Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DREAM UPON TOMBS — “THE CALL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

The Australian melodic black/death metal band Dream Upon Tombs has been dreaming in tombs over the course of a 20-year slumber. After the release of a demo (Black Tales of Sorrow And Damnation) in 1997, nothing further was to be heard until another demo (Marble Night In Ecstasy) surfaced in 2020. And now, at last, a debut album named Palaces of Dust is on the horizon.

Founding member and guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Jak Shadows found reasons to begin anew, joined on the album by David (guitar, keys, strings, bass) and Jarrad Taylor (drums). He explains the album’s animating inspiration in these words:

“When mortality has been laid to rest, the streams of existence become a blood ocean unto a distant shore – a land beyond this time, un-chartable; sought by many and ruled by none…”

To help introduce the album, today we’re presenting an official lyric video for a song named “The Call” in advance of the record’s March 3rd release by Sleeping Church Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABADDON INCARNATE — “VERITAS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262023
 

Last August Transcending Obscurity Records detonated a new album by the Irish band Abaddon Incarnate, and we sat back and happily watched the shrapnel fly, cutting through everyone who didn’t have the good sense to duck and cover. Our reviewer DGR found the brutality, rage, and vitriol channeled by the band’s formulation of death/grind to be a welcome catharsis. He spilled many words about The Wretched Sermon, including these:

Ten of the thirteen songs on The Wretched Sermon don’t even cross the three-minute mark and many of them are an excuse for drummer Olan Parkinson to just blast things into oblivion while a high-low vocal attack hits with about as much percussiveness as their drummer does. The highlights on that front come early, as both “Veritas” and “Gateways” make for a good one-two boxing combo in the opening minutes of this album after the band race through the initial death metal gurglings of “Rising Of The Lights” – whose opening riff sounds like something straight out of the world of Centinex before Abaddon Incarnate lean hard into “tear heads off’” mode.

We quote that passage because “Veritas” is the song that’s the focus of a video we’re premiering today. It’s a good reminder of what a hell-raising album this is, and a good introduction to people who might not have crossed paths with it last year. Continue reading »

PROFANE ORDER: “ONE NIGHTMARE UNTO ANOTHER”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

 

(Hope Gould returns to NCS with the following review of a new album by the Montréal extreme metal band Profane Order, which is due for release tomorrow.)

Look, I get it. Some genres aren’t exactly known for their ingenuity. Whether to you it’s called war metal, bestial black metal, or it’s just some grind-black-death bastardization, this style is often written off as ‘uninspired noise’ by even the most extreme metal connoisseurs. Reliably cacophonous, always chaotic and peppered with pick-scrapes aplenty, I find it most effective to approach new releases in the genre with criteria of how memorable the full listen really is. While Profane Order certainly don’t give a fuck what you think, their second full-length is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.

One Nightmare Unto Another is set for release for tomorrow, January 27th. The aptly titled sophomore album ushers in an entirely new nightmare featuring the Montreal duo’s most uncompromising work yet, full of spastic nuances you’re not going to hear on “just another war metal record.” Illusory and Olcadóir whet their blades on the old school death metal edge they really cut their teeth on in 2019’s well-received Slave Morality. Their first full-length was a bit of a shift from the straight-ahead bestial assault on the preceding EP but called back the grinding crust punk structures of their 2016 demo. (Seriously, it’s worth visiting every nightmare the band has cooked up). Material this ruthless often works best in small but heavy hits; even Slayer’s immortal Reign in Blood clocks in just shy of twenty-nine minutes. Profane Order tap into the same dark ancient magick, opening the throttle on a twenty-five minute wholly satisfying hellride. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MAZE OF SOTHOTH, ANOXIA, STREET TOMBS, TENTACULT, ISOLANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 252023
 

As of last night I had this round-up all ready to go. I mean, I still needed to do the writing, but I had picked a selection of music from five new releases that I thought would go really well together, and they all had fine cover art too. And then this morning I found some more just-released gems within the Niagara Falls of e-mails that crashed into our in-box overnight. What to do?

As you can tell, I decided to turn this mid-week round-up into a two-parter. Part 1 sticks with what I decided to do last night. Part 2 will include the new stuff I spotted this morning. Part 2 isn’t written yet, which means you won’t see it ’til tomorrow. Something else will probably hit our in-box overnight that will make it even longer.

MAZE OF SOTHOTH (Italy)

We’ve had a six-year gap since this band’s debut album Soul Demise, which we premiered here and reviewed here. But at last they have a new full-length named Extirpated Light that’s headed our way on March 24th via Everlasting Spew Records. And based on the first single, it sounds like the intervening years have brought some changes in their sound, which Metal-Archives previously labeled Technical Death Metal, even though that label was missing a lot of necessary nuance. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEAD WILL WALK — “A NEW DAY OF DAWNING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 252023
 

The Dutch band Dead Will Walk pack six songs into their new EP A New Day of Dawning, and you’ll get to hear every one of them today in advance of the record’s January 27th release. Horror and ferocity await you in this music, with its roots sunk deep into the fetid earth of death metal from decades past, but delivered with the killing efficiency of modern mechanized armaments and the kind of songwriting chops that make the songs highly addictive. We share these thoughts from the band:

Our goal for this release was to write songs that underline our roots for the old school underground scene. Here we have tried to convey the same feeling as from the glory days of death metal. Thoughtful songs that remain listenable and always have a small twitch. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we wanted to record an EP that wouldn’t look out of place in a record collection from the late eighties or early nineties.

The humility in that comment is admirable, and so the task is left to us to explain just how damned good A New Day of Dawning really is and why it definitely should not be overlooked in the vast seas of old school death metal that now surround us. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): SPIRITWORLD, WEREWOLVES, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 252023
 

Unlike in a few past years, this year I’ve had time to complete and post a new installment of this list every weekday since I started rolling it out. What I’ve got ahead of me today created a serious risk I wouldn’t get this 18th Part finished in time. So, in a hurry, I’ll truncate the intro:

OK boys and girls, it’s time to tear off your clothes and go running wild into the streets! Unless you’re over 40, and then it might be best if you kept your clothes on, out of consideration for the neighbors.

SPIRITWORLD (U.S.)

If you’ve never seen SpiritWorld live on stage I strongly encourage you to beg, borrow, or steal whatever you need to buy a ticket and get to a show, even if the closest venue is Siberia. I saw them play Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle last year, and man, what a fucking revelation that was. I’d only heard a few songs off their first album, and their second one (Deathwestern) wasn’t due out until five months later, so I didn’t have a very good idea of to expect. I sure as hell didn’t know how they’d be dressed. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): OBITUARY, BLOODBATH, REVOCATION

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 


Obituary

Big-name musical artists usually have big names for valid reasons, because at one time or another they made music that became hugely popular. In the world of extreme metal, I think it’s fair to say that it’s tough to become hugely popular unless, at one time or another, the music was also really good. Pretty faces, stylish clothes, and slick videos are few and far between and they don’t count for much in this world anyway, and active PR machines will only move the needle so far.

But note that I keep saying “at one time or another.” That’s because some bands got hugely popular and earned their big names and then continued trading on that popularity long after the music sunk into mediocrity, or worse. But that didn’t happen with the three bands whose songs are the subject of this Part of our list. They’re still earning their big names, and even though our putrid site doesn’t spend a lot of time applauding bands who don’t need any help from us, we still do it from time to time… and today is one of those times.

OBITUARY (U.S.)

Here’s Exhibit A in the proof that some big-name bands don’t forget where they came from and still have the fire in the belly and the songwriting talent to turn out a great album 35 fucking years after they started. Here’s also Exhibit A in the proof that I have a very malleable rule about the timing of songs that qualify for this list. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MONDOCANE — “ULTIMA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 

The Swedish solo black metal project Mondocane has been on a heated creative run since the pandemic began (perhaps spawned by the lockdown), starting with a self-titled debut EP in 2021 and continuing through a pair of albums, one that same year (Dvala) and another last year (Gloria, briefly reviewed here), and then a split release last year as well (also reviewed here, along with a premiere).

But despite such a fast and ferocious start, Mondocane isn’t slowing down for a nice nap. There’s already another record named Ultima that will be released sometime in the first part of this new year. We don’t yet have a lot of details about it, but we do have the title track, and it makes us even more grateful that Mondocane have kept the creative fires burning. It’s also further proof that Mondocane’s stylistic influences are more expansive than conventional Scandinavian black metal, and the music is all the better for that. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FROM BEYOND

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 

(Those for whom Lovecraft is their nightmare food and for whom progressive blackened death metal makes a fine condiment will relish the following interview by Comrade Aleks of the duo who make up the Portuguese band From Beyond.)

I bet that we should thank Gordon Stuart for his poisonous gem of the VHS-era named after H. P. Lovecraft’s story From Beyond, for Stuart was the one who inspired a few bands with his video adaptation of that horrible story of scientific fanaticism, madness, murder, and nightmarish beings from another world.

Two guys from Portugal’s Porto founded a quite progressive band transferring their occult visions in a form of blackened death metal. Chronicler (guitars, bass, drum programming) and Innsmouthian (vocals) released their first album The Great Old Ones on the 12th of December 2022, and we’re going to talk about this work while it’s fresh and hot. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): BLACKBRAID, PUTRID, GUDSFORLADT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  1 Response »
Jan 232023
 

We have seven weekdays left before the end of January, which marks my self-imposed ending of this list. Seven days before I ought to stop, and like every other year, the impending end adds to my anxiety levels because I know I have so many more songs I’d like to include and not enough room to include them all. To begin this final seven-day stretch I decided to concentrate on shades of black metal.

BLACKBRAID (U.S.)

Seemingly out of nowhere this indigenous black metal project from the Adirondacks made a big splash in 2022 with a debut album denominated I. The size of the splash was measured by how often it appeared on year-end lists, both here and in many other locations across the web. For those of you who somehow missed the album despite all the attention and acclaim it received, I’ll borrow some words from Andy Synn’s NCS review: Continue reading »

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