Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVEW): BLIGHT HOUSE — “BLIGHT THE WAY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 022023
 

“Frank Owen Gorey is not a well person. Frank Lloyd Blight is not a well person either. Physical illness provided the genesis for their collaboration. Mental illness has kept it going…. Would it be too un-empathetic to say I hope the two Franks never get well? I’m only being honest about my greediness for their music. Wellness is overrated anyway, especially when it comes to death metal.”

Those were among the words I spewed in the context of premiering a song from Summer Camp Sex Party Massacre, an album by the two Franks under their chosen band name Blight House that Nefarious Industries released almost exactly five years ago.

Back then it seemed evident that these two had either shunned, or been shunned by, the outer world, preferring the confines of a swampy basement and whatever collection of mechanical and unspeakable organic materials they used in making their thoroughly demented and disgusting death metal. How delightful it must have been for them to see almost everyone else forced by the pandemic into a similar isolated existence!

Well, they must have taken some delight in that state of affairs, because now Blight House is returning with a thoroughly macabre new album. While others may be fumbling about looking for something to light the way out of all the dark tunnels in which we find ourselves, the two Franks have rediscovered how to Blight the Way — and you will learn how they’ve done this through our premiere stream of the new album that bears that name, in advance of its August 4 release by Syrup Moose. Continue reading »

AETHERIAN: “AT STORM’S EDGE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 022023
 

(DGR won the cordial wrestling match among us NCS slaves for the fun of reviewing the eagerly awaited second album by Aetherian, just recently released by Lifeforce Records.)

If this is your first exposure to Aetherian, with no idea where the group hailed from or what they looked like, we’d be curious what would happen if you hit play on the group’s newest album At Storms Edge and tried to guess those answers.

We wouldn’t fault you one bit for looking into the colder European climes for your answer, as Aetherian are especially good at the sort of melancholy-infused doom hybrid that has worked its way into the melodeath scene proper over the past few years. We’d even forgive you if you too had thought of the same vein that Insomnium mine their music from being threaded throughout At Storm’s Edge. But Aetherian don’t come from the cold north. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KAAL AKUMA

 Interviews  1 Response »
Aug 012023
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with the Bangladeshi death metal band Kaal Akuma, who have already made a very strong favorable impression with both their 2021 debut album and a new EP released this past April by Nuclear Winter Records.)

Kaal Akuma appeared in one of the March Seen and Heard issues here – the death metal band from Bangladesh with a new EP Turiya released in April by Nuclear Winter Records. Their fierce, savage, and chaotic full-length In the Mouth of Madness (Dunkelheit Produktionen, 2021) didn’t pass unnoticed either, but this band needs wider exposure and so we do what we can.

The last known line-up is Rivoo (vocals, bass), Ah Puch (drums), and Akif (guitars), and this trio surpassed the rawness of uncontrolled anger embodied in the debut and made Turiya not only authentic but a more dangerous and focused entity. Just three tracks grant a 21-minute experience of macabre death and madness. Let’s learn more what Kaal Akuma hide behind these songs.

(We thank Nathan Birk (Suspicious Activities PR) for organizing the interview.) Continue reading »

SHADOW LEGION: “SHADOW LEGION”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 012023
 

(Today we present the following guest review by Lonegoat [from the Necroclassical project Goatcraft] of the forthcoming debut album by Pittsburgh-based Shadow Legion.)

The enigmatic genesis of “Dark Metal” traces back to the murky depths of the underground past, entered into lexicon by Bethlehem‘s daring 1994 opus, fittingly titled Dark Metal. Closer inspection of the “Dark Metal” categorization reveals a bewitching amalgam; an alchemical union merging the raw essences of heavy metal, death metal, and black metal, seasoned with an infusion of epic and pagan elements.

While Aeternus remains cryptic on the matter, they undoubtedly embody this heterogeneous blending, as do other bands such as Mefitis, who enthusiastically embrace the appellation to chart their own perplexing course within this realm. Pendath, a luminary of Mefitis, also corroborates this perspective, adding that “Dark Metal” defies codified classification while displaying an ineffable melancholy that transcends the rational mind, arousing an intuitive sensibility positioned beneath the surface. In addition, Serpent Ascending‘s acclaimed 2022 opus, Hyperborean Folklore, dutifully explores this synthesis as well.

Shadow Legion‘s lengthy debut album, which comes out on August 9th, firmly embeds itself in the domain of “Dark Metal.” At its molten core, a blistering display of guitar virtuosity rivals the legendary mastery of Trey Azagthoth, setting the band apart from their peers and charging the music with electrifying transcendence. The dance of visceral, melodic, and warlike percussive riffs, often extant for prolonged periods, casts a dark martial atmosphere. As is the trait of “Dark Metal,” the influences of epic heavy metal, death metal, and black metal coalesce seamlessly in an intuitive framework, and palatial acoustic sections offer moments of majestic respite. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IRON ALTAR — “MORTALITY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 012023
 

In their new song “Mortality” the Scottish band Iron Altar musically harness their own four horsemen of the apocalypse. Although one might imagine the ravages of the biblical foursome of Death, Famine, War, and Conquest, the song spawns powerful visions of Rage, Madness, Desolation, and Despair, inflicted not by some world-ending divinity but by a deeply flawed humanity.

As you will soon discover for yourselves through our premiere of a video for the song, Iron Altar create such harrowing impressions through a relentlessly dynamic and multi-faceted piece of heavy-grooved deathly sludge that hits very hard on multiple levels. And it’s no outlier, because the band’s new album Promethean (their second full-length) is a powerhouse experience all the way through. It’s set for release on September 29th by Trepanation Recordings. Continue reading »

THE ZENITH PASSAGE: “DATALYSIUM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 012023
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new second album by L.A.-based The Zenith Passage, recently released by Metal Blade Records.)

A few specters are hovering around tech-death group The Zenith Passage and their newest release Datalysium. One of them is the surprising amount of time that it took for The Zenith Passage to reach their sophomore full-length release. In what seems to be a recurring theme with 2023, a large block of time has passed between releases here; the group’s prior album Solipsist arrived in 2016 and it is only now at a little over seven years later that the band are on their second album.

The second specter is something that everyone is going to bring up at one point or another when discussing them. Given the group’s pedigree, it is hard not to imagine this playing out as one of the background narratives surrounding the record: When three of the four musicians involved in a new release were at one point or another involved in the revolving door of The Faceless over the years, it’s difficult to avoid drawing comparisons. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CAVEMAN CULT, CULT BURIAL, MAIRU

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 312023
 

On Saturday morning I mentioned that I would be involved in an Event that I expected would consume the weekend, and so it did. I didn’t fall into any fires, which is a minor miracle given the volume of intoxicants I consumed, but I didn’t have time for NCS after that brief Saturday morning roundup.

In a rare display of wisdom, I didn’t agree to do any song premieres today, anticipating that I would still be trying to recover from a weekend of debauchery. But of course I did feel the old obsession today – how could I let a day go by without recommending something musical at the site, even though we did share Andy‘s latest Synn Report and a good interview by Aleksey? Well, as you can see, I couldn’t.

CAVEMAN CULT (U.S.)

Eventually, my eyes were able to focus this morning, so I decided to take a quick look at what landed in the NCS in-box since Saturday morning. There I found a notice of a new post at the starkweather SubStack. I slowly read through it and bookmarked some music I hadn’t been aware of, to explore when my brain was less fogged in. Then it dawned on me that something I discovered there would probably blow the fog away like a hurricane, along with my brain itself. A rough cure, to be sure. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MISTY GREY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  No Responses »
Jul 312023
 

(Everyone knows that Doom Metal is Comrade Aleks‘ main love, and although his interviews have branched out into other dark genres, today he returns to the old flame with a very interesting discussion with members of the Spanish band Misty Grey, whose newest album was released in June of this year.)

Misty Grey first met in Madrid in 2011. This is one of the very few Spanish doom metal bands, and doom-heads know Misty Grey due to their honesty, passion, and good taste.

Another thing is that the backbone of the group in the vertebrae of Juan (guitar), Robin (bass) and Javier (drums) seems to have fallen victim to the gypsy curse or something like that: They were not lucky with either of the ladies who recorded vocals for the first and the sophomore albums, and the necessity to find a new singer was a scourge for the band.

Their new album Visions After Void was recorded with the new front-man Angel Flores, who sang for almost a decade in a local Viking folk band. And you know what? Angel is incredibly good in doom metal too. His range is much wider than that of the former vocalists, and he easily copes with both hard rock and epic parts previously uncharacteristic of Misty Grey.

These seven tracks recreate the recognizable atmosphere of traditional doom, they reflect the composer’s talent and passion, and this material has a sense of belonging to the modern doom scene too. Although what kind of modernity is something special, as the album is dedicated to the work of the German film director Fritz Lang, who authored the large-scale expressionist dystopia Metropolis (1927) and one of the first “noir” detectives M (1931).

To be honest, I can name a couple more doom albums that are entirely dedicated to dark cinematography masterpieces, so it’s not entirely true to praise Misty Grey for originality, but you know… They are original in their own way, and Visions After Void surpasses many of the modern doom albums. Juan (guitars). Javi (drums) and Angel (vocals) introduce the band to NCS’ readers in this in-depth interview. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WAYFARER, ASHTAR, HOUSE OF FLOWERS

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jul 292023
 

Dear friends and complete strangers, greetings to you on another diēs Sāturnī. I must be brief today because of an Event I must attend, which begins soon and will extend until the stars come out, when the congregants will have to see each other by firelight.

That Event continues tomorrow, beginning early on dies Solis and again proceeding past nightfall, and so don’t be surprised if my next usual round-up of new music, the blacker one, is also brief or goes missing altogether, even if I don’t fall into the fire.

WAYFARER (U.S.)

Denver-based Wayfarer‘s next album, American Gothic, is said to serve as “a funeral for the American dream”. “Caked in dust, and buried deep in blood and gunpowder, it paints a brutal and beautiful portrait” — so says Profound Lore, which will release the album on October 27th. “What we have now is a world full of oil drillers, and railroad barons. Cattle thieves and company men. This is the new American Gothic”. So says the band.

Along with these announcements came a video for a new album track named “False Constellation“. Continue reading »

DEADSPACE: “WITHIN HAUNTED CHAMBERS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 282023
 

Those of you who have been routinely stopping by our site over the last few weeks know that we’ve been enthusiastically welcoming the return of the Australian black metal band Deadspace, not only trying to help spread the word about their forthcoming seventh album Unveiling the Palest Truth on the Immortal Frost label, but also announcing and premiering a song from their new EP Within Haunted Chambers — and today that EP has been released.

As we’ve previously reported, the EP functions as something of a harrowing glide path to the takeoff of the new album. It includes three tracks from two Deadspace albums, The Promise of Oblivion (independently released in 2015) and Dirge (released through Talheim Records in 2019), but Deadspace have re-recorded the songs to showcase their evolution over the years in the live and studio arenas and to bring them more in line with what we’ll hear on the new full-length. As they explained to us:

This is part of us re-establishing ourselves and a much harsher and heavier entity, leaving behind the DSBM moniker. These tracks are how these songs are played live now in 2023 and are designed to sit well amongst our newer material that will be out in September.

Continue reading »

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