Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NEBELKRÄHE — “NIELANDSMANN”

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Sep 262023
 

On October 27th Crawling Chaos Records will release a new album named ephemer by the Munich-based black metal band Nebelkrähe — their first full-length in a decade. It’s a most unusual album, extraordinarily varied in its sounds and moods, and in its vocals, instrumentation, and melodies, the kind of album in which conventions of black metal are disregarded as often as they are honored.

The band point toward those variations mentioned above in their epigram for the album: “Memories – rainbow bubbles for adults.” (A. Engel) They explain its significance this way:

What sounds kitschy at first can also be read soberly and unromantically: Like soap bubbles that burst to the horror of the naïve child if he or she gets too close to them, even the most dazzling memories are fleeting and ephemeral – or, in German, ephemer.

They also share that the German-language lyrics “tell of blurred boundaries, youth gone by, and shattered dreams of life – as a tribute to the allure and horrors of transience.” Continue reading »

PRIMORDIAL: “HOW IT ENDS”

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Sep 262023
 

(Below we present a review of the new album by the Irish band Primordial written by NCS contributor Didrik Mešiček.)

I’ve always found it a bit surprising that Ireland, given its significant influence on the rock scene, hasn’t really provided us with many well-known and successful metal bands. But there’s no denying Primordial have been one of the fiercest forces in the black metal spheres, and when you have a band like that not much else is needed.

The Irishmen will be releasing their 10th album, How It Ends, on September 29th on Metal Blade Records, five years after their previous album, Exile Amongst the Ruins. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORN THE FUCK APART — “CORROSIVE FORM”

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Sep 252023
 

Torn the Fuck Apart is one of the most unpretentious band names in extreme metal, and it’s also an example of “truth in advertising”: their music delivers what the name promises. Much the same could be said for this Kansas City’s band’s new album that’s due for release next month: Kill. Bury. Repeat.

But here’s the thing: as brazenly and unpretentiously violent as these names are, TTFA operate more like mad surgeons than crazed slashers or thuggish butchers. Their technical talents and precision are damned impressive, their songwriting is often head-spinning in its intricacy, and the music — while indeed bludgeoning and berserk — is catchy as hell.

A lot of people already know that, because Kill. Bury. Repeat. is TTFA‘s fifth album, and they’ve backed those with a lot of live performances over the years. But even people who are already ardent fans will likely have their eyes popped open by the new record, and newcomers (especially those who have a taste for death metal in the vein of such groups as Suffocation and Cryptopsy) will have something to look forward to eagerly when Gore House Productions releases the record.

As a sign of what’s coming, today we premiere a hellaciously exhilarating album track named “Corrosive Form“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WELLS VALLEY — “ACHAMOTH”

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Sep 252023
 

In preparing to write what you’re about to read I finally tried to answer a question I’ve wondered about for years: Where did the Portuguese band Wells Valley get their name?

After spending more time googling than I should have, and even reaching out to the band’s label Lavadome Productions, I still don’t know the answer. It may be a place on a map, a fixed location on the Earth, or a fictional location in a tale, conceived either by the band or some novelist or filmmaker.

I’m still curious, but one thing is quite clear: whatever else Wells Valley may mean, it now represents a landmark for a mysterious and extremely unsettling place the band create in a listener’s mind, and their new album Achamoth is a previously uncharted descent toward that harrowing place that’s unlike most others. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EFRAAH ENHSIKAAH, ERSHETU, GRAVE GNOSIS, JZOVCE, SACRIS RITUS VERMES

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 242023
 

I obviously didn’t prepare a Seen and Heard roundup yesterday, which is usually the way I spend Saturday mornings. Just too many other interferences, both personal and job-related, so I checked out.

Today has its own interferences in store for me, some eagerly anticipated and others more mentally grinding. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of missing another appointment with our visitors, so I got an early start on the day and managed to pull together the following recommendations, presented in alphabetical order by band name.

EFRAAH ENHSIKAAH (France?)

As I was beginning to make choices for this column I received an alert about a new starkweather SubStack entry (here). Although I didn’t have much time to spare, I did quickly read through the new recommendations there. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BULLETBELT — “NO AFTERLIFE”

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Sep 222023
 

Any year that sees the release of a new album by New Zealand’s Bulletbelt is a very good year, no matter how much shit is raining down around the rest of the calendar. At least that’s the conclusion you’d draw from all the many expressions of enthusiasm we’ve showered on the band at this site going back to 2014, when their second album Rise of the Banshee came out.

Now they’ve got another full-length, Burn It Up, which is officially being released today via Impaler Records. In many ways it’s surprising, as compared to what we’ve come to expect, due in part to the advent of a new Bulletbelt vocalist, whose talents have led to band to expand the influences of classic heavy metal, power metal, and rock in their songwriting.

On the other hand, the new album also includes songs that are more in line with the kind of verbiage we’ve used in the past (which included frequent comparative references to the band Midnight), words and phrases like “viscerally appealing”, “stunningly contagious”, “absolutely electrifying”, “hard-hitting”, and “anthemic”.

All of which is to say that Burn It Up is quite a varied album — and even more varied than the preceding paragraphs might lead you to expect. Vivid proof of that comes in the form of the frightening video we’re premiering today for the new album’s devastating fourth track, “No Afterlife“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARTYRDOOM — “SHEDDING OF THE SOUL”

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Sep 222023
 

Although I thought for sure that we had passed along some comments about the Grievous Psychosis debut album from Poland’s Martyrdoom six years ago, alas, we didn’t, though we did share an interview by Comrade Aleks of guitarist Grzegorz Młynarczyk.

Ours was a regrettable oversight, because that first album was packed with grisly charms. It leaned into doom-soaked old school death metal, with plenty of heaviness and hooks, revealing an evolution from the band’s earlier releases.

And yet maybe it’s just as well, because the band’s forthcoming second album, As Torment Prevails, is even better. The songwriting is more capable and dynamic, the melodies more blood-congealing, the grooves even more bone-smashing, and the production is improved, though still dirty enough to suit the band’s old school devotions.

To back up these opinions, what we have for you today is the premiere of the new album’s fifth track, “Shedding of the Soul“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LACRAU — “AXIOMA”

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Sep 212023
 

Death comes for some people suddenly, and often far too soon. For others it waits at the end of a slow process of physical and mental decline, far later than some would wish.

In times greatly distant from our own the harshness and hardships of life, coupled with an inability to treat illnesses, caused people to age and diminish faster and die sooner. But even then, as well as now, it has often fallen to children to care for declining parents, past the point when the pleasures of companionship have vanished and only pain remains.

In many cultures at different times around the world the problems of aging were solved by the practice of senicide — the killing of the elderly. In some places the aged were expected to relieve the burdens on their clans by killing themselves. In others, they became the victims of ritual sacrifice.

It is said that in ancient Scandinavia “the practice consisted in elderly people throwing themselves, or being thrown, from precipices after becoming unable to take care of themselves or perform everyday tasks.” And that practice, as described by the Portuguese band Lacrau, is the subject of their debut album Axioma, which we’re premiering in full today on the eve of its release by Monumental Rex. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DUNGEON — “INTO THE RUINS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Sep 212023
 

For those of you who might be experiencing the music of the band Dungeon for the first time today, don’t misunderstand their name: They don’t play dungeon synth or creeping and rotten old school death metal. In fact, you’ll soon discover that they’re somewhere over on the opposite end of a spectrum that might include those other genres.

But surely many of you already know that, because Dungeon (whose members are divided between the UK and Germany) have already made their searing mark through three previous releases whose titles very openly brandish the kind of music they’ve been making: the Unholy Speed Attack demo in 2015, the English Hell demo in 2016, and the Purifying Fire EP in 2018.

Fans have waited five years for Dungeon‘s next audio attack, and today you’ll hear it through our full stream of a new EP named Into the Ruins that’s set for release tomorrow by Dying Victims Productions. Those five years, it turns out, have done nothing to quench the hellfire that burns in their songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAMMERFILOSOFI — “THE DESOLATE ONE”

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Sep 202023
 

The Norway-based duo Hammerfilosofi came together in the plague year of 2020 with the goal of creating primeval black metal that would represent a “cleansing fire that aims to eradicate every trace of the civilized, the harmless, and the mediocre”, and to function as “an instrument to initiate a violent cathartic inner journey – and a celebration of strength and vigor, of terror and strife, and of glorious death.”

The results of their dark and imperious endeavors are captured in a debut album entitled The Desolate One, which is set for an imminent release on September 22nd by ATMF. Did the band achieve their goals? You’ll be able to answer that question for yourselves through the music player below, which provides all six tracks and nearly 45 minutes of sound.

Of course, we have our own answers. Continue reading »

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