Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOARGAZM — “ARMAGAMMON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 042023
 

With their new album Armagammon, the South African band Boargazm have reached the end of their Aporkalypse trilogy. A twisted sci-fi narrative accompanied by comic books, it tells the story of a rebel band of time-travelling freedom fighters known as “The Pig Whisperers”, who warn the world of the impending Aporkalypse, through the Baconing, all the way to Armagammon.

And if that sounds like some weird fun, wait ’til you hear this new album. As the band’s founder Heine van der Walt has explained: “We wanted to shift our focus on doing something highly experimental and weird, yet true to our sound. So, lots of freneticism, while still retaining groove, and to see if we can balance that in a coherent method. It was a fun exercise and experience, figuring out how to do all that.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HOLY GRINDER — “GET WELL”

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May 042023
 

(Christopher Luedtke introduces our premiere of a new song and video from the Canadian band Holy Grinder.)

Toronto, Ontario’s Holy Grinder has been blasting out some of the harshest noisegrind since 2016. Rough, tough, mean, and gruff, the unit has been fluid in its approach while achieving a consistently brutal output. And their upcoming album 10 Desecrations will be nothing short of another bull strapped with Semtex in a China shop. Today, the band is unleashing their latest video for the new single “Get Well.” It’s time to take a trip to the cleaners. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVEFIELDS — “PILGRIMS OF AMIRAH”

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May 032023
 

There are a lot of extreme metal songs out there where the vocals are really just an accent or an afterthought, with the vocals struggling to match up with musical instrumentation that carries the lion’s share of the load. What you’re about to hear, however, is a song where the burden is almost — almost — reversed.

Especially at first, the vocals on Gravefields‘ new song “Pilgrims of Amirah” are so stunningly monstrous, macabre, and frighteningly deranged that you almost don’t notice the music around them, though perhaps that’s because the instrumentation is also deranged — and dangerously destructive.

This isn’t the first time we’ve hosted a premiere for a release by Gravefields, but because almost exactly four years have passed since the last time, it’s worth a reminder that the core of the band is a duo consisting of Irish multi-instrumentalist Alan Hurley and French lyricist/vocalist Thomas Blanc (aka “DM“), who has a very long resume of vocal credits that you can find here. On the band’s forthcoming second album Tetragrammaton, they’re joined by bassist Paul Girvin. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GAROTED — “UNFATHOMABLE MANIFESTATION”

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May 032023
 

We have one hell of a video for you today, for a vicious song that generates enough voltage to drive massive turbines to the meltdown point. Garoted easily could have made four different playthrough videos for it, each one featuring the eye-popping performance of a different band-member, but instead we get to be even more thoroughly bamboozled by watching as the screen rapidly cuts from one to the next.

The song that’s the subject of the video, “Unfathomable Manifestation“, is off this Kansas-based band’s forthcoming fourth album, Bewitchment of the Dark Ages, which is set for a May 26 release by Lavadome Productions. It ought to leave fans of savage, technically jaw-dropping death metal slobbering, both hungry and head-spun. Continue reading »

HEROD: “ICONOCLAST”

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May 032023
 

(On May 5th Pelagic Records will release a new album by the Swiss “progressive sludge” band Herod, and below we present DGR‘s review of this new record.)

Herod‘s Iconoclast is not an album you would normally prescribe for May weather, with the sun finally threatening to peak its head around a seemingly never-ending (though much appreciated) cloud season in this corner of the globe. The Swiss group’s third release is a dense block of oppressive heaviness that dresses itself in all things artificial and organic in order to become a monster attempting to fuse multiple different styles into one angular creature.

Given the amount of weapons at musician Pierre Carroz‘s disposal when it comes to Iconoclast, that monster has let its tendrils run wild to create something that is unfriendly on immediate approach, yet its sense of groove is undeniable, to the point of being near-hypnotic. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NADIR — “EXTINCTION RITUALS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
May 022023
 

All things rise and fall, both the animate and the inanimate. Mountains heave up from the Earth’s crust, and erode over time. Flora and fauna flourish much more briefly, but all of it is always doomed to perish. Human life in particular strives, grasping for meaning and some measure of “success”, but humanity’s most vaunted achievements are in fact evanescent, and self-destruction seems deeply rooted. In the arc of all things, there are zeniths, and at the bottom of the trajectory is where you’ll find Nadir.

Nadir is the name chosen by a Norwegian blackened hardcore band whose extravagant debut album we’re presenting today in advance of its May 5 release. Its conception is summed up in the title — Extinction Rituals — and becomes even more clear through the band’s elaboration of what that means:

Extinction Rituals is an exercise in the duality of futility and hope. It is a comment upon the ignorance of man and the inventive way we manage to prey upon each other. Musically, Extinction Rituals sets out to match the lyrical content through blending eclectic sources of inspiration and striving for a harsh and aggressive sound.”

Nadir succeeded in their striving. Paradoxically, they’ve made their dark descent into a zenith of their own. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HAIL CONJURER — “GOLDEN SPINE / THE HEAT GOES ON”

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May 022023
 

Today marks the first appearance at our humble site of the Finnish black metal band Hail Conjurer, but a glance at the band’s discography reveals that we are very, very late in paying attention.

Beginning in 2017 Hail Conjurer has released numerous demos, splits, and EPs, as well as six full-length albums. The word “prolific” is well-earned here, and the volume of creative output is even more impressive considering that during those years the person behind the project has also been a participant in Hooded Menace, Horse Latitudes, and Ride for Revenge (among others).

As large as it is, the discography of Hail Conjurer is about to swell again, because on May 18th (Ascension Day in the christian church) the band will release a new full-length named Ouroboros Lust on the Bestial Burst label, and that album is the source of the hellish music we’re premiering today through an official video. Continue reading »

THY CATAFALQUE: “ALFÖLD”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 022023
 

(Thy Catafalque‘s latest opus Alföld will be released by Season of Mist on June 16th, and today we present a review by our old friend and ardent Thy Catafalque student Professor D. Grover the XIIIth.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. It is once again my favorite time of year (well, my favorite time of every two or three years): Thy Catafalque season. That’s right, my favorite Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and musical genius, Tamás Kátai, has maintained his reliable release schedule and graces us once more with a new Thy Catafalque album. While the core principles of the musical project remain the same (Kátai is the sole member, supported by a sizable rotation of guest musicians lending their talents in various capacities), the Thy Catafalque sound continues to evolve, aided by a significant musical development.

If you’re a fan of the band, or happened to read my top album list from last year, then you’re likely aware that Kátai took a huge step on the past year or so by taking Thy Catafalque into a live setting for the first time. The band’s first live performance was recorded and released as a live album, and there have been a handful of other live performances since, with a shifting lineup appropriate to the band’s history. While Kátai‘s involvement in the first live show was surprisingly limited (only playing bass on a handful of songs), he has in subsequent shows taken up full bass duties, and it feels as though performing live has affected the tracks on this new Thy Catafalque album Alföld. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEXAKOSIOIHEXEKONTAHEXAPHILIA — “DEMO DCLXVI”

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May 012023
 

“Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia” is an actual word. It refers to fear of the number 666 (just as the slightly better known triskaidekaphobia refers to fear of the number 13). We’re not sure that anyone is actually afflicted with that fear as a clinically recognized phobia, but we have many examples of fearful superstitious avoidance of the number.

For example, did you know that there used to be a U.S. Highway 666, so named because it was was the sixth branch off U.S. Highway 66? Did you know that in 1986 researchers found that 23% of all crashes involving injury that occurred in the Shiprock District of New Mexico occurred on a 0.9-mile stretch of Highway 666, and that it eventually became known (of course) as the Devil’s Highway? Perhaps needless to say, the government did away with that name in 2003; it’s now the much duller U.S. 491.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphilia, on the other hand, isn’t a word we’ve been able to find in our googling — other than as the name of a new solo metal project out of the Netherlands. But it’s about damned time someone coined that word, which must mean “fondness of the number 666”. Even if it would take a lot of practice to be able to enunciate it correctly (and we’ll be doing a lot of copy/pasting today), we should hail the conception because it represents basically all of metaldom.

But we’re here to hail the name for another reason, because the debut demo of Hexakosioihexekontahexaphilia that we’re about to premiere is dazzling. Its name is Demo DCLXVI. Can you guess which Arabic numeral is represented by that Roman numeral? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SHODAN — “NONE SHALL PREVAIL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
May 012023
 

On May 5th Time To Kill Records will release None Shall Prevail, the third LP by the Polish death metal band Shodan. In two words, it’s absolutely stunning.

Of course we have a lot my words to spill about it, but we’ll leap ahead through them to emphasize these: The album is a genuine rarity, in the sense that it has the potential to appeal to fans from across many genres of extreme metal, from brutal death metal to technical death metal, from prog metal to melodic death metal (and more).

Moreover, the band don’t reveal these different influences in separate songs, but beautifully integrate all of them in every track through songwriting that’s elaborate, dynamic, and executed with eye-popping skill. In addition, the record is exceptionally well-produced to emphasize these signal qualities, delivering both power and clarity.

Of course, it’s still way too early to be throwing around references to year-end lists, but None Shall Prevail is so spectacular that it seems like a very safe bet we’ll see it on many of those in the waning months of 2023. Continue reading »

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