Islander

SEEN AND HEARD: COLONY DROP, CRYPTA, MORAY, HAMMERFILOSOFI

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 272023
 

As you can see, I found just enough time after finishing today’s two premieres to jump quickly into the non-stop churn of new songs and videos and grab just a few of them to hurl your way.

COLONY DROP (U.S.)

Full disclosure: Colony Drop‘s frontperson Joseph Schafer is a very good friend, and at one time a writer for NCS who long ago helped propel us into a higher orbit before going on to become editor at Invisible Oranges, a writer at other high-profile publications such as Decibel, and a leading co-conspirator of ours in the production of Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest.

Now with that out of the way, here’s why I’d be recommending Colony Drop‘s genre-bending new song “Colony Drop (Brace For Impact)” even if the vocalist had been hooded and anonymous: because it’s one hell of a rocket ride. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK SORCERY — “GASPING FOR LIGHT UNDER A PETRINE CROSS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 272023
 

When we heard the first single from Black Sorcery‘s debut album Deciphering Torment Through Malediction it occurred to us that the album was very well-named. That song, “Erinyes Slough”, is unmistakably hateful, from the caustic lunacy of the shrieked vocals to the gut-plunder inflicted by the bassist and the rude corrosiveness of the brazen and roiling guitars. The snare drum keeps time like a metronome that’s still somehow functioning in the midst of a vicious riot.

In addition to being feral and malign, however, a feeling of torment does come through in the riffing, and about halfway through, the drums break their chains and the song transforms into a searing cataclysm that will swallow you up. There’s still something anguished about that electrifying convulsion, but a kind of medieval grandeur emerges as well. In other words, there are more facets to the track than you might guess at first.

Now we’ve got a second excerpt from this new album in advance of its July 28 release by Eternal Death, and it reinforces the impressions created by that first one — that the band’s fury is white hot, that they’re capable of sounding like they’re in the throes of demonic possession, but that they have an affinity for melody that seems like a time machine spun back to an ancient age. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DER DÖBERMANN — “BURN YOUR FIRE”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 272023
 

Here in the U.S. Judge Judy would blanch at the idea: a Russian band naming themselves after a German breed of dog that’s so dangerous many home insurance companies ban them, refusing to insure against liability if they cause injury or damage in homes where they’re kept as pets. Sure, they have a reputation for fearlessness, alertness, loyalty, and intelligence, but look at that album cover.

True enough, this gang from Saint Petersburg chose the name Der Döbermann after deciding to start thrashing together in April 2021, and now they’ve got a debut album to show for their efforts, one with the reassuring title Don’t Be Afraid, You Already Dead. We’ve got a bite of what it offers, and a sign of how it bites, in the song we’re premiering today: “Burn Your Fire“. When you hear it you’ll understand why the band chose the name they did instead of, say, Der Dachshund. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOTHER BLACK AUTUMN — “RESPLENDENT APPARITIONS AT THE DAWN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 262023
 

You’re about to hear an album that we hope you’ll find as stunning as we have. “Atmospheric Black Metal” is the simple label, but not an adequate one. It’s inspired and informed by Nature, but anyone who thinks that will lead to an experience of tree-hugging boredom will be shockingly mistaken.

The moods are almost uniformly dark, but the pathways constantly branch and the tonal ingredients, both instrumentally and vocally, are multitudinous. The music fires the senses in harrowing and thrilling ways, and it’s also capable of emotionally felling listeners in a multitude of ways, like trees brought down by both raging chainsaws and old hand axes passed down through generations. It creates sensations of confusion and distress, of chaos and terror, of loneliness and grief, and of haunting ancient mysteries that hide behind the world we see.

The two people responsible for this extraordinary experience are Meghan Wood from Crown of Asteria and Todd Paulson from Canis Dirus. They’ve taken the name Another Black Autumn for this project, and their debut album Resplendent Apparitions at the Dawn is what we’re now presenting in advance of its June 30 release by the always distinctive Fiadh Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FORMLESS OEDON

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 262023
 

(Not long ago we had the good fortune of premiering a tremendous song from a great debut album by Formless Oedon from the Philippines, coming out July 24th via their label Memento Mori, and now we have more good fortune — an interview by Comrade Aleks of all the band’s members.)

It’s a really curious case as all of our respondents today — Andrei Alemania (drums), Jonathan Miranda (guitars, bass), Rozel Nikko (vocals, guitars, bass), and Jayson Gonzales (guitars) — play in three different bands at the same time all together. They perform death metal in Nullification, they practice a sort of death/thrash metal in Desolator, and Formless Oedon became a vessel of their death metal ideas with slightly progressive and doomy edges.

Being formed in Laguna, Philippines, Formless Oedon seemed to have caught some luck and signed with the Spanish extreme metal label Memento Mori, which is preparing to release their Streams of Rot full-length album in late July. However, right now you can not only listen to their first tracks “Heavenly Abomination” and “Calcine Purification“, but also read this interview with Formless Oedon members. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): G.N.L.S., SACRENOIR, VITAPHOBIA, D.R.E.P.

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 252023
 

As forecast in Part 1 of today’s collection of blackened sounds, this Part compiles a small mountain of music — three complete albums and one complete EP. As also forecast, the music is nightmarish in different ways — some of it capable of causing skin to crawl, some of it blistering the flesh, and some of it accomplishing both objectives. But I also think the music is just as fascinating as it is frightening. I hope you’ll feel the same way.

G.N.L.S. (Greece)

Two weeks ago I wrote (here) about an album named Asphyxiating Late Night Sessions, which was a collaboration between Dødsferd‘s mastermind Wrath and m.Sarvok. But it wasn’t the sole result of their working together. Even earlier this year they released another collaborative album under the name G.N.L.S. (Geometric Nictation of Lament’s Space), and it’s a very different experience from the more recent release. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): IMPERIAL CRYSTALLINE ENTOMBMENT, WYRGHER, ASUNDER

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 252023
 

Yesterday my spouse left me home alone for most of the day (the feline creatures were still there but they mostly left me alone too). That allowed me the time to do some deep diving in a search for music to write about today. Purely by coincidence, much of what I found turned out to be… nightmarish. Some of the songs make the skin crawl, others blister it, some do both, and almost none of it seems connected to what passes for reality in our world.

What I chose adds up to an unsettling but electrifying trip of significant proportions — three individual tracks (two from forthcoming records and one standalone single) and then a plunge into the depths of longer-form madness with three complete new albums and a new EP. Hopefully you won’t find this an endurance test but instead a relentless journey of mind-altering discovery.

To get things started before too much of the day gets away, I’ve divided it into two Parts, launching the individual tracks now so I can then turn back to finishing the much larger second installment, which will come later today Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FALSE GODS, VENOMOUS ECHOES, DECOHERENCE, NUCLEAR WINTER, RITUAL DICTATES

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 242023
 


False Gods

“Excess is best?” Well, sometimes it is. In fact, given how much music NCS throws at people every day, one might even say that should be this site’s sub-header (remember when we used to change the sub-headers every week?). But today the latest edition of Rennie Resmini‘s starkweather SubStack, which landed in our in-box overnight and which asked that question in its title, made me think, “No! Not this morning!”

I already had some ideas for this round-up, and then saw Rennie‘s recommendations and bookmarked a dozen of them that I hadn’t been aware of — too many to explore in full, unless I was willing to delay this collection for many more hours, which I’d be anxious about doing. I did investigate a few of them, and you’ll see two of those below, followed by a few I’d previously found in other ways.

Hope you find something to brighten, or ruin, your weekend, even including the astonishing curveball I’ve thrown you at the end. More selections of a blackened variety coming tomorrow…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALKALOID, FILTH IS ETERNAL, OMNIVORTEX, TÁLTOS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 232023
 

Once again I’m beginning what I hope will be a three-stage march backward through some of the better metal I came across over the past week, most of it brand new and some of it only newly discovered. Stage One is today, with the next two stages planned for the weekend. (None of the stages will include the bludgeoning and blistering new Cannibal Corpse song, but only because you probably already know about that one).

ALKALOID (Germany)

The last time I included Alkaloid in one of these round-ups we had news and cover art to share, but no music from their forthcoming third album Numen. Now we do. You might assume from the song’s title — “Clusterfuck” — that Alkaloid are going to throw your head into an instrumental blender set to liquefy, but if so you might be surprised.

I read this in a press release before listening to the song: “‘Clusterfuck‘ might have a clean and catchy chorus, but even the fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose around the four-minute mark is crushed like an ant between colliding moons”.

I also read the following comment from the band (now a quartet consisting of Morean (vocals, guitars, concepts), Hannes Grossmann (drums), Christian Münzner (guitars), and Linus Klausenitzer (bass)), which reveals that the song’s title has perhaps more to do with its subject matter than its sounds: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WILT — “HUGINN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 232023
 

Today the Canadian atmospheric black metal band Wilt and their label Vendetta Records are releasing a new album named Huginn (though some purists may prefer to label it an EP). It comes as something of a surprise, since it wasn’t preceded by a single or advance publicity, but it is a very welcome surprise.

It’s certainly a welcome development here, as anyone would know who has come across our previous writings about Wilt’s music, including our comments about their 2015 debut album Moving Monoliths or our review of their second album Ruin in 2018. To pick out just a few choice words from the latter:

“[T[he masterful blending of dark metallic melody and dreamlike serenity found on Ruin makes a very good case that this undeniably talented (though underwhelmingly named) Canadian quintet deserve serious consideration as potential heirs to Agalloch’s vacant mantle (pun very much intended). Of course it’s not so much that Wilt sound exactly like Haughm, Dekker, and co., it’s more that the group’s sombre, evocative style examines and explores many of the same musical themes and ideas, although never in exactly the same way”.

Five years on from Ruin, and Agalloch have reassembled themselves, but Wilt have returned as well. These haven’t been five good years for the world at large, and all the dire and dreadful experiences they delivered have influenced what you will hear on Huginn. Here is what Wilt have told us about it: Continue reading »

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