Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VOID ROT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 152022
 

 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of John Hancock, guitarist/vocalist from Minnesota’s Void Rot, who have a new EP out now on the Everlasting Spew label.)

Void Rot from Minneapolis got their portion of praise and positive reviews after the release of their debut album Descending Pillars two years ago. John Hancock (guitars, vocals), Will Bell (drums), Craig Clemons (bass), and Kent Sklarow (guitars) obviously know how to produce macabre and dangerous stuff! Their cyclopic slow death metal or colossal menacing death-doom was damn remarkable indeed, so I couldn’t just pass by their new release Telluric Dismemberment even though it’s just EP.

Here’s our conversation with John Hancock. Come and taste Void Rot with us. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SIGH, ORM, VETER DAEMONAZ, SWARN

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Aug 142022
 

After three days of cruising along with lots of time to devote to NCS I ran into a wall. The demands of my fucking day job are unpredictable and weekends aren’t any more sacrosanct than they are at this site. So I had to work yesterday and this morning. You just never know when people will urgently need a delivery of toilet paper.

I finally did manage to squeeze in some listening and some writing for this weekly column, just so it wouldn’t completely go missing, but it’s shorter and more hurried than I wanted it to be.

SIGH (Japan)

To begin, we have a video for the song “Satsui” from the forthcoming 12th album by the remarkable (and long-lived) Japanese band Sigh. It’s the kind of song that’s capable of hooking people damned hard and damned fast. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: LIGHTLORN, OFFERNAT, RESIN TOMB, [4672], SEVENTH STORM, MAAHES, LUSTRE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 132022
 

 

This makes three days in a row where I found enough time to compile a roundup of new music and videos. I can’t remember the last time that happened, but it was surely long ago. And not only was I able to do this three days in a row, but time also allowed me to pack an extravagant amount of music into this third compilation.

I also think it’s fair to say that what I picked ranges far and wide — and I’m not just talking about the bands’ global locations. I suppose it’s possible there’s someone out there who won’t find one damn thing to like among these seven songs, but I’d be surprised if that were true.

LIGHTLORN (Sweden)

I don’t usually lead off these collections with an unknown band’s very first published song, but this one dropped my jaw. I became so enthusiastic about such a welcome surprise that I would have been ashamed at myself if I hadn’t put it in the starting position. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MOTHER OF GRAVES, FACELESS BURIAL, SACRILEGIA, FAUSTIAN, EXORDIUM MORS

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 122022
 

 

Yesterday I took the first step in a journey of a thousand miles — an only slightly exaggerated metaphor for the task of wading through all the recent songs and videos that might yield selections for these roundups. Today, as you can see, I managed to take a second step. By rough count that leaves about 2.5 million additional steps.

I’m beginning with artwork, unaccompanied by music (the column is called “SEEN and Heard”), but then moving into some new sounds and videos (and more cool cover art).

MOTHER OF GRAVES (U.S.)

This Indiana death/doom band released their debut EP in January of last year, and Todd Manning gave it a very good review for us. He concluded by hoping that a full-length would be close at hand. The hope is now fulfilled, because Wise Blood Records will be releasing the band’s debut album Where the Shadows Adorn on October 14th. And for that album the maestro Paolo Girardi created the stunning cover art you see above.

But what you see above is only half of the full painting. Here’s the complete work: Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROWN OF ASTERIA / PETRICOR — “IN TENEBRIS SOLIS OCCASUM”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 122022
 

What we have for you here is the complete streaming premiere of a most unusual split release named In Tenebris Solis Occasum, which is being released by the New York label Fiadh Productions. It includes three tracks each from two solo projects, Michigan’s Crown of Asteria and the Chilean project Petricor. Our premiere coincides with the opening of pre-orders for the tape edition of the split.

All together, these six tracks provide a fascinating and highly varied experience. Both projects are connected to black metal, and with a broad brush someone might paint them both as “atmospheric black metal”. That’s always a nebulous term, but it’s even less informative in the case of this split, which really is impossible to sum up with a label or even a paragraph.

And so, many paragraphs lie ahead of you, though of course no one will give you a black mark for skipping down to the bottom and beginning to listen right away. Continue reading »

THE ALGORITHM: “DATA RENAISSANCE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 122022
 

(We’ve reached the end of a week-long series of reviews by DGR (a few more are still coming next week), and in this one he takes us off our usual beaten paths, even if not so unusual for him.)

Sound the air raid siren, it’s the “not heavy metal” alert time. Though there’s no singing either.

Sometimes writing up a disc can feel like an exorcism, especially when it comes to something that isn’t part of the traditional heavy metal sphere. This has been one that has been resting at the back of the brain for a while too, like many that were caught in the MDF-to-NWTF window, a three-week gap that somehow managed to vanish in between festival chaos.

If you’ve read the site for a while you’ll probably recognize the name The Algorithm as an electronic/metal hybrid that has often danced into and out of the worlds of djent and a handful of other styles as the interest has struck founder Remi. The project that has been kicking around for some time, and due to the nature of it always dancing on the fringes of – and often hybridizing – a handful of different genres, every album has always offered a musical adventure, album, so long as your tolerance for varying electronic styles is up there. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOODBATH, BLACK DEATH CULT, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM, DISILLUSION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 112022
 

 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That well-known saying attributed to the Chinese sage Laozi (but sometimes erroneously attributed to Confucious) came to mind today as I gazed bleakly at the massive backlog of new songs and videos that would provide the source material for this roundup. Getting through it feels like a journey of a thousand miles, but that old adage encouraged me to make this first step. Will I be able to make another one tomorrow, or instead trip and fall on my face? Time will tell….

BLOODBATH (Sweden)

I know Bloodbath need no help from our fetid little corner of the interhole, but I’m beginning with a lyric video for their grisly new song “Carved” anyway. It’s just too damned much hellish fun to ignore, and Luc Lemay makes a guest appearance on it too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INDUSTRIAL PUKE — “INDUSTRIAL PUKE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 112022
 

This is one of those song premieres where it’s tempting for us to just tell you, “Here — listen to this!“, because reading much more than that would probably take you longer than listening to the track. After all, the song barely clips the minute-twenty mark. But writing is what we do, and write we shall, but in a way that might give you a bit more to chew on than our impressions of this one song.

The song in question shares the name of this Swedish band — Industrial Puke — and it’s the one that slams the door shut on their debut EP Where Life Crisis Starts, which is coming out on September 16th via Suicide Records. The EP itself is a swift kick in the jaw, four songs that collectively fight with you for less than eight minutes. And hell yes, it’s a fight. Continue reading »

WEREWOLVES: “DEATHMETAL” AND “FROM THE CAVE TO THE GRAVE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 112022
 


Photographer credit: Rob Brens

(We continue our week-long series of reviews wherein DGR is doing a lot of catching up, and today he tackles not one but two 2022 releases by the same band, the Australian extremists in Werewolves.)

I get the sneaking suspicion that Werewolves‘ style of music works fantastically well for each person one time and after that it’s a little bit more give and take. Your first album with them is the revelation of how gloriously stupid and how intentionally so the Werewolves‘ brand of music is, and then once that becomes the high mark, everything is a little bit more even-keeled in spite how teeth-gnashing and vicious things may appear from there out.

For me, it was the group’s 2021 album What A Time To Be Alive, which was basically an album of deathgrind front-to-back with almost no chance to breathe. It was an album that basically felt ‘needed’ when it landed with, even if the overall approach was one-note as all hell.

Werewolves have achieved a rapid clip in terms of releasing music as well, essentially going year-over-year since the release of their debut album The Dead Are Screaming. 2022 alone has brought us the release of their latest album From The Cave To The Grave as well as a four-song EP simply called Deathmetal. We’re late to the bus on both, so this rumination needed to cover both releases, but that sure as hell isn’t going to stop us now. Continue reading »

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS 2022: DAY THREE

 Concert Reviews  9 Responses »
Aug 102022
 

(Today our friend Gonzo brings us his third and final report on the recent Fire in the Mountains festival in Wyoming, along with a few of his own photos. You can find the first two installments here and here.)

Day three of any festival hits different. It’s no longer a matter of going balls-to-the-wall for 12 consecutive hours. It’s an endurance contest. It’s a marathon you’re running against yourself. One minute you’re staring bleary-eyed at the roof of your tent before the sun comes up, and the next, you’re chugging espresso you made in the back of a Subaru Outback in desperate hopes of being able to slog your way through the rest of the weekend.

And that’s just the first two hours.

But never mind that. No point in wasting any time lamenting your mental condition, I thought to myself as I threw some extra clothes into my backpack. Today would first be spent outside the confines of our beloved festival, and into the mountain range that we’d only been able to admire from afar. Before any music, we’d be taking a side quest to Grand Teton National Park. Continue reading »

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