Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEADSPACE — “THE MALEVOLENCE I’VE BORN UNTO OTHERS”

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Jul 212023
 

It’s hard for us to imagine that there is anyone out there who doesn’t begin or end their day visiting our site. Still, perhaps the record-shattering heat that has afflicted much of the globe in recent weeks has produced a malaise that has led to inattention. And so it might be wise for us to repeat some of the news we broke about the Australian black metal band Deadspace exactly one week ago (here) — as a prelude to something new from them that we’re presenting today.

The principal news is that on on September 22nd Immortal Frost Productions will release the band’s seventh album, Unveiling the Palest Truth, which was very good news indeed, given that there was a time when it appeared Deadspace had ended its existence. The related news that we broke last week is that even before then Deadspace will release another record, an EP named Within Haunted Chambers that includes three tracks from two Deadspace albums, The Promise of Oblivion (independently released in 2015) and Dirge (released through Talheim Records in 2019), that the band re-recorded to showcase their evolution over the years in the live and studio arenas. 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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LACRAU — “DECLINIO”

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Jul 212023
 

We have paid a lot of attention here over the last six months to the Portuguese band Carma and their second album Ossadas, which was released in early March by Monumental Rex. If you haven’t heard it, you really should find the time to go to this location and do that. We have learned, however, that there are members of Carma, as well as the Portuguese band Everto Signum, that have worked together in another musical entity named Lacrau that will also release an album this year — their full-length debut.

The name of that album is Axioma, and the same Monumental Rex will release it on September 22nd. To help spread the word, we’re premiering one of its emotionally powerful tracks today.

The album is a conceptual work that grapples with an ages-old phenomenon that concerns the burdens of aging, and it’s described in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ARTANOR — “IN SERVITUDE OF DARKNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 202023
 

Although the Australian solo black metal band Artanor released a split in 2009 (and its sole creator Menelyagor released a demo three years earlier under the name Fen Hollen), there has been no follow-up until now. But as follow-ups go, the band’s forthcoming debut album In Servitude of Darkness (to be released on July 27th by Gutter Prince Cabal) is an unusually ambitious one.

Rather than a stitching-together of unconnected individual songs, it’s the creation of a cohesive soundtrack to an expansive tale of fantasy that Menelyagor has been writing, a novel that relates the conflict between the Necromancer Rakinar and his evil minions, who have lost the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, and Rakinar’s children and their allies, the Murkar. Menelyagor tells us this about the narrative and its connection to the music: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHALLENGER DEEP — “CONFIDENCE”

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Jul 202023
 

In their own words, Challenger Deep is “an experimental Belarusian band that plays an emotional, atmospheric mix of post-metal, black metal and hardcore,” whose live performances bring “a cold shower of emotions and nerves stretched to the limit, supplemented by atmospheric light show and video background.”

To date, the band have released two albums (Our Own Prisons in 2011, and Irreversible in 2014), a pair of splits (with their countrymen Barrow in 2013, and with Poland’s Hegemone in 2015), as well as a 2016 single named “Indifference“. And though there’s been a long seven years of silence since that last release, the band have brought themselves back together and are working toward the release of a new album — III. The Path — by the end of 2023.

To help pave the way, today we’re premiering a new single from the album named “Confidence“, and based on the power of what it delivers, expectations for the new full-length should be be very high. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NITE — “THE TRIDENT”

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Jul 192023
 

On their most recent album Voices of the Kronian Moon (released in March of last year by Season of Mist), the Bay Area band Nite found a rare sweet spot — often summed up by reviewers as an intersection of glorious NWoBHM riffs and leads and the venom of blackened vocals, though the heavy metal stylings woven through the songs in fact extended beyond those trad-metal references.

With a line-up featuring members of Dawnbringer, High Spirits, Satan’s Wrath, Wild Hunt, and Serpents of Dawn, perhaps it wasn’t a shock that the songs were so well-written and performed with such genuine spirit and feeling, yet the album still excelled in ways people might not have expected, and it certainly provided a big and bracing step forward from the band’s (also excellent) debut full-length, Darkness Silence Mirror Flame.

We would guess the odds are high that most visitors to our site are already quite familiar with Nite and Voices of the Kronian Moon, but some folks (whether frequent visitors or newcomers) may still not have tumbled to its manifold allures. And so today we have a great reminder, an official video for “The Trident“, the album’s hard-rocking closer. And even those of you who already know the album and the song well are in for a treat. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HIVERLUCIDE — “FOR THE ABYSS”

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Jul 192023
 

In March of this year Trepanation Recordings, Fiadh Productions, and Vita Detestabilis Records released Satan Death Whale, an experimental three-track album by the two members of the French band Non Serviam working through their side project Hiverlucide. It was recorded in live conditions and was described at the time as “their first attempt at mesmerizing through whale chants”:

“Lacking melody, and (de)generating a profoundly misanthropic atmosphere inhabitable for humans by exploring the tritone, with drone apparitions, unidentifiable organic human and animal sounds, electric guitars, and layers and layers of decadence.”

It was further suggested that fans of Sunn O))) and Tangerine Dream might find it especially appealing.

We described the album (at least in part) as an “immersive experience” but in many ways also an “unnerving one” which created manifold juxtapositions: “something like celestial choirs high above, and an immense undulating drone of subterranean depth; shrill piercing cacophonies redolent of pain and madness, moaning chords, and mutated organ-like tones that seem to ring in lunatic glory beneath the vault of an abandoned gothic cathedral; whirlpools of screaming agony bounded by the crushing of rock and the mangling of iron. A hallucinatory sonic nightmare of destruction and despair, it roils the mind and puts the teeth on edge, and to become lost in it is almost inescapable”.

Hiverlucide did not end their harrowing experiment with Satan Death Whale. They created a follow-up improvisational experience, again creating it under live conditions but this time doing it in front of an audience in their first public performance. They named this 22 1/2 minute sequel “For the Abyss“, and today we present it to you in full along with a video of the performance. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BAXAXAXA, BLUT AUS NORD, CELESTIAL, DECOHERENCE, FABRICANT, FORTIÐ, FREYA, HARM’S WAY, MANTAR, SKÁLMÖLD, THY CATAFALQUE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 182023
 


Baxaxaxa

Today is the 199th day of 2023. On this day in history, among many other instances of idiocy and abuse, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. It’s also the birthday of Nelson Mandela, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Hunter Thompson, Vin Diesel, Geno Suarez of the Seattle Mariners, and maybe you, as well as the death-day of Caravaggio, Jane Austen, Benito Juarez, Machine Gun Kelley, and hopefully not you.

It also happens to be a rare weekday when I had time to pull together a roundup of recommended new songs and videos, which has nothing to do with commemoration of any of the preceding events. There’s so much here that I’ve throttled my usual descriptive verbosity (Satan knows there’s more than enough hot air in the atmosphere today already) and left aside some of the cover art until I can upload it later today. (Presented alphabetically by band name, which led to some interesting juxtapositions).

BAXAXAXA (Germany)

Prepare for: low-end rumbling and thrumming plus grim vibrating riffage, immense jolting chugs and ethereal gothic synths, dragging tones of agony and fanatical serrated-edge yells. The experience is menacing and morbid, feral and ferocious, infernal and infectious…. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MOONLIGHT SORCERY — “VIHAN VERHON TAKAA”

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Jul 182023
 

After releasing a pair of singles and a pair of EPs since the beginning of 2022, the Finnish melodic black metal band Moonlight Sorcery will at last release a debut album entitled Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle through Avantgarde Music in September of this year.

To help pave the way, they released the most recent of those singles last month on 7″ vinyl; with the nane Burning Embrace, it included the original song ““In Coldest Embrace” (which will appear on the album), along with a B-side cover of Deep Purple‘s “Burn“.

And to further pave the way, they will digitally release another single from the album on June 21st. Its name is “Vihan verhon takaa”, and we’re bringing it to you today via the premiere stream you’ll find below. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TEMPLE OF DREAD

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Jul 182023
 

(Temple of Dread‘s new album Beyond Acheron, which features artwork by Paolo Girardi, is set for release in August by Testimony Records. Over time we’ve appreciatively written about their music on several occasions, and even premiered their last album, and today Comrade Aleks joins in, with an engaging interview of guitarist/bassist Markus Bünnemeyer.)

German death metal band Temple of Dread is another unit well-known to NCS’ readers. The trio of Markus Bünnemeyer (guitars, bass), Jörg Uken (drums) and Jens Finger (vocals) shoot out albums one after another regularly, so if you skipped their first release Blood Craving Mantras (2019) then you probably heard World Sacrifice (2020) or Hades Unleashed (2021). As good as these albums were, the new one Beyond Acheron is stronger, darker, and sometimes even more epic.

Temple of Dread’s fourth album will be officially released on August 11th by Testimony Records, but we used our chance to get in touch with the band right now.

(Thanks to Jan, SureShotWorx PR, for organizing the interview.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: IMPERCEPTUM, PLEŃ

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jul 172023
 

Yesterday I had ambitions to make the Shades of Black column a two-parter, but in a rare display of wisdom I didn’t call it that, because I wasn’t sure I would have time to finish the second part. But I did, even though I didn’t finish Part 2 in time to post it Sunday. Here it is now.

Yesterday’s first installment was devoted mainly to advance tracks from forthcoming records. Today’s just focuses on two recent albums.

IMPERCEPTUM (Germany)

Imperceptum is one of those bands I’ve been eagerly following and writing about for a long time, beginning with this Bremen-based project’s debut album Collapse of Existence, released in early 2016. Two EPs and four more albums have come out since then, the latest of which (until now) was 2020’s Entity of Undead Stars (reviewed here). Eight days ago we got another full-length, and you’ll find the stream below. I found it extraordinary. Continue reading »

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