Islander

“FASTER THAN THE FUCKING DEVIL”: WRAITH, BLACK KNIFE, GRAVERIPPER, AND UNHOLY NIGHT

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 022022
 

(Today Wise Blood Records is releasing a kick-ass four-way split whose title says a lot, and Todd Manning says a lot more about it in this review.)

For those paying attention, record label Wise Blood Records has been spitting out pure fire with their releases since their inception less than two years ago. The latest release from the label is called Faster Than the Fucking Devil. It gathers together four blackened thrash acts from around the world, each spitting their own brand of blasphemous madness over the album’s thirty-seven-minute runtime.

Hailing from Northwest Indiana, Wraith kicks things off properly. Their sound draws on the early thrash classics like Exodus’s Bonded by Blood, Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends, and Metallica’s Kill ‘em All, but interjects a good dose of Motörhead as well. With tracks like “Demons of Doubt” and “(Call Me) The Destroyer” we get served the hooks of old-school metal with the rawness of black metal. They close their three songs with “Seven Serpents” which sports an awesome Slayer-inspired bridge. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VITTRA — “SATMARA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 022022
 

Let’s cut to the chase:

What you’re about to see is a beautifully filmed and edited video that matches the frantic and fluid interpretive dance performance of a pair of lithe ladies with the hard-charging musical performance of the Swedish band Vittra, all of it interspersed with brief slo-mo frames that help make the experience even more interesting. Everyone gets a chance to shine, and shine they do.

The song that’s the subject of the video is “Satmara“, off the band’s debut album Blasphemy Blues, which is set for release on November 11th. Lyrically, it tells a tale of the intoxicating but ruinous powers of succubi. The music turns out to be damned intoxicating too, operating as musical adrenaline for the mind. Continue reading »

GONZO’S BIGASS END-OF-SUMMER ROUNDUP, PART 1

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Sep 012022
 


Final Light

(Our Denver-based friend Gonzo has brought us the first installment in a round-up of new albums that emerged this summer which caught his attention and kindled his enthusiasm.)

Look, I know it’s customary to open these kinds of seasonally themed posts with some quip about “WOW, THE SUMMER REALLY FLEW BY, DIDN’T IT?” but frankly, that sort of cheekiness is an abomination I simply won’t fucking stand for, let alone perpetuate.

What I will say is that this summer delivered. It was the sort of long-overdue event that saw yours truly being able to travel to some US-based festivals, which was something I’d been longing for. Fire in the Mountain was by far the highlight. I also managed to hit an average of two shows a week during all of this, mostly around Denver. On top of all this, I pulled a requisite turn-and-burn in Vegas earlier this month for a single night of Psycho, in which I finally saw Emperor take the stage and proceed to blast my face into another dimension. To say it was worth the 22-year wait would be the understatement of the year.

The point of me saying all this is during all of the above, I was a bad NCS writer and couldn’t quite keep up my monthly tradition of yelling at the internet about the new music I’ve been listening to. So, consider this me making up for lost time:

This is part one of my end-of-summer new music roundup, with albums spanning from June to August. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANZV — “ISIMUD”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 012022
 

The Portuguese band ANZV is only a few years old, but harnesses the talents of experienced veterans. Through their forthcoming debut album Gallas, they explore an incredibly chilling conceptual vision. The description they give is worth reading in full, and we’ll get to that later in this feature, but for now let’s sum it up as a journey into an underworld of nihilism and despair, a free-fall into the surrender of will and self, becoming nothing at all.

In portraying such harrowing visions ANZV intertwine death metal and elements of classic and post-black metal, and they do so in tremendously powerful and gripping fashion. One song from the album (“Inane“) has already had a lyric video premiere, and today we bring you a second song — “Isimud” — which comes with its own cover art that you can see above. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MONDOCANE — “HAMMAREN OCH SKÄRAN”

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Sep 012022
 

Last May I took a blind chance on the music of Mondocane, diving into this Stockholm solo project’s second album Gloria without any previous exposure to Mondocone‘s creations. That turned out to be a winning gamble.

The songs on Gloria range widely in their sensations, and the familiar tropes of black metal play only one role in the musical amalgams. Depending on where you are in the track list (as I wrote then):

“The songs race and they stagger. They slash and they swirl. They brandish a feral, devilish swagger and they weave powerful dark spells. They’re menacing and dismal, cunning and cruel, and they elevate like witches around a bonfire. The riffing is captivating, and the keyboards and electronica are adroitly used. I’m not adept enough to know if the drumming is live or programmed, but their visceral punch, augmented by a heavyweight bass, is magnetic”.

Little wonder, then, that I got excited to discover that Mondocane would be releasing a new EP today. Entitled Enigmata | The Eminent, it includes three new songs (Enigmata), and as a bonus it also includes three songs (The Eminent) first released in 2000 by a band named Goatworship in which Mondocane‘s creator performed drums and keyboards (the band also included two members of Sarcasm). What we have for you today to help spread the word about this split release is the premiere of one of Mondocane‘s new songs, “Hammaren och skäran“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SVART VINTER — “MIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 312022
 

Forecasts of a temperature drop radiate from Svart Vinter‘s new album Mist, communicated not only by the band’s name and the record’s title but also from the gray fog blanketing black forests on the album’s cover. Most of the world may be baking in record heat waves right now, but winter is as much a state of mind as a season.

It is, in fact, many states of mind. The season brings gale-force turbulence as well as oppressive chills, death and decay as well as huddled loneliness, and the kindling of fires in an effort to keep the dark and the cold at bay. In some areas it’s also a time of beauty and wonder. In all these ways the season itself reflects and spawns a range of moods. After the roasting many of us are now enduring, it may be more welcome than in many past years at first, before dread and difficulties settle in during the long months until spring.

Mist manages to capture many of the sensations of the dark season, sketching portraits of what happens to the Earth as it turns away from the distant blazing orb, but even more so portraying the human emotions that find their simulacrum in the outer world. Continue reading »

ESCUELA GRIND: “MEMORY THEATER”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 312022
 

(Chris Luedtke is back at NCS with a review of the sophomore album by Mass.-based Escuela Grind, due for release on September 30 by MNRK Heavy.)

Escuela Grind are no stranger to the, well, grindcore genre. Though being a thoroughly grindcore-centric band, they exist in their own space that sounds like they are channeling Fuck The Facts but from peaks and valleys away. Maybe it is the way they carry their sound, maybe it is their aggressive touring style and their savvy ability to PR themselves. Likely, it is a combination of all (they have some killer merch).

Escuela Grind have been kicking up their discography, especially since the pandemic happened. During which Indoctrination dropped, as well as two EPs titled PPOOWWEERVVIIOOLLEENNCCE and GGRRIINNDCCOORREE. Now, the band’s sophomore LP Memory Theater is up to bat.

It is difficult to put into words when an album feels good but not great. Like a dull ache or even a soft blow. That’s how Indoctrination hit me. I queue it up on occasion and remember that it is a good slab of chaos but a return is not frequent. Maybe it needs to grow on me still. So the question becomes, can Memory Theater step up the game? The short answer is yes. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GOATWHORE, EXHUMED, ATEIGGÄR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 302022
 


Goatwhore – Photo by Stephanie Cabral

 

This Tuesday roundup of new music will be shorter than usual, but hopefully you’ll still find it sweet. Without further ado…

GOATWHORE (U.S.)

Goatwhore have a well-deserved reputation for being one of the hardest-gigging bands around, and every one of the half-dozen times I’ve seen them they’ve played as if it would be their last show. You always get your money’s worth from these dudes when they hit a stage. But somehow they found time amidst all the touring — no doubt aided by the pandemic shutdown — to punch out a new album where, once again, angels will fear to tread. The title of this one is Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven.

It’s been a five-year wait since Vengeful Ascension, and Goatwhore have made up for that with 47 minutes of music. The album also includes the work of a new bass player (Robert “TA” Coleman) and it’s the band’s first production with Kurt Ballou who worked along with producer Jarrett Pritchard in his second effort with the band. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CATACOMBES — “LA BÊTE D’ACIER”

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Aug 302022
 

If you take a close look at the cover photograph for Catacombes’ new album Des Glaires et des Briques you’ll see that it depicts a wine bottle and a corkscrew resting on a rustic table. But you’ll also see that the wine-opener doubles as a knife, and shadows encroach along the borders. The title is rendered in an old gothic or medieval font and beneath it are words which Google Translate renders as follows: “Night falls and darkness seizes the dark alleys and busy onlookers…” Sun & Moon Records, the Transylvanian label releasing the album, invites us to “Pour a glass of wine and explore the genuine atmosphere of medieval obscurantism!”

What is one to make of all this visual and linguistic imagery? It’s suggestive of archaic themes and perhaps a degree of sophistication, but equally suggestive of nocturnal menace and maybe worse. Consider that the members of the band have chosen as their noms de guerre Le Démoniaque, La Damnée, and Le Vilain.

Well, we can’t help but engage in guessing games as a result of such intrigues, but it’s better to let the music speak for itself, and so let’s move directly into “La Bête d’Acier“, the song we’re premiering from the album today. Continue reading »

AETERNAM: “HEIR OF THE RISING SUN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 302022
 

(DGR wrote the following extensive review of a new album by Aeternam, which is coming out this Friday, September 2nd.)

The career path that Quebec’s Aeternam have taken in the lead-up to their latest album Heir Of The Rising Sun – their fifth overall –  has an interesting amount of twists and turns in it for a group whose genre descriptors boil down to a blackened death metal/folk metal hybrid. It’s the case with many other bands as well, but obviously those are dealing in differing shades, and in Aeternam‘s it feels more like a fight between two different styles, with each album a different snapshot at different points in that battle.

To say that the folk metal side has been winning out would be putting it politely of course, but that descriptor is inadequate here because “folk metal” often tends to conjure up imagery of a bunch of extra musicians with accordions, hurdy-gurdys, and flutes rather than a means of highlighting the music’s cultural aspects. Aeternam have often pulled from Middle Eastern history and mythology, and so too you often hear instrumentation from that region.

At first Aeternam used this effect in combination with a heavy Behemoth influence but over the years the band have lightened up – with perspective here, the band remain fairly heavy in comparison to a lot of other bands – and instead have become something more of a show, allowing themselves to stretch in a variety of different directions. In the case of Heir Of The Rising Sun, Aeternam have decided to make a thematic concept album focused on one period of time centered on the closing song ‘The Fall Of Constantinople’ – with all of the flavorings suggested therein. Continue reading »

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