Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HELLCRASH — “DEMONIC ASSASSINATION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 222023
 

When we premiered the second single from the new Hellcrash album in early February we introduced it this way: “It’s time for a rude ‘n’ crude celebration of filth, fury, and fun! Plus sickness, sleaze, and slaughter!”

It seemed like a fitting prelude to the hell-raising experience of Demonic Assassination, which is now racing toward a lavish March 24 release by Dying Victims Productions, but we also  observed, for those who might not have encountered the band’s debut album Krvcifix Invertör, that Hellcrash “follow in the cloven-hooved footsteps of such groups as Bulldozer, Slayer, and Venom, whipping up a gnashing and pulse-pounding convulsion of blackened thrash and speed metal”.

And we also pointed out that while all those ingredients revealed in the debut album still make up the high-octane fuel for the new album, Demonic Assassination provides even more variety and an even tighter execution. Today you’ll see what we meant for yourselves, because we’ve got the full album stream for you today. Continue reading »

BIZARRE PLAYLISTS TO PISS OFF YOUR NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER II

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 222023
 

 

(Yesterday we presented Chapter I of a “bizarre playlist” compiled by Axel Stormbreaker, and there was more to come… which comes now…)

And now we’re back to our exciting installment(s) after this short, commercial break. This sneaky lil’ bugger just had to rearrange playlists in two parts for them being too fucking long.

I think my neighbors may have ordered about a dozen rocket launchers by now. Next thing I know I’ll be finding an armored tank waiting for me at my porch. It’s best I start with the artsy stuff for a change before moving on to obscure ballsy metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VISION DEPRIVED — “SELF ELEVATING, DEEP INSIDE THE VOID”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 212023
 

In a search for analogies it’s tempting to compare Milan-based Vision Deprived‘s new album to a musical roller-coaster ride. It’s packed with twists and turns, ups and downs; it gets the adrenaline flowing; it frequently pops our eyes wide open; and it’s scary. But it’s not the kind of trip that’s likely to leave riders laughing it off when it’s time to dismount, and the twists are… twisted… in ways that can become unsettling because they’re so unhinged. You can hear and feel the rails under a roller-coaster car, but what would happen if that sense of being attached were to vanish?

Self Elevating, Deep Inside The Void is the album’s name, and even the title suggests leaving the rails and any other tangible boundaries, which is pretty much what happens as you make your way through the record. What you might not expect from the title is that the music is usually firestorm-fast and decimating, as well as completely dazzling in its madhouse instrumental escapades through a dystopian hellscape. Continue reading »

BIZARRE PLAYLISTS TO PISS OFF YOUR NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER I

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 212023
 

(Attempting to sum up what’s coming in the following article would be a daunting task. So we’ll just say that it’s the work of Axel Stormbreaker and his musical guests, and like the title says, it’s bizarre [but cool]. There’s at least one other Chapter coming too,)

Oh, hi there, it’s your annoying neighbor, again. Here’s my recent list of muzick that has been terrorizing folks who live nearby. True story that, I once fell asleep while digging sounds, only to find notes such as ”TURN IT DOWN” delivered to my doorstep.

Now, I informed NCS it’s best to maintain a certain consistency among styles and I think I sort of got it, yeah, or whatever. Even without the other half of my original list, it still looks too bizarre. So, just chin up and enjoy, life’s too short, or time’s not enough to indulge in all the cool music that’s out there. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TRIBUNAL

 Interviews  1 Response »
Mar 212023
 


Photo by Liam Kanigan

(We thank Comrade Aleks for the following very engaging interview he conducted with Etienne Flinn and Soren Mourne, whose new album under the name Tribunal is out now on 20 Buck Spin — and we thank them too for their time and their music!)

Vancouver-based duo Tribunal was founded by Etienne Flinn (vocals, guitars) and Soren Mourne (cello, bass, vocals) in 2019. Their passion towards doom metal pushed them further and further until seven songs which they recorded with a few guest musicians drew the attention of 20 Buck Spin. Thus their delightfully elegant and mournful full-length album The Weight of Remembrance was released in January 2023, and has already got well-deserved positive feedback.

Tribunal preaches the mix of traditional doom metal with elements of death-doom, but Soren’s vocals and cello let both the band and the label use the “gothic doom” tag to describe this material. Okay, then let’s try to dig out what gothic doom means here with the help of Soren and Etienne. Continue reading »

SPIRIT POSSESSION: “OF THE SIGN…”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 202023
 

(Here we present Hope Gould‘s evocative review of the new album by Oregon-based Spirit Possession, which is nearing its March 31 release by Profound Lore Records.)

The year is 1987. You’ve got weekend plans to take your girl to see Dirty Dancing and the world isn’t even close to being sick of Rick Astley. Not long ago, Venom unleashed their brand of Satanic alcohol-sodden proto-thrash upon England. Soon after, a kid from Sweden built upon that sound by infusing the epic mid-tempos of Manowar and really hammered home the Satan-thing in a little project called Bathory. Hellhammer stripped it all down with their raw, punky approach, a German band called Sodom played speed metal riffs with a similar primitive execution, then Celtic Frost pushed all the limits with a more sophisticated songcraft that managed to keep all the bite.

It is this moment in time, upheld by raw aggression and suspended between definitive genres, that Portland’s Spirit Possession have set their flux capacitor. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HERETIC CULT REDEEMER — “GRAVE SOPHIA – BREATH OF THE NIGHTSIDE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 202023
 

In April the Greek band Heretic Cult Redeemer will see the release of their third album, Flagellum Universalis, via the label III Damnation. Now featuring a lineup consisting of vocalist/bassist Funus, guitarist/bassist Tempest, guitarist N3, and drummer C. Docre, the band have created a nearly hour-long work that represents a spiritual and philosophical journey, one that explores “the primeval human urge of opposition to law and structure”, in which the band have used themselves “as the means, harbingers, and vessels of Luciferian and Promethean teachings, as expressed through the frenzy, of the touch of Echidna.”

The music is unconventional and often uncomfortable. It operates on multiple planes of experience, as elaborate and strange as it is visceral in its effects. It maintains linkages to second-wave black metal, but inventively spirals off into other directions and dimensions that become head-spinning… and ruinous. It won’t go too far to say that this is avant-garde black metal of a high order, even if that’s a term the band themselves might not use

It’s not music that’s easy to sum up. We’ve struggled to conceive of words sufficient to even a single song, but that song — “Grave Sophia – Breath of Nightside” — is so startling that it compels us to try. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NETHERMANCY — “THE FALL OF MAN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 202023
 

Nethermancy brandish their devotion to evil black metal right in the title of their new album Worship Evil Sacrifice, not to mention the cover image, and they do a damned effective job carrying their devotion into the hellish nightmare realms their music creates.

These Portuguese practitioners have not hurried their blasphemous work. Their discography shows a decade-long gap between their first and second albums, and six years have passed between this new full-length (their fourth album) and the last one before it (2017’s Magick Halls of Ascension). Not surprisingly, there have also been some line-up changes since the band’s birth in 1996. But Nethermancy‘s devotion to the oldest black metal roots hasn’t changed. They’ve only sharpened the cutting edge of their blades, re-fueled their torches so they blaze even brighter, and supercharged their venomous rage. Continue reading »

BLASPHEMY, PRAYERS, AND THE CALLOUSNESS THAT FOLLOWS: TRIBE OF PAZUZU, SARCOPTES, AND TONGUE SCUM

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Mar 202023
 

(Sacramento-based writer DGR pulled together the following reviews of albums that surfaced over the last 30 days.)

The tour through the world of heavy metal continues, this time covering a good portion of the planet as we carve our way from Canada through the States and land in Australia for three suitably intense and mind-scarringly mean experiences that saw recent release. We begin with names familiar to longtime NCS readers and end on someone new but a group that’ll instantly appeal to the wall-punchers as decorative artists among our readers.

Tribe Of Pazuzu – Blasphemous Prophecies

It hadn’t occurred to us around here that it had been close to three years for the Canadian crew Tribe Of Pazuzu when it came to the gap between releases, nor the fact that Blasphemous Prophecies represents the group’s official first full-length album.

For those who haven’t been wandering around these fetid halls for a while, Tribe Of Pazuzu unleashed two EPs in late 2019 and early 2020 entitled Heretical Uprising and King Of All Demons. With the year-over-year churn on those particular EPs and each of them clocking in at a stocky five songs and near-twenty minutes each, it felt like the combination of the two together – which the band would eventually release in 2021 – was their debut full-length. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: OLD FOREST, AFSKY, UKĆ, LE PROCHAIN HIVER, MOTSTAND, HYRGAL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 192023
 


Old Forest

I often rely on the recommendations of friends in deciding how to spend my listening time, and then deciding what to recommend to you. I like rooting around myself, like a truffle-sniffing pig, but after pouring a fair amount of time into yesterday’s big roundup I wasn’t left with a lot of sniffing and rooting time, and therefore took my lead from friends for much of what’s coming below. They didn’t let me down, and hopefully I won’t let you down with these choices either.

OLD FOREST (UK)

I had to start today’s collection with a new song by Old Forest because I found it so immediately captivating. I’m not steeped in the band’s extensive discography (seven albums and a bunch of shorter releases going back to 1998), but Neill Jameson is, and he introduced Decibel’s premiere of the song last week with a brief history.

The new track, “Master of Arachnids”, is from a forthcoming album named Sutwyke, which Neill lauded as “easily the band’s best full length since their phantasmagoric re-materialization” in 2008 following a long hiatus: “Taking elements from all eras of their discography (including the clean vocals, though somewhat more subdued) this is also their most jet-black record showing that there is still plenty of (un)life in these bones”.

Well, that was more than enough temptation to dive into “Master of Arachnids”. Continue reading »

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