Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LEFT EYE PERSPECTIVE — “CONUNDRUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Nov 092023
 

Sometimes comparisons of one band’s music to the music of other better-known bands works pretty well. Other times you scratch your head or vigorously shake it — what the hell was that writer thinking?

But in the case of the Belgian band Left Eye Perspective, their label Argonauta Records hit the nail on the head: The band’s debut album Conundrum really does sound like someone gene-spliced Mastodon, Gojira, Baroness, and The Ocean.

Or to frame the matter differently, their music proves to be a highly contagious alchemy of sludge, stoner rock, progressive metal, and grunge. Adventurously executed with a lot of instrumental and vocal flair, it brings powerhouse grooves, flights of head-spinning elaboration, mood-moving atmospheres, and plentiful doses of lysergic acid diethylamide.

You’ll see for yourselves what we’re getting at, because today we’ve got a full stream of this magnetic album on the eve of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ENGULF — “BELLOWS FROM THE AETHER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 082023
 

For three years in a row beginning in 2017 the one-man New Jersey death metal band Engulf released EPs.

We caught up to what the band was doing when Engulf released its second EP, 2018’s Gold and Rust (which we premiered), and enthusiastically stayed with it when the third EP Transcend came out the next year (reviewed here).

Andy Synn ended that latter review with a wish:

“Hopefully one day soon we’ll get a comprehensive full-length album from Engulf, as there’s a very good chance it’ll be a modern day classic when we do.”

There was reason to expect that Engulf‘s mastermind Hal Microutsicos was at work on an album when that year-over-year release of EPs stopped, and the months ticked by without something new (granted, those ticking years included the depths of the pandemic).

And at last we do indeed have a debut full-length from Engulf on the far horizon, an album named The Dying Planet Weeps that Everlasting Spew Records will launch on January 12th. To help introduce it, today we’re premiering the second track in the running order, “Bellows From the Aether“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AZATHOTH’S DREAM — “THE MOOR”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 082023
 

There is a world of the imagination in which the clock of the seasons has frozen and moves no longer, in which the freezing dark of winter is endless. Technology works no longer, and decay is the order of the day. What human life remains is now huddled around fires, and beyond those shrouds of light terrible predatory things wait in the endless night, inhuman and ascendant.

It is a world of dream, a nightmare for huddled humans but a hideous glory for the dreamer, if the dreamer were something like the horrid ruler of the Outer Gods. The imagining of such blood-freezing dreams may have spawned the name chosen by the project whose music we’re premiering today — which is indeed Azathoth’s Dream.

Other nightmare dreams of endless night may explain the title of the project’s debut album — Nocturnal Vampyric Bewitchment. But regardless, that title is well chosen because the music is all of those things — deeply nocturnal and viciously vampyric, and yes, also frighteningly bewitching. Continue reading »

VASTUM: “INWARD TO GETHSEMANE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 082023
 

(We’re pleased to present Todd Manning‘s review of the latest album by a band who’s a favorite among all the old-timers around here — and should become one of your favorites if they’re not already. The full album stream debuted today, and you’ll find that below as well.)

California-based Vastum is becoming a death metal institution. Their latest, Inward to Gethsemane, is due out on November 10th and is their fifth full-length on 20 Buck Spin.
Vastum has always looked to legendary acts like Autopsy, Incantation, and Cianide for inspiration. Yet, they create an atmosphere that’s equal parts haunting and nasty that sets them apart from the rest of the old-school death metal crowd. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THUNRAZ — “YOU AND ME”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 072023
 

The Estonian band Thunraz, the solo project of Madis Jalakas, has been in a creative surge from its inception, releasing a pair of EPs and a pair of albums since 2018. If anything the surge has strengthened, because Thunraz is following its latest album Revelation (released about five months ago) with yet another album coming out before this current month ends.

The new album is entitled Borderline, and it includes nine songs, one of which — “You and Me” — we’re premiering today along with a head-spinning red-shifted video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RAT KING — “DESTROYER OF US ALL”

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Nov 072023
 


Photo by J Donovan Malley

Given that I’ve lived in the Seattle area for 28 years I tend to have… tender feelings… for Seattle metal bands. Especially the ones whose music makes me feel like I’m a piece of meat that’s being tenderized and then flame-broiled.

I’ve also had especially tender feelings for Rat King ever since being bowled over by a live show they played at Seattle’s Funhouse venue in 2017. That was my first exposure to the audio tornadoes and earthquaking upheavals generated by the Ecuadorian brothers Danny Racines (bass, vocals) and Ricky Racines (guitar, backup vocals) and their Nicaraguan drummer Carlos Delgado.

Since then they’ve moved from strength to greater strength with each release, the most recent of which is their album Psychotic Reality, which was released by the Satanik Royalty label at the end of September. It’s an album you shouldn’t miss, and in case you did we have a vivid reminder to catch up to it via our premiere today of a video for the song “Destroyer Of Us All“–well-timed to coincide with the band’s in-progress tour of the western U.S. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARDINALS FOLLY

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 072023
 

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ most recent interview of Cardinals Folly frontman Count Karnstein, which took place shortly before the release of the band’s newest album by Soulseller Records. He precedes it with a brief review that explains why the album is one you shouldn’t miss.)

This most productive and passionate representative of the Finnish traditional doom metal scene work without sparing themselves. Since the release of their debut full-length Such Power Is Dangerous! in 2011, Cardinals Folly got their portion of well-deserved recognition with five full-length albums, and that’s without counting three splits.

Yes, the guys spent the first years of their underground career trapped in the genre clichés and timidly adhering to the precepts of Pentagram, Reverend Bizarre, Saint Vitus, and beyond. But over the years, their dark, oppressive, sometimes epic riffs began to give way to bold, self-confident heavy metal. Cardinals Folly are still good when it comes to traditional doom, but the fast tracks, which only became more numerous with each album, sound so natural and challenging that even the most stubborn puritans of doom are unlikely to challenge the band’s primacy on the Finnish scene.

Live by the Sword is quite close in sound to the balanced pace of the previous album Defying the Righteous Way, but more often these songs break forward with an attacking gallop. Eight new tracks fit into 40 minutes and are perfectly invigorating. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SKY ISLAND — “FALL INTO DARKNESS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 062023
 

This is one of those “and now for something completely different” moments at our site, like coming home to find that all your furnishings have been replaced and people you’ve never seen before are there waiting for you. Startling to be sure, but if you don’t immediately exit and slam the door, maybe you discover that the unexpected changes are… to your liking.

Well, maybe you’ve seen or heard one of the participants in Sky Island before. He’s the one sitting behind the drum kit in the video you’re about to see. His name is Ben Fagerness, and he’s been violently hitting things in the Minneapolis death metal band Graveslave for almost a decade, and also in Gloryhole Guillotine.

Some of you might also recognize the other person in the video, Niilo Smith, though his participation in the wide world of metal and rock as a solo creator has been in a very different sector, most likely unknown to the usual visitors at this site. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE ZEPHYR — “AURA OSCURA”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 062023
 

As many of you already know, The Zephyr is a Mexican black/death metal band with a history that now spans 30 years. Like many bands of a similar lineage, this one was interrupted by a long period of silence, which occurred after their 2003 debut album Fake Measured Smile, a silence broken by the 2013 EP The Hate Remains the Same and The Zephyr‘s 2017 album Eternal Flames of Heaven.

Also like other bands whose roots are as deep as The Zephyr‘s, they’ve experienced lineup changes along the way, including one that occurred during the six-year gap between that last album and the new one.

And yes, The Zephyr now have a fourth full-length on the way. Entitled Aura Oscura, it’s projected for release in January by American Line Productions, and what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for its title track, one that fully displays, even after all this time, a band at the height of their veteran songwriting prowess and performance skills. Continue reading »

THE LUNA SEQUENCE: “I ONLY REMEMBER FALLING”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 062023
 

(Oakland-based The Luna Sequence brought us a new album in September, and today DGR brings us his extensive reactions to the new music.)

Those who’ve walked many miles with our site will know that there are a few things we love to do around here. We like some good off the wall cover art that’ll blind people, we love us some patterns and numbers to nerd out on, and we love making the joke about getting around the ‘no clean singing’ rule – because when have we ever broken that before? – by reviewing music that has no singing at all.

Then you get into the more personal enjoyment that specific authors gain a rise out of, and in this case, yours truly absolutely enjoys throwing electronics and industrial projects on the main page, just knowing that it is going to be completely different from the wall-to-wall brutality/banshee-shrieking we enjoy posting on a day-to-day basis.

Luckily, musician Kaia Young has proven to be a bastion and has been able to provide on more than one occasion the opportunity to knock out two birds with one stone, and do both the ‘no clean singing’ joke and the electronics side of thing with their The Luna Sequence project. Continue reading »

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