Islander

ANOTHER YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
May 042022
 


photo by Catherine B Photografie

(We’re into May 2022, so what the hell are we doing with a continuation of our LISTMANIA 2021 series? Well, it’s because Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, didn’t really exhaust his 2021 recommendations with the year-end list he gave us last December (here). In this supplemental list he proves again that he has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, un-confined by the boundaries of metal.)

As prophesied in my year=end list, I have returned with a whole list of shit I slept on last year. Now, that title might perfectly describe how I completely missed out on some of these albums until it was too late, but in other cases my relationship to them isn’t always of the ‘feces I laid dormant on’ variety. I like making this second list because it lets me name-drop some albums I really enjoyed but left off the yearly rundown for various reasons. I feel an AOTY candidate requires a deeper connection than just pure enjoyment with the listener. But then again, that might just be me being a fucking music snob. So some of these might just be simpler/more to the point/honestly in some cases better than the stuff on the aforementioned previous list.

So here is a list of 2021 releases I feel you should check out if you haven’t already… Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SIETA — “DREAM”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
May 032022
 

Russian people, both inside and beyond the borders of their homeland, are paying a price for their fascist dictator’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, even when they had nothing to do with that brutal invasion and even oppose it. In the case of artists whose work is known outside Russia, they’ve undoubtedly experienced a decline in support even after condemning the horrors that have been wrought in the name of their nation.

We’ve said it before, but it may be worth repeating: Here at NCS we won’t be part of that kind of blanket retribution, even though our hearts are with Ukraine. We’ll continue doing what we always have, supporting music we believe is worthy of your attention, including music made by Russian bands such as the one whose new video is the subject of this premiere.

For those who may care, this band Sieta (Сѣта) have publicly condemned the invasion of Ukraine, and one of the two labels that is reissuing the album which includes the song (Satanath Records) has left Russia because of the invasion.

We can’t always expect such action, because expressing disagreement with Putin in Russia is dangerous, and leaving to establish a new life elsewhere is very difficult for most Russians. And so neither kind of action should be a litmus test for Russian music or Russian labels. But of course it helps fortify the resolve not to punish Russian artists for the actions of one homicidal maniac who would be a modern tsar or the ruler of a resurrected USSR, and those who have bent their knee to him. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNAR CHALICE — “IMMORTUAE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 032022
 

The German black metal band Lunar Chalice, though composed of veterans, only came together in 2019, but they have wasted no time in making their mark. They promptly released the Walpurgis Dance demo in 2019, and quickly followed that with a pair of EPs — Night Poetry on 2019, and Medieval Cults of Heresy in 2020.

Now the band are finally delivering to us (through Iron Bonehead Productions) their first full-length, Transcendentia: The Shadow Pilgrimage. Even in a thoroughly saturated genre, it’s a frequently astonishing work — as if a gathering of alchemists had turned their magical talents from the transformation of metals to the sorcery of music.

The spells that Lunar Chalice create seem of ancient origin, as cold and mysterious as the moon whose name they invoke, but also frightening in numerous ways, in their jaw-dropping combination of ferocity, imperious domination, and unearthly eeriness, a union of feral hostility and nightmarish elegance. Such qualities stand out in the track we’re premiering today — “Immortuae“. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, APRIL 2022

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 032022
 


Somali Yacht Club – photo by May Lee

(April 2022 is in the history books, and our man Gonzo follows its end with a selection of albums released during the month that brightened his days, and we hope will brighten yours.)

If only my fucking day job made it easier to listen to all the music I wanted to. Pipe dreams, man. Pipe dreams.

The past month saw me venturing out to several shows, though; Archspire in particular ripped my face off for an hour straight while grinning maniacally the whole time. Amorphis and Uada were amazing as well, and I’ve got Behemoth and Arch Enemy lined up for this coming Wednesday. (I’ll likely be at that show by the time you read this column.)

All that being said, none of the bands I cover here are anything I saw live recently, but god damn does it feel good to be getting back into my pre-pandemic cadence of live music again.

As usual, here’s a smattering of new shit I found worthy of writing about this month. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VITAL SPIRIT — “STILL AS THE NIGHT, COLD AS THE WIND”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 022022
 

In the Faith That Looks Through Death, the 2020 debut EP of Vital Spirit (which we had the privilege of premiering), was a true gem. Black metal provided the backbone for the music, but it flourished through the fuel of other wide-ranging inspirations, both conceptual and musical.

The band is a Vancouver duo — guitarist/bassist/vocalist Kyle Tavares (Seer, Wormwitch) and drummer Israel Langlais (Wormwitch) — but the EP took shape in between Wormwitch’s 2018 and 2019 American tours, and thus it was animated by the lands to the south that these two saw and the histories of those places. “Harrowing ballads imbued with the enduring spirit of the Americas” is how they described that four-song EP, and through it they brought to life visions of the Old West and Southwest of the U.S.

After hearing that remarkable EP we hoped it wouldn’t be a one-off adventure but instead an excursion that would continue. “There is, after all,” we wrote, “a lot of source material in the history and landscapes of the Americas that’s yet to be mined!” We and a lot of other fans have gotten our wish, because on May 6th Vendetta Records and Hidden Tribe will release Vital Spirit‘s debut album, Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind. Continue reading »

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION: “THE EXUVIAE OF GODS — PART I”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 022022
 

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of a new album-length EP by the Australian extreme doom band Mournful Congregation. The first in a two-part series of EPs, it will be released by 20 Buck Spin (North America) and Osmose Productions (everywhere else) on May 27th.)

When it comes to sub-genres in metal, funeral doom is one of my favorites. It is typically the more depressive of the doom sub-genres, though just playing at a dopamine-draining tempo is not the requirement to excel in this style. With any form of extreme music, the oppressive heaviness might be enough for the first song, then after that it boils down to the question, “But can you write a song ?”

Here is what puts this Australian band at the top of the funeral doom heap. They might even be the best, though Evoken is neck-and-neck with them. In saying that it means my expectations are high. What I hoped for was a new full-length album, since it has been four years since their last release. The reality is this is the first of a two-part series of EPs. We are getting three songs, one of these being a reworking of a song from their 1995 demo tape. Which, considering that was 27 years ago, makes this for all practical purposes a new song. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (WALPURGISNACHT EDITION): NEGATIVE PLANE, MONDOCANE, NOCTIS AETERNAE

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
May 012022
 

This week’s Shades of Black falls on May Day, the morning after Walpurgisnacht. That night, which of course has a significance that long pre-dates the German name, falls halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and in old pagan traditions it was celebrated to mark the changing of the seasons, just as Samhain does six months later. And in the ancient folklore traditions, as on Samhain, the veil between the material world and the spirit world was thought to be at its thinnest.

Of course, in northern Europe the Church co-opted the pagan May Day, turning it into the feast day of Saint Walpurga, a German abbess honored for her success in putting an end to pagan sorcery (among other achievements), and on the night before it — Walpurgisnacht — bonfires were built to ward off witches and evil spirits in her name. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PESTILENT HEX, BAT MAGIC, FALLUJAH, BLACKLIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 302022
 

 

I’ve had a fuckin’ rough week, a classic example of the old adage that when it rains it pours. On top of continuing to help an injured loved one recover from physical trauma followed by surgery, I was slammed hard and repeatedly by my day job. Woe is me, indeed.

I largely ignored the thousand emails that poured into NCS since last weekend, and barely noticed the other places where I get suggestions of new music to write about. Blessed by a bit of peace this morning, I began going through the emails — and gave up after 15 minutes, overwhelmed by the scale of the task. I picked just a few things rather than completely abandon my roundup duties.

The first couple of selections probably reflect my current moods, which then got elevated by the third song. Of course I had to throw you a bit of a curveball at the end.

PESTILENT HEX (Finland)

I thought about saving this first track for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column, but the way things have gone over the past week I don’t know if there will be one. And besides, this song really grabbed me this morning, so striking while the iron is hot seemed like the right decision. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ERNIA — “HELIUM-3”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

The Spanish band Ernia made a concept album about feeling bad. The full title is How to Deal with Life and Fail: A Guide to Self-Improvement That Doesn’t Work in the Slightest. Does that idea sound depressingly (but also hilariously) familiar?

With that as its concept, how does the album sound? Well, take in the cover art by by Xabier Sagasta, and consider that Ernia‘s lineup includes two members of Wormed, and you’ll have a couple of good clues.

“Grindcore” might be the easy genre choice, but it’s an inadequate descriptor. Ernia are certainly capable of laying a high-speed barrage of cathartic destruction on you, but they’re even more interested in giving you a head-spinning adventure in every track, with an approach to songwriting and execution that’s intricate, unpredictable, ecstatic, and every bit as wild and colorful as the artwork.

As proof, we give you a first listen to the song “Helium-3“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: HOLY DEATH — “MORAL TERROR VOL. 1”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 282022
 

It’s fair to say that we’ve been following the L.A.-based death-doom outfit Holy Death very closely ever since discovering their second EP in 2020 — following them like a panting dog scampering after a moving car, tongue wagging and slobber flying. In fact, the post you’re now reading marks the sixth time we’ve written about them in barely two years. Yes, we are big fans.

The occasion for today’s slobber is a new Holy Death EP, a two-song discharge entitled Moral Terror Vol. 1, so-named because it’s the first in a three-part series that the band plan on releasing this year. It’s set for digital release on April 29th, but we’ve got a premiere stream of its two diabolically punishing tracks today. Continue reading »

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