Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: SPEEDWHORE — “HOLOGRAM”

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Apr 242023
 

This is one of those times when it feels right to just dive headlong into the song we’re premiering, and then come back to fill in the details after you’ve had a chance to extricate yourself from those giant talons on the album cover and attempt to catch your breath.

It takes almost no time at all for “Hologram” to create a mood of feral, lusting exultation. The drumming is loose and raucous. The high-toned riffing writhes, jolts, and rises up in manifestations of diabolical glory. The bass tones feel like bubbling madness. When the vocals finally arrive, they sound like a big rabid beast that can’t be brought to heel.

The song rocks damned hard but it also takes off like a scampering devil-punk careening off the walls as the guitar screams, and the band also launch into a bracing gallop as the foundation for a delirious guitar solo that kicks the music’s diabolical energy further into the blood-spraying red zone. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DHISHTI — “MARUDEPAWILLA”

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Apr 242023
 

For most people reading these words the island nation of Sri Lanka is at least half a world away geographically, and many worlds away in its history, culture, and the roots of its internal divisions. Life Is Suffering, the forthcoming third album by the Sri Lankan black metal band Dhishti, is conceptually based upon ancient traditions and practices that still exist in the country, and current ills to which they are connected. Even the band’s name invokes ancient beliefs. Here is the explanation we have been provided:

“The name Dhishti is a Sinhalese term which holds the meaning of demonic possessions. In the ancient times the people of the small Indian oceanic island of Sri Lanka believed mental illnesses are in-fact demonic processions caused by evil spirits, or Dhishti, and conducted various occult rituals and ceremonies (Thovil) to treat the effected….

“The album speaks about these beliefs, rituals and prophecies which are still to this date followed by certain groups of people…. The album’s lyrics are written in an older form of the native language, which originated over 2000 years ago. The language was selected specifically due to these rituals being originally carried out in the language of Sinhala, and to translate it into any other language would take away its originality and authenticity.” Continue reading »

PORTRAYAL OF GUILT: “DEVIL MUSIC”

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Apr 242023
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of Texan outfit Portrayal of Guilt‘s new album, which is out now via via Run For Cover Records.)

Uncompromising and confrontational are two words that should be used when describing artists who use heavy music as their medium. You read that right. An artist, not a band. The best-case scenario is a band of artists, but when you are talking about a project that takes the kind of sonic risks Portrayal of Guilt does, the conversation turns to an art form.

These Texans do not play by the rules of heavy music, nor do they care. They make cathartic darkness, which is why they are one of my favorite new heavy vehicles of chaos for my ears. Their new album conforms when they feel like it. They used atmosphere and jarring dissonance to paint hellish portraits of inner pain externalized. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIONE, IDOLOS, THE ARCANE ORDER, DÉMONOS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 232023
 

I probably went way overboard with yesterday’s 11-band roundup of new songs and videos. I could have done the same today, but decided to show a little restraint. There’s still a lot of music to be found below, with two complete EPs as well as two advance songs from forthcoming albums.

I’m also happy with the way this came together, because in very different ways (some more adventurous than others) all the music is head-spinning.

DIONE (Poland)

The debut EP of the solo black metal project Dione seemed to appear out of nowhere when it was released yesterday. No previous releases under that name, though M-A does point to its creator’s previous involvement in a few other projects (which themselves don’t have many releases to their credit). This just makes the appeal of the four songs on Cosmosphere even more startling. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AETHERIAN, APHONIC THRENODY, ARKONA, ASCENDED DEAD, ASHBRINGER, DÅÅTH, DEATH OF GIANTS, HOLY DEATH, IMMORTAL, NOCTURNAL TYRANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 222023
 

Saturdays are usually days when I pick a handful of new songs and videos to recommend, accompanied by some of my own peerless prose (HA!). But as I waded through possibilities this morning it quickly dawned on me that there was just way too fucking much stuff for me to pare down to a handful without experiencing some mental agony in making the choices.

So, I’ve thrown up my hands and resorted to this “Overflowing Streams” format, where you will find a lot more music than in the usual “Seen and Heard” columns, a lot fewer of my own words (dry your eyes), and very little cover art — other than Yoann Lossel’s stunning artwork “Les Fleurs du Mal”, which is on the cover of the new album by the first band in this roundup.

Today the musical arrangement is alphabetical by band name (heavily weighted by the A’s). I’m deferring most of the black metal discoveries until tomorrow.

AETHERIAN (Greece)

Wonderful news to see that this Greek melodic death metal band are returning with a new album, six years after their fantastic full-length debut, The Untamed Wilderness. They say this marks “the start of a new era for Aetherian“, and it appears that they’ve added a couple of new guitarists to an already formidable lineup. The first sign of what the new album brings is a lyric video for the song “Army of Gaia“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ETERNAL STORM, HESPER PAYNE, THUNRAZ, BEFORE THE DAWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 212023
 

Oh hell what a week it’s been. One of those weeks when I’ve barely had time to write up the premieres I agreed to do, much less focus on other new music and videos. So now I’m staring at all the links to the stuff I wanted to check out, featuring big names known to all and names I’ve never seen before. Time is still short, but I’d better make a start and then hope to fill in more tomorrow and Sunday.

ETERNAL STORM (Spain)

In 2019 we gave a lot of attention to this Spanish band’s debut album Come the Tide. It popped up on a lot of the year-end lists we posted, and a lot of year-end lists at other sites acclaimed it as well.

To quote only from our own staff, Andy Synn (who included Come the Tide on his list of 2019’s Great Albums) wrote that “if there’s one band who might just be able to kickstart a brand new Melodic Death revolution, it’s Eternal Storm“, and DGR (who put the album at No. 14 on his year-end list) summed it up as “a master class of progressive death and melodeath hybridization that makes an hour just fly by”. And for my part, I hosted a song premiere and then put a different song on our list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASBEST — “CYANIDE FOR BREAKFAST”

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Apr 212023
 

The Swiss noise rock band Asbest have been moving toward the May 19 release of their new album Cyanide in leaps and bounds. Beginning last fall they dropped a single, and then leaped… coming to earth a month later with another one… and then landing with another one a few months later… and another one a few months after that. Each one has been made available digitally, and each one has been an eye-opener.

The most recent of the singles is “Cyanide for Breakfast“. It landed last month. It might be the last single before the album release by A Tree In A Field Records / Czar Of Crickets Productions, but there’s still one more Asbest landing before then — a fascinating video for that same song that we’re presenting today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CORPUS NECROMANTHUM — “CORPUS TACTUS”

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Apr 212023
 

Today we want to focus your attention on two new songs from the forthcoming debut album by the Costa Rican black/death metal band Corpus Necromanthum, an album described as a conceptual work that leads us “through the harrowing story of a necromancer and his forced transformation into nothing”.

The first of those songs, “Tar Uritharhain“, has been out in the world for a couple of weeks. Its overture is made of simple ingredients — the reverberation of deep booming drum, with the space between them filled with gasping sounds that might be breaths or may be the wind, and by haunted wailing tones that might or might not be human — but it very effectively creates an unearthly chill.

Having thus set their stage in a supernatural dimension, the band begin to kick the adrenaline into high gear with vicious, head-hooking riffage and neck-snapping beats. From there, things get even more unhinged. The guitars come in attacking swarms, the drums spit bullets at high speed; and monstrously imperious roars rise up from abyssal depths and elevate further into terrorizing screams.

The changes continue. The layered guitars, while relentlessly frenzied, send flames toward the heavens and create an atmosphere of frightening splendor. The drums relentlessly switch gears, and so do the spine-tingling vocals (but they sound even more insane). Melodies of despair and agony flow through the tumult in piercing tones. There’s structure in the songwriting, but the feeling of destructive chaos never really diminishes. Continue reading »

THE PERILS OF AI: IS METAL IN THE CROSS-HAIRS?

 Mosh Pit  5 Responses »
Apr 202023
 


Painting by Paolo Girardi (for Voracious Lunacy, a 2022 split release by Heresy and Exorcizphobia)

These days a lot of people are expelling a lot of hot and cold air and a tremendous volume of written words about Artificial Intelligence (AI).  There’s no consensus about whether AI will be a boon to human life or a dire peril, but everyone paying any attention to the phenomenon seems to agree that the technology will bring about stunning changes — and damned fast, so fast that our slow meat brains won’t be able to react quickly enough to tame the wild dangers it could unleash.

Those of us who’ve been life-long consumers of science fiction already have vivid visions of both the utopian and the dystopian futures that AI could produce, but what used to be only visions are rapidly becoming realities. The scale isn’t yet vast, but in small ways and large, we’re getting there, and for most of us there’s not much we can do about it, for better or worse. Anyone who thinks unregulated markets can be trusted to prevent AI-spawned damage haven’t thought hard enough, but anyone who thinks government regulators can find workable and timely answers is probably equally oblivious.

Small ways and large… In the grand scheme of things, what AI will do to entertainment, and more specifically to the creation of music, ranks on the smaller end of the scale. But in that niche the changes wrought by AI may occur as fast as anywhere else. As we shall see, the changes have already begun. Although those changes don’t yet seem to have made a noticeable impact in the micro-niches of extreme metal, the possibility provides food for thought. My own thought is that the risks to the kind of music we pay attention to at this site are likely to remain low (though I admit this might be wishful thinking). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAEDEOUS — “MALUM SUPPLICIUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 202023
 

Our first in-depth exposure to the music of the Portuguese symphonic black metal band Caedeous was last year, when we premiered their third album, Obscurus Perpetua. When we did that, we advised listeners “to take your seats and get a firm grip on something solid before embarking on this journey”, because we found the album to be “a dazzling, diabolical, and disorienting trip through the imperiums of Hell”:

“The music is elaborate and unpredictable, theatrical and bombastic, sometimes breathtaking in its splendor but always as scary as your worst nightmares. Fascinating music, to be sure, but also demented and intensely unnerving.”

And now we’re re-connecting with Caedeous just one year later because they’ve made a new album, and once again we’re hosting its full streaming premiere. The name of the new one is Malum Supplicium. Like its two predecessors, it’s a concept album, one that “thematically tells horror stories inspired by Lovecraft, Barker and Alighierie‘s works — the eternal struggle between good and evil, angels and demons, heaven and hell”. Continue reading »

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