Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: SHORES OF NULL — “AN EASY WAY” (AND A REVIEW OF “LATITUDES OF SORROW”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Latitudes of Sorrow is a new five-song split featuring the music of two bands whose past music has garnered substantial praise both here and elsewhere: Convocation from Helsinki and Shores of Null from Rome. The esteemed Everlasting Spew Records will release the split on November 21st.

At the beginning of this month we had the privilege of premiering one of Convocation’s compelling songs from the split, “Empty Room,” and now we’re following that with the premiere of “An Easy Way” by Shores of Null. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GRILO DO DEMO

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Oct 222025
 

(The eyes and ears of Moonsorrow fans should perk up today because of the following interview Comrade Aleks has brought us, the principal subject of which is a new book about the band based on extensive interviews of Moonsorrow’s members. Aleks will introduce the author.)

I hadn’t heard of Grilo do Demo, but Moonsorrow fans are likely familiar with his unofficial and, at the time, fairly detailed biography of the band, which he consistently posted online about fifteen years ago. An enthusiastic journalist, he wrote for a couple of webzines until he met Leo Aragon, who had the idea of ​​making a documentary about Moonsorrow, using that very biography as a basis.

The band was ready to meet him halfway, and the friends and a couple of like-minded individuals traveled to Finland, where they conducted extensive video interviews with the musicians and those involved on the spot. The film’s production stalled at some moment, and you’ll know why from this interview… However, such valuable material, of course, was unlikely to lose its relevance, and the movie’s crew didn’t want to waste the momentum, so over time, they agreed that the footage could supplement Grilo‘s biography. The rest, as they say, is history…

What do we have now? As Cult Never Dies, the publisher, states: Home of the Waves: Conversations with Moonsorrow is a substantial 388-page hardback, featuring a 24-page colour photo gallery and a total of 150 images, most of which have never been seen before. You can pre-order it, and if you’re really into this, here’s the interview with Grilo himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MIASMIC SERUM — “BETTER LEFT DEAD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 212025
 

(written by Islander)

Last year we had the ghoulish pleasure of reviewing and premiering a full stream of Infected Seed, the debut album from the Italian band Miasmic Serum, which we called “one of the most thrilling and accomplished death metal assaults of the year so far.”

We are fortunate that Miasmic Serum are already back with a new EP named Better Left Dead that will be released on October 24th by Iron Fortress Records, and equally fortunate to be the bearer of another full streaming premiere.

Whereas that debut album was thematically focused on poisons, venoms, and hallucinogens, for this new EP the band have drawn inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft, and in particular his short story “Herbert West – Reanimator” and the cult 1985 film adaptation Re-Animator. The EP also features the band’s new vocalist Riccardo Marconato (Afraid Of Destiny). Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XXI: HALLOWEEN & CHILLING RIFFS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 212025
 

(Daniel Barkasi is back with another monthly collection of carefully chosen obscurities, providing vivid and enthusiastic reviews of six fine albums released in September of this year.)

As I begin to write this in an airport, heading to Pittsburgh on a shockingly delayed flight – helping out the folks with a few things, seeing a great friend who has struggled with some awful health issues (love you, Darren), and the Under Appalachian Skies festival (which has concluded by the time you read this, and it was an incredible time) — it’s dawned on me how wild of a year it’s been, yet it’s gone by so damn fast. Hope everyone is hanging in there best you can!

I wanted to also give my deepest appreciation to those who gave their condolences for our dog Kaiya last month. Those kind words went a long way, and it meant a lot.

Halloween is rapidly approaching, and it’s the season of Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins and good horror flicks. If anyone has any good suggestions, I’m all ears! There’s a ton of Korean films and series that I want to check out, as some of the best productions are coming from there, and have for some time. We also went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando recently and had a blast! If anyone ever finds themselves in the swamp at this time of year, it’s definitely worth your time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VICTIM OF REALITY — “DESPERATION”

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Oct 202025
 

(written by Islander)

In this feature we share with you a powerful new discovery, the Belarusian band Victim of Reality, and an excerpt from their forthcoming debut album The Dump of Human Hopes.

You can anticipate from the name of the band, the name of the album, and the record’s cover art that they don’t make happy music. Instead, they devote themselves to old school atmospheric doom/death, drawing influence from the likes of My Dying Bride, Swallow the Sun, Saturnus, Evoken, and Funeral.

Here is how the labels that will release the album portray the impact of the band’s music: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GLORIOUS DEPRAVITY — “NECROBOTIC ENSLAVEMENT”

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Oct 202025
 

(written by Islander)

Before anyone in the public at large heard a note, it was predictable that the new album by Glorious Depravity would get lots of attention. First and foremast, there’s the band’s lineup, which includes members of Pyrrhon, Gravesend, Woe, Scarcity, and more. And then… well hell… look at that extraordinary cover painting by Dan Seagrave. If you’re a fan of extreme metal, it’s damned tough to see that and not want to hear what’s inside.

The new album, Death Never Sleeps, isn’t this band’s first strike. They launched that with their Ageless Violence debut album on Translation Loss almost five years ago, and the solid strength of that one provided yet another reason to expect the new one would seize attention. This time around, the attention is even more well-deserved because the band have stepped up their game in multiple ways.

There’s commanding proof of Glorious Depravity‘s advancement in the two songs from the new album that have debuted so far, and we have further proof in our premiere today of a third one — “Necrobotic Enslavement“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: THE STONE, NIMBIFER, SYLLOGOMANIA, RAAT, ANAGNEIA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 192025
 

(written by Islander)

Only five selections today, but there’s still a lot here — three EP-length records and a complete album, in addition to a lead-off song by a respected Balkan band from their next full-length. (Having more time to pursue my own perfidious activities is one silver lining to the personal cloud of enduring my wife’s absence while she’s off partying with one of her two sisters in Nevada this weekend.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WILD BEYOND, FELL RUIN, OF WOLVES, TENEBRIS, BELL WITCH & AERIAL RUIN, SOULFRACTURE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 182025
 

(written by Islander)

Life outside the doors of NCS reminded me again that there is life outside the doors of NCS. Which is to say that unforeseen occurrences pushed back the time I wanted to spend listening to and writing about new metal for this roundup, so I’m late finishing it. No need to go into detail but, well, a baseball playoff game last night and needing to get my wife to an early ferry boat this morning had something to do with it.

There’s no baseball playoff games today and my spouse is now out of town, just me and the cats holding down the homestead, so there’s a decent chance I’ll have a more on-time roundup of black(ish) metal ready for tomorrow. As for today’s selections, I think they’ll keep you off-balance as you move through them. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ZERO SWANN — “GRAVE WAX HORTICULTURE”

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Oct 172025
 

(written by Islander)

Those of you who follow our weekend roundups of new music are aware that I’ve made many discoveries (and then shared them) through perusing the recommendations of Rennie Resin‘s starkweather Substack. His most recent collection of recommendations included thoughts about a new album from a band named Zabus that’s principally the work of Jeremy Moore from Washington, D.C. He followed that offering with these words about a band whose song we’re premiering today:

Zero Swann is another splinter from Jeremy Moore and Benefactor comes two years after the Amon Zonaris release. This project has similarities to Zabus in its approach to sound, using copious amounts of reverb and delay and vocals forward in the mix. While Zabus is decidedly post punk given the psyche treatment, Zero Swann is its more sinister, noisier, atavistic twin. Almost free form and nightmarish in approach where songs are spasms and rattles rather than crafted and honed into shape.

That was my introduction to Zero Swann, framed as only Rennie can do, and one thing led to another… the other thing being today’s video premiere of “Grave Wax Horticulture” from Zero Swann‘s Benefactor album — which is being released today on the Saccharine Underground label. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAKNA — “ALLTID”

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Oct 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The story behind Sakna’s forthcoming album De Syv Dødssynder, and the reasons why it is both the first and last album by this Canadian project, are fascinating (maybe even jaw-dropping, given the quality of the music) but also deeply sad. We should begin with that story.

As we’ve been told, Sakna is the solo work of Canadian multi-instrumentalist Solemn, a work that began in 2006, when Solemn was only 14 years old, as a musical adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. By the age of 18, he had recorded all of the album’s vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, organs, and drums himself, drawing on such varied influences as Windir, Mournful Congregation, Emperor, Wolves In The Throne Room, Cor Scorpii, and more.

In 2011, Solemn took his own life, before anything was done to release the album other than Solemn leaking an early preview single (“Del I – Helvete”) to YouTube in 2009. Continue reading »

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