Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THÖRNE — “THOSE GOLDEN RULES”

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May 082023
 

In late January of this year the Portuguese blackened hardcore band Thörne followed up their 2019 debut EP Octagon with an immensely powerful three-track single named Those Golden Rules. Unfolding across 9 stunning minutes, the band used the single to explore “the untold truths of one’s past — the trauma caused by reckless parenting, the toll it carves in one’s behavior and social capabilities, and the resulting depression during adulthood”.

The single was originally released digitally, but in late April it received a cassette tape release through Black Lava Records. What we have for you today is a beautifully filmed video for a live performance of all three tracks that appeared on the new single. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CHTHON — “EREMITE”

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May 082023
 

As you’re about to see in the lyric video we’re premiering, the scribe of the Athenian band Chthon is a talented story-teller, though the tale told in the title track to Chthon‘s new album Eremite is a narrative of supernatural horror. It recounts the experience of a ruined, one-eyed zealot offering himself before a basalt shrine to an unnamed terror from another dimension.

The music tracks the tale in a progression of sound that’s just as supernatural and frightening as the words. In its initial phases the song presents the physical and mental ruin of the eremite — famished, face scarred, fingers mangled, body afflicted by festering wounds, and his one remaining eye unnaturally dilated — and simultaneously creates a chilling occult atmosphere.

In those initial phases, slow isolated notes reverberate in their gloom through an ambient mist, and then the band proceed in a massive mid-paced stomp, with distorted guitars deepening the feeling of oppressive gloom. A wailing guitar melody begins to slither and sway, like the exotic strains of a snake-charmer, but the melody is disturbing — it channels illness and misery. Continue reading »

DEVANGELIC: “XUL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 082023
 

(In the following review our writer DGR provides impressions of the latest discharge of brutality by the Italian death metal band Devangelic. Adorned with cover art by Nick Keller, the album is out now on Willowtip Records.)

We don’t really have much of a mission statement at NoCleanSinging. We have an About page that delves into some of the things that drive us but overall, as we’ve aged, the ideas that fuel this site have either matured or become, as one of our fellow writers coined it, “well intentioned chaos”. That means for all the agents in the world, all of the PR pushes, and all of the news aggregation that we do privately, it’s very hard to tell what may actually make it through the net.

Sometimes we cover a well-known and popular band and other times a group whose social media reach may be in the single digits due to literally just starting out and one of us morons happened to be wandering by the apartment they were recording in that day. However, if there were a band you had to nominate as falling well within the NoCleanSinging wheelhouse you would probably do well by picking Italy’s death metal brutalizers Devangelic. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRALLICE, ODZ MANOUK

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
May 072023
 

To lay my cards on the table: I slept 4 hours longer than usual last night and then spent more than an hour moving in a dense mental fog. I guess my body and/or mind needed all that extra sleep, gluttonously so. A couple of large Manhattans over dinner Saturday night might have had something to do with it.

So here I am, with noon rapidly approaching and some paying work still ahead of me, so I’ll have to make the number of selections in this column shorter than usual, despite the vast abundance of new blackened metal sitting in front of me.

KRALLICE (U.S.)

Like many other people I have a compulsion to quickly check out anything new from Krallice, and not just because the members are so talented but also because they don’t do the same thing twice in a row. I didn’t have time to pounce upon their new album Porous Resonance Abyss on Friday when it was released. Although there might have been some kind of advance notice, it came as a surprise to me. Even today, I’ve only made one trip through it, and it’s not a quick trip. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ERDVE, ADVERSVM, COFFIN MULCH, KORPVS, KILL DIVISION, THE NEANDERVERBS, MNAJDRA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 062023
 

Less than a week into May and it’s already damned hot in many places around the world, even in some far northern latitudes. A news report yesterday said that at least 78 wildfires are burning across the Canadian province of Alberta, 19 of which are burning out of control, and that more than 13,000 people have already been evacuated from where they live.

Where I live, near the 47th meridian in the Pacific Northwest (and about 800 miles southwest of the Alberta fire zone), it’s now 47° F and the gray sky is drizzling rain, as it did all day yesterday. I love it. It might have influenced some of the picks in this large roundup of new songs and videos, though some sonic firestorms and a few vigorous beatings found their way into it too.

Actually, I’m very proud of how varied this collection turned out to be. Which means you probably won’t like all of it.

ERDVE (Lithuania)

Despite my opening commentary about the weather, the new single from Erdve sounds like a different natural phenomenon — like a mid-paced avalanche of stone, with giant boulders rumbling down. Along with all the jarring jolts, the sizzling riffage is also frightful, creating tension and fear, while the raw yells channel rage. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY: BLACKBRAID, AN AXIS OF PERDITION, THE INFERNAL SEA, CLAUSTRUM, RANNOCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 052023
 

Lots of people keep wish-lists in anticipation of making purchases on Bandcamp Fridays, when more of the money will go to the labels and bands. I have friends whose lists include releases from three or more years ago, or from even older albums that have only recently become available on Bandcamp. So it’s not as if people are just now looking for things to buy, much less cloely examining releases that have launched on Bandcamp just barely in time for today.

Still, on days like this I feel a compulsion to make new recommendations, even if they might drive a lot of you (or at least your bank accounts) crazy. I should add that I noticed most of what’s below before today. I just couldn’t bring myself to do more than quickly skim the 300+ Bandcamp alerts and other e-mails that landed in our in-box since midnight last night. I picked a couple of things out of that ridiculous flood, but I have no idea what else might be frothing in there.

Obviously, I could have done much more today if I’d had enough time. So I’ll have to continue tomorrow, when maybe you’ll be tempted to add to your lists for the next Bandcamp Friday.

BLACKBRAID (U.S.)

It’s fair to say that the rise of this indigenous black metal project into the consciousness of metalheads (or at least those with a taste for blackened arts) has been meteoric. The subject-matter themes of the music probably account for some of the attention, but the strength of the music would carry it far even if the themes were less important. It was thus a nice surprise to discover the debut of a lyric video for a new Blackbraid song a couple days ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OLKOTH — “TO EAT OF THE LOTUS”

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May 052023
 

The South Carolina black/death metal band Olkoth first began taking shape in 2016, formed by Zach Jeter (also in Imperivm and Lecherous Nocturne) and by Vance Jeffcoat, who passed away the following year. A debut demo emerged in 2019, and the band (with a new line-up in harness) released the “Eidolon of Flames” single in 2021 (which we had the pleasure of premiering here). Now they’re poised at last for the release of their debut album At The Eye Of Chaos by Everlasting Spew Records on the 26th of May.

Embracing themes of the occult, horror, mythology, and corruption throughout history, the new album creates sonic experiences that are ferocious and deadly, brutalizing and nightmarish. It makes good sense that the Italian maestro Paolo Girardi was enlisted to create a particularly blood-congealing piece of cover art — tentacular, abundantly skulled, and altogether hideous. You’ll understand why the artwork is so fitting when you hear the album track we’re about to premiere — “To Eat of the Lotus“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE ISUA — “DEPARTURE”

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May 052023
 

We live in a world where engaging with strangers we don’t have to engage with is a risky endeavor. Wariness is an important self-protective instinct, even though it might prevent engagements that would turn out to be felicitous. Hell, here in the U.S. for example it seems that rubbing some stranger the wrong way could lead to gunfire.

Fortunately, the rules of engagement when it comes to new music are very different. Encountering strangers is actually something desirable, at least around this site, because it can lead to very welcome surprises, even if it may also lead to disappointment.

Case in point: Today we welcome ISUA to our pages for the first time. Getting to know their music has been a captivating experience — even though it has also led to destruction. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, APRIL 2023

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 052023
 


VoidCeremony

(Another month has passed into the moldy history books, and almost like clockwork Gonzo has arrived to spotlight three albums that made a better April for him, and might make a better May for you.)

April came and went, and here I am, sitting around at 5:39 p.m. on a Thursday, trying to figure out what the hell we’ve already covered during that month so I can avoid redundancy on these pages.

And holy shit – we’re just three weeks away from Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle, where I’ll be joining a significant percentage of the NCS staff for a weekend of work and revelry. If you haven’t scored tickets for that one yet, be sure that you do. The lineup this year looks positively ferocious. I’ll be the guy in the “FUCK THE D.E.A.” shirt periodically drunk on hazy IPAs. Come say hi.

Until then, here’s some new music to keep your eardrums occupied. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CULT OF EIBON

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May 042023
 

(In the following interview our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks caught up with songwriter/instrumentalist Nyogtha from the Greek black metal band Cult of Eibon for what turned into a candid discussion about the band’s inspirations. themes, and principles.)

Hellenic black metal is a thing in itself. The genre which was originally associated with the names of Rotting Christ, Varathron, and Necromantia grew and bloomed with the new bands that have kept Tartarus’ dark flames burning. And so Cult of Eibon has done that.

Being forged in Athens in 2015, this band has never stopped exploring the realms of black metal, moving step by step in their own way. The EPs Fullmoon Invocation (2016) and Lycan Twilight Sorcery (2017) led them to the split with another Greek band, Caedes Cruenta, in 2018. The unholy opus magnum Black Flame Dominion (2021) was a milestone of this way, and the last Cult of Eibon release since then was the Necronomical Mirror Divination split with Ceremonial Torture released in December 2022.

One of the Cult’s founders is Nyogtha (guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals) and he’s involved in four more blackened bands, so you can imagine how busy he is. However Nyogtha found time to answer our questions, and I encourage you to take a look at what Cult of Eibon hides. Continue reading »

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