Islander

AUTHOR & PUNISHER: “NOCTURNAL BIRDING”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 302025
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer’s review of Nocturnal Birding, the new album from Author & Punisher that will be out this Friday, October 3rd, via Relapse Records.)

Regular readers already expect this review from me, since I have championed this project since its earliest days. I’ll admit I’m proud of Tristan Shone’s evolution of his sonic torture machines, and now that evolution includes this being the first album to feature guitarist Doug Sabolick joining as a bandmate, which contributes to the more rock feel to things.

Bird-themed, though the first track “Meadowlark” finds Shone’s voice bare of the effects that normally color it. Midway into the song, things kick in with a more organic version of the heaviness we expect from this project. There is a more overt industrial crunch to the amazing stomp of “Mute Swan.” His vocals are more thought-out, rather than just a layer over the throbbing grind of his machines. Megan from Couch Slut lends her voice to the ruckus erupting, with more detailed layers of melody luring you in during this. It might be the best industrial song you hear this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMBAT NOISE — “RAPID ATTACK (MACABRE DANCE)”

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Sep 292025
 

(written by Islander)

Trying to sum up the history of Cuba in a few sentences would be an impossibility, especially for someone like me who lives roughly 3,000 miles away in the great behemoth of a country that looms northwest of the island (and has never visited there).

From that distance and perspective, it often seems like Cuba was frozen in time many decades ago, thanks largely to the hostility of the U.S. (and the intransigence of Cuba’s rulers). Certainly, despite the country’s rich history and obvious charms, it doesn’t seem to have been a very welcoming platform for extreme metal bands, or probably metal bands of almost any kind.

And yet, metal has survived in Cuba. And for 30 years, the Cuban death metal band Combat Noise has survived. To celebrate their 30 years of determined survival, a trio of labels (Satanath, Sanatoria, and The End of Times) will release a special compilation album called 30 Years Of Cuba Death Metal on October 28th. It includes 11 songs from across those three decades of Combat Noise music, all of them completely re-recorded for this record at Deepblast Studios in La Habana in 2025.

What we have for you today is the re-recorded version of “Rapid Attack (Macabre Dance)“, a terrific new rendering of song originally released in 2003 as part of the two-song Combat Noise single Under My Rifle’s Fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IRR — “ETERNAL IMMUREMENT”

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Sep 292025
 

(written by Islander)

IRR is a Swiss black metal band formed by Daniele Brumana (drums), Sebastian Vogt (bass/vocals), and Tobias Kalt (guitar/vocals) after the disbanding of their previous band Forlet Sires, whose music we applauded here in previous years. They made their recording debut in 2023 with a demo named Twisting and Twirling / Of Flesh Subliming. After a few selected live shows with bands like Afsky, Panopticon, Kvelgeyst, Vígljós, or Abhorration IRR dedicated themselves to work on their debut album.

That album, Remains Remain, is now completed and scheduled for release in various formats on October 24th by Berggeflvster Records, Monastyr Records, and IRR. To help introduce the album, today we have a riveting video premiere for a stunning album track called “Eternal Immurement“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AFSKY, DEADLAND, VEIL LIFTER, BAALBERITH

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Sep 282025
 

(written by Islander)

As was true with yesterday’s SEEN AND HEARD roundup, 21 days have passed since I was able to compile one of these SHADES OF BLACK collections. Unlike yesterday’s roundup, I’m not able to make up for the lapses with a mega-sized assembly today, due to… baseball. It’s the last game of the regular season for my hometown team, and I’m going.

I know that confession damages my kvlt credentials, yet I’ll try to repair the damage with the following five selections. Stylistically they’re not in the same vein, and yet I do think there are some connections, including a certain classical elegance and immensity among some of them, and a certain dark and even depressive cast common to some, which seemed fitting for the day — roughly one week into the Fall season, with The Big Dark looming here in the Pacific Northwest. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: A BAKER’S DOZEN OF BRUTALITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 272025
 


these plus one

(written by Islander)

The last time I compiled a Saturday roundup of new songs and videos was 21 days ago. No need to go into the reasons for that (because I’ve previously shared them). Needless to say (but of course I’m saying it), the volume of new musical extremity that has emerged since then has reached towering proportions.

As the days passed I continued keeping lists and open tabs, and visited many of those locations to do some listening yesterday and this morning, but it was still just a relatively small dent in that looming edifice of new sounds.

To sort of make up for being AWOL for the past three Saturdays, I’ve made this roundup a big one — a baker’s dozen of songs (and one short EP). Recency being primacy, I tended to lean toward newer things at the top of my list.

As you’ll see, I also tended to lean toward prominent and familiar names, but eventually descended deeper under ground. I also loaded almost all the videos on the front end — eight of them to start. And much of what’s coming, including the first four songs in a row, delivers the kind of high-speed intensity that gets hearts hammering. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISPOSSESSED — “CONCRETE TOMB”

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Sep 262025
 

(written by Islander)

Portland, Oregon-based Dispossessed made their hulking and haunting presence known with a harrowing first full-length, Exanimate, in 2019, and followed that with the “Makhnovshchina” single in 2022. Now they return with a new five-song full-length named Dêmocide that will be released on October 3rd (a Bandcamp Friday) through Carbonized Records.

As before, Dispossessed use their fusion of sludge, doom, and death metal to express rage and despair, this time lyrically addressing issues such as systemic violence, environmental destruction, and carceral injustice, once more grounding their work in anti-authoritarian ideals.

Those passions thrive in the confrontational nature of their music — which is enormously heavy, wholly absorbing, but also viscerally devastating in both its aural and emotional qualities. We have a striking example of this in the song we’re premiering today — “Concrete Tomb.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PEST — “LIGHT FADES”

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Sep 262025
 

(written by Islander)

We spin through space, the ground beneath us ever-turning, and as the rotations accumulate sometimes what was lost is found again.

Ensconced in Lower Saxony, the German black metal band Pest came to life in 1997 and released five albums and an EP between then and 2014. The fifth of those full-lengths, Buried, was so named because it was to be the band’s last one following the death of Pest‘s co-founder Mrok. And so Pest was lost. But now they’re found again.

With an album-length split released last year (sharing sides with the band Cultus), these plague doctors returned, and on October 17th Pest will at last release their sixth album through Heidens Hart Records, a haunting and harrowing record fittingly named Eternal Nightmares. Today we bring you its second single, “Light Fades“. Continue reading »

CARACH ANGREN: “THE CULT OF KARIBA”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 262025
 

(NCS writer DGR has long-established his bona fides as a Carach Angren fan, and so it’s no surprise that he would focus on this Dutch group’s evil new EP The Cult of Kariba that will be released on October 17th by Season of Mist. He seems very happy with what he found there.)

Five years is a mighty long walk between an album and an EP for an active band but such is the case for the black metal storytellers of Carach Angren and their newest EP The Cult Of Kariba.

The distance between the group’s newest EP and their album Frankensteina Strataemontanus has been pretty sizeable. Granted, some of this was due to the pandemic years in which many bands saw the brakes effectively slammed on any sort of performance or touring plans, and for those who had literally just released an album and weren’t planning on being at home so soon, you can see in many different group timelines how it might’ve affected them.

For some, the need to create was immediate and you saw periods of intense activity while bands would hammer out singles and covers for lack of anything else to do. Others, probably a quiet sort of frustration. No two approaches could be deemed correct and creativity certainly doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not a switch to be thrown on and off, and seeking inspiration so soon after you’ve just put out an opus to a ghoulish take on the Frankenstein story could freeze anyone’s mind for a while. That and an ever-fluid drummer situation not helping much either, having now reduced Carach Angren down to two core members, effectively transforming them into two studio-dwelling ghosts haunting the boards when they get the chance. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GORLEBEN

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Sep 252025
 

(On October 15th the German band Gorleben will have their second album released by Darkness Shall Rise Productions. The music and other aspects of the album are fascinating (as we’ve already previewed), and so is the following interview conducted by Comrade Aleks with Gorleben member 235U.)

Gorleben was named after a municipality in Saxony, next to which an ill-famous radioactive waste storage facility is located. Hence the radioactive hazard sign in the logo, hence the nicknames of the participants taken from the names of radionuclides, hence the themes of the songs.

43 minutes of Menetekel are divided into four tracks. “Countdown” begins with a dreamy psychedelic theme accompanied by the sounds of nature, but gradually “the electricity turns on” and the melody becomes doomy, menacing, and heavier. It’s strange, but at some point it seems that two different tracks are playing: something like mid-tempo gothic metal and melodic death-doom in the vein of Katatonia. Gorleben know how to keep their identity yet also keep to the “Katatonia” scenario, further adding to their palette a duet of growls and harsh female screaming.

Suddenly, electronic samples penetrate the composition, and the riffs become chopped, industrial, and the male growl is replaced by a heart-rending black scream. In short, a lot happens in the first thirteen minutes of the album. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KARATE STEVE — “TIME UNDER TENSION”

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Sep 252025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re latecomers to the talents of the Boston-based quartet KARATE STEVE, but thanks to the song and video premiere we’re now hosting, we’re enthusiastically on board. Latecomers, because the song is the title track to the band’s forthcoming third album, Time Under Tension, and we overlooked the first two. On board, because it’s a hell of a good song, one that gets the blood pumping and nerves jangling.

By way of background for others who might also be newcomers, the band was formed about a decade ago and consists of guitarist/vocalist Ben Davis, lead guitarist/vocalist Robb White, bassist Earl Brown, and drummer Zach LeWinter. They’ve drawn from a wide array of influences, from ‘90s death metal and hardcore to thrash, sludge, and more, and the album title-song you’re about to hear is a good example of how well KARATE STEVE mix and match those influences. Continue reading »

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