Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE INFERNO DOLL — “RENFIELD”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 162022
 

For everyone who’s seen Tod Browning’s 1931 film Dracula, the demented and tormented face of Renfield as portrayed by Dwight Frye is likely one of the most unforgettable images. The character himself, in both Bram Stoker’s novel and that film, is a haunting figure, seduced to the point of madness by the influence of his master and a craving of blood, and ridden by guilt in his momentary moments of lucidity.

Though arguably a minor character in that horrifying tale, Renfield has nevertheless become a source of fascination and inspiration for some artists, one prominent example of which is Barbara Hambly‘s 2006 novel Renfield: Slave of Dracula, which presents some twists on the original tale and some intriguing explanations about the turmoil of his being torn between good and evil.

Calgary-based Laura “Inferno” Vargas is another artist for whom Renfield has become a fascination. Drawing in part on Hambly‘s novel for inspiration, she has used her guise as The Inferno Doll to create a song in his name, which we’re premiering today in advance of its November 18th release as a single, along with a video that presents its own twists. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SPEGLAS — “TIME, FUTILITY & DEATH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 162022
 

What we have for you now is an enormous surprise, and one we hope you’ll find as wonderful as we have. It’s not as extreme as most of what occupies our attention around here (though it does have its moments of barbarity), but we’ve found it a perpetually eye-popping and captivating record.

The subject is Time, Futility & Death, a new EP by the Swedish group Speglas that will be released on November 18th by Pulverised Records. It follows their first release, another EP, by a very long seven years, long enough that maybe even enthusiastic fans of that first recording may have forgotten the band. The new release will prove a vivid reminder of their talents, and should attract a lot of new adherents among adventurous listeners, if only the word will spread. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MYCELIUM

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 162022
 

(Not long ago we had the thrill of premiering a song from the forthcoming second album by the fungal death metal band Mycelium, and now we have more delights to present through an extremely entertaining interview by Comrade Aleks of the man behind the mushrooms, Greg Edwards.)

And here we have a fantastic death metal project from Glasgow with lyrics telling stories of mushrooms and unspeakable horrors! Greg Edwards ran the black metal one-man band Necronoclast for ten years from 2003 to 2013 but then he had to take a pause and rethink his priorities. As result, Mycelium was born!

Greg started it in 2020 and the first album Scream Bloody Spore was released already in 2021, and now one more year has passed and one more album was recorded! Mycoticism: Disseminating the Propagules is to be revealed to the extreme metal underground on the 25th of November through the Swedish label Blood Harvest. And I hope this interview will pique your interest towards Mycelium and the magic world of deathly dangerous mushrooms. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OMNIFARIAM — “THE SUMMONING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 152022
 

Time flies when you’re having fun. Time also probably flies when you blindly stumble into the path of a rushing freight train.

What brought that morbid thought to mind? Well, you can guess from the title of this feature. It’s the obliterating new EP The Summoning by the Puerto Rican death metal band Omnifaiam, and in particular the EP’s powerhouse opening song “Deceivers of the Bleak“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VARGSHEIM — “IN THE TOWER OF IVORY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 152022
 

Over a career that now spans more than 15 years the German band Vargsheim have made their music a home for wolves, but these wolves have proven to be surprising shape-shifters as well. Black metal runs through their veins, but this trio — the brothers Kaelt and Harvst and drummer Naavl (all of whom are live members of Imperium Dekadenz) — clearly have many other musical interests, and continue finding ways to indulge them under their banner.

That observation proves most true in their forthcoming fifth album In the Tower of Ivory, which will be released on December 9th by the band’s new label Crawling Chaos. We have a thrilling example of what they’ve accomplished in today’s premiere (through a video made by Kaelt) of the new record’s title song. Continue reading »

NOCTEM: “CREDO CERTE NE CRAS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 152022
 

(Late October brought forth MNRK Heavy‘s release of a new album by Spanish Noctem, a band we’ve been following closely and happily for a long time, and now we catch up to the new album with this extensive review by DGR.)

Over the course of six albums Noctem have placed themselves in an interesting spot musically, where it has seemed like the only point of reference for comparison in terms of their musical history was the album prior and nothing more.

The group have gone through some sizeable leaps and shifts in their sound over the years, and many of them are well-documented on this here site. While it seemed like they may have found a niche within the black metal world with their triptych of Oblivion, Exilium, and Haeresis, the following disc The Black Consecration moved away from the overwhelming chaotic madness of those three albums and into a realm much more deep and cavernous than before.

The Black Consecration was Noctem proving their worth to the black metal abyss, and that is really the biggest point of reference when it comes to this Spanish group’s latest album, Credo Certe Ne Cras, because after the band laid their foundation through that preceding album, they have now built upon it by becoming “bigger” in just about every sense imaginable. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SMOKE OF ISENGARD — “DWARF HUNTER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 142022
 

Almost exactly 67 years have passed since the last installment of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was first published in the UK, and almost exactly 21 years have gone by since the world premiere of the first film in Peter Jackson‘s famed movie trilogy based on those novels. And yet of course interest has not waned (witness the popularity of The Rings of Power after its first season), and likely never will.

The creatures, characters, places, and events that populated Tolkien’s timeless writings have become rich fodder for musical artists across many genres, but they’ve probably flourished more in metal than anywhere else. Not surprisingly, metal more than other genres has also been more attracted to the darkness in Tolkien’s worlds, and we have a prime example in the debut album by the Russian solo project Smoke of Isengard. The title itself — Orc Metal — points the way. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALL ARE TO RETURN — “A STATE IN FEAR”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 142022
 

“Perpetual dread unhinges us. Threats real and imagined indistinguishable. The multitude stirs – and it hears the siren call, but not the alarms that sound. Enthralled by the specter of a life brutish and short. The deal with the Leviathan has been remade. We are right to fear – the many and the one.”

That is how the two-man formation All Are To Return introduce their new single “A State In Fear“, which we’re premiering today. Set for digital release on November 28th, it follows the band’s self-titled debut EP in 2020 and their second EP, AATR II, which detonated one year ago.

With those previous releases the band thematically revolted against the multitude of societal prisons, both more and less obvious, that confine and degrade human existence. The new song itself seems to echo a line from the introduction to the first EP, which characterized its grim perception of “life naked to the brutality of a state in fear.” Continue reading »

CHESTCRUSH: “APECHTHEIA”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 142022
 

(A new three-track ChestCrush EP has been out in the world for about a week, time enough for DGR to feel comfortable giving it the following review, for those who might have overlooked it.)

ChestCrush is a project we arrived at late in the year 2021. The international group’s first full length Vdelgymia was one that had hovered on the periphery for some time that year, and whenever we got the chance to share it with people, we would bring it up. It’s how the song “Grudge” wound up being spun during one of our Gimme Metal invasions, and we even argued for the brutally rock-headed “Different Shepherds, Same Sheep” as one of the most infectious songs of last year before that list performed its duties and was sent out on an ice floe.

Given that ChestCrush have resolved themselves into a year-over-year churn at the moment, it seems like you can’t discuss the group’s latest EP Apechtheia without lookng at its older sibling, because these are two very distinct releases from one another, not just in terms of musical content but also in terms of lineup: Apechtheia marks the first time that main musician Evangelos Vasilakos has united with Australian drummer Robin Stone and Texas-based death metal vocalist Topias Jokipii. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MOEROR, ORPHIQUE, T.O.M.B., EXESA

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Nov 132022
 

Like a lot of people in the Seattle area I made a terrible mistake this morning. I woke up early to watch the Seahawks play what turned out to be a miserable football game in Germany. I’d like to have those 3 hours back. I could have used them for extra sleep, or to make this Sunday column longer.

Looking for a way to begin dispelling a black mood, I checked out just a few very new things, and revisited an album I’ve been enjoying since mid-October, one that well-suits my current depressive mood.

MOEROR (Greece)

My first exposure to Moeror came last year, through their excellent split release with Human Serpent and Kvadrat (enthusiastically reviewed here). Based on that, I intended to travel back to their 2020 debut album The Ghosts of Amour Propre, but never did. Maybe I still will, but there’s something more immediate that’s going to pull with greater urgency, and that’s their forthcoming sophomore album All That We Seem. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries