overthrow an evil government makes more sense comparably… especially after watching the said movie. The latter is a brilliant work of exaggerated science fiction. The former, plain madness, simply put.

So, there you go. Another list of odd records that sound cooler than your band. This time I’ll have to adjust my style to the music described, or not. But since this article’s dedicated to Total Recall and its Mind-Bending Edition, you should expect to raise an eyebrow or two on more than one occasion. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THEOSOPHY

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 052024
 

(What follows is Comrade Aleks’ interview with one of the founding members of the Siberian black metal band Theosophy, whose latest album in a 20-year career was released last October.)

Theosophy is the black metal band from Barnaul, Siberia. Started back in 2004 this band released their first full-length album …Out of Decades only in 2010 and since then hasn’t stopped in developing their sound and concept.

Despite being located in that remote region, Theosophy play their stuff live whenever they have a proper chance, and so they performed not only in Siberia but also in the western part of Russia and in Europe.

Bleeding Wounds of the First and the Last is their sixth album, it was released by Epictural Production on the 27th of October, and this time they prepared something new. I’ll try to dig out more about the band’s music with the band’s founder Phantom (bass, vocals).

The interview with Theosophy was published in the Spanish magazine This Is Metal, and we are able to share it with you here. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: A 2023 END OF YEAR LIST FROM DANIEL BARKASI

 LISTMANIA 2023  12 Responses »
Jan 042024
 

(After a considerable absence, we welcome Daniel Barkasi back to NCS, with the following 2023 Top 20 list to start, and more to come.)

Well, well, well, it’s been a minute. Well, other than an interview that meant the world to me with Serge of Selfgod in 2022, it’s been seven years. Why so long? Well, as the cliche goes, life happens. Burnout, mental health, huge life changes, job stuff, and many other things can derail the time and drive to write about all things heavy. No, the earth’s gravitational pull is just fine (I hope), and yes, get used to dated references and bad puns. Get used to that, or don’t, and detest my Seinfeld-obsessed self. Your call! Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABERRATION AND DIABOLIC OATH — “DIVINATIONS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 042024
 

Last month we did doing something we almost never do — premiered brief excerpts from songs off a forthcoming release, just a teaser of the full thing to come. The release in question is a 7″ split called Divinations that will be released by Sentient Ruin Laboratories on January 5th.

The split includes one song each from the U.S. black/death metal bands Aberration and Diabolic Oath. It is a timely release, not only because it helps kick off 2024 in obliterating fashion but also because the spring of 2024 will bring us new full-length albums from both bands, Aberration’s Refracture and Diabolic Oath’s still secretive but completed second full-length, and so the split functions as a precursor and taste of horrific things to come.

If you heard the teaser, you’ll probably understand why we agreed to share it despite our usual reticence to premiere anything but complete songs or full releases. But if you caught that teaser premiere, you also know that we promised to stream this split in full when the time was right. And the time is right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KAABOOS — “WRATH OF GODS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 042024
 

Every day around the world vast numbers of people leave their home countries and migrate to another one, sometimes legally and sometimes illegally, sometimes easily and sometimes at the risk of their lives. There are thousands of reasons, but in every case emotional trauma undoubtedly accompanies such a fateful decision, with a sense of loss accompanying the desire to find something better.

That sense of loss probably accompanied the Iranian musician who calls himself Atash (a name that translates to “Fire“) when he left his homeland for Norway several years ago at age 16, but rage and rebellion were also in the emotional mix.

In his case, he sought a place where he could express himself musically in ways that were severely constricted by the oppressive religious totalitarianism imposed by the current regime in Iran. Where he found his own musical fires was black metal, and his solo project Kaaboos (کابوس), which stands for “Nightmare” in Farsi/Persian, has become the vehicle for that expression.

On Friday the 13th of October last year Atash performed black metal in front of the Iranian embassy in Oslo, as a public form of protest. One film of his performance, a cover of Taake‘s song “Nordbundet“, has already surfaced, and today we present another video from that protest performance — an electrifying original Kaaboos song called “Wrath of Gods“. Continue reading »

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