Islander

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: JUST BEFORE DAWN, TOMBS, VREID, HEMOPHILIAC, THE FLOWER OF LOVE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 022022
 

 

I had a hellish work-week at my fucking day job, which caused me to fall behind again in listening to candidates for this weekend round-up. I’ve also got an appointment for a second booster jab coming up soon this morning. Putting those two things together means this round-up will be shorter than I’d like. As is becoming something of a habit, I also included a curveball at the end.

JUST BEFORE DAWN (Sweden)

These Swedish favorites of mine have always chosen themes that focus on war, mainly WWII. They’ve repeatedly demonstrated a talent for channeling not just the mad exhilaration and explosive destructiveness of armed conflict but also the pain and grief it brings. It’s not surprising, therefore, that they would record a song for the victims of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CULTIC — “WARLOCK”

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Apr 012022
 

Rebecca Magar is one of those people whose diversity of talent just make you shake your head, feeling humbled. I mean, look at that cover art up above that she painted for her band Cultic‘s new album, Of Fire and Sorcery. And then also look at her painted cover art for the band’s preceding debut album, High Command:

And then consider that she’s also Cultic‘s formidable drummer. And then further consider how marvelously interwoven her cover art is with the music she and her equally formidable husband Brian (guitar, vocals, keyboard, and arrangements) have made under the Cultic name — which we’ll give you an immediate chance to do through our premiere of the new album’s second single, “Warlock“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GVORN — “DEMONS IN ME LAUGH”

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Apr 012022
 

 

The Russian band Gvorn have made their home in the towering black castle of death-doom. They have become very comfortable there, confidently settling into a place that harbors discomfort and downfall.

The first single from their debut album Keeper of Grief showed just how comfortable and self-assured they have become. “Sounds From the Crypt” rings and rumbles, like the sounds of eerie celestial bells chiming and swirling over a monstrously heavy machine crossing a landscape of skulls. Commanding roars utter dismal proclamations from a deep abyss as the rhythm section slowly stomps and crushes and the chords wail and moan.

Agony spreads from the music like viscous leaking blood, but the band also create visions of cold, imperious cruelty and of soaring but chilling splendor and lonely grief. In its closing minutes, accompanied by the sharp crack of the snare, it becomes vast and utterly spellbinding. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MARCH 2022

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 012022
 


Falls of Rauros

(We’ve reached the end of another month, and thus Gonzo has surfaced with another edition of this column, focusing here on five releases from March 2022.)

I recently made the somewhat ill-advised decision to take a road trip to my old stompin’ grounds of Seattle from my Denver abode. For those not familiar with the length of the trek, it’s about 21 hours by car. Flying out was definitely an option, but there’s always something uniquely appealing about pointing your car in one direction and flooring it for hours on end. If we’re speaking honestly, it’s downright therapeutic.

The “ill-advised” part of the equation came into account when driving through northern Wyoming and Montana. March is not what you’d call a calm month in terms of weather, and there were a couple of parts along desolate highways in which I was white knuckling my way through a snowstorm. There was madness in every direction. Unfettered chaos was all there was for hundreds of miles; one Subaru was a drop in the bucket amid endless 18-wheelers and highway patrol cars.

The good part about all this? I got plenty of time to delve into every album I’d been putting off for a while, and even got surprised by some other stuff I stumbled into. Continue reading »

SEER: OUR PREMIERE OF “LUNAR GATEWAYS” AND OUR REVIEW OF THE “VOL. 7” EP

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 312022
 

We’ve been closely following the expansive musical odyssey of Vancouver-based Seer from their first release in 2015, writing about that first EP and everything that has followed since then. It’s been a fascinating trip, because the band’s sound has continually evolved and because even the tracks on a single release have never all sounded the same.

From the start Seer have followed a naming convention for their releases, beginning with Vol. 1 and continuing through Vol. 6, which was the title of their last full-length in 2019. Since then the band have released a pair of singles, and now they’re combining those singles along with a brand new song in a new EP entitled Vol. 7, which will be released on April 15th by Hidden Tribe. What we have for you today is the premiere of that brand new song, “Lunar Gateways“. Continue reading »

ASCENSION FESTIVAL ICELAND 2022

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Mar 312022
 

Ascension Festival Iceland MMXXI in November of last year was one of the most memorable metal festivals this writer has ever attended, and also one of the most heart-warming, despite the chilly temperatures outside the venue and the often wintry music inside.

The good feelings were in part the result of knowing about the avalanche of hurdles the festival had to leap over in order to make the event a reality — which included two covid-related postponements, two venue changes, numerous band cancellations, and of course the persistent peril of the virus, which included a surge happening in Iceland right around the time when the festival began and which threatened to cause a government cancellation of the festival’s third and fourth days. The fact that the event went off at all, much less as beautifully as it did, made it one to remember.

Of course, the music was also fantastic, as were both the people who worked the fest and those who attended. It was as if everyone, both on-stage and off, genuinely and deeply understood how lucky they were to be there after 18 months of lockdown and after all the ridiculous odds stacked against the event happening at all. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HASEROT — “INCANTATIONS AT DUSK”

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Mar 302022
 

The Houston death metal band Haserot named themselves after an ominous statue seated on a marble gravestone in Cleveland’s Lakeview Cemetery; perched on the tomb of Francis Haserot and his family, it’s also referred to as “The Angel of Death Victorious”. Once you’ve seen that statue (and you can see it here), you won’t forget it. Once you hear Haserot‘s new EP Throne of Malice, it’s unlikely you’ll forget it either.

Haserot are a relatively new group, having come together in the last pre-pandemic year, but they have a veteran line-up that includes current or former members of Doomstress, Funeral Blues, Sanctus Bellum, Spectral Manifest, and Scrollkeeper. The experience shows in both the songwriting and the execution of this new EP.

The influence of ’90s death metal in the vein of Morbid Angel, Entombed, Bloodbath, and Carcass are evident, but the music hits like a combination of meteor strike and bulldozer rather than a rote repetition of what you’ve already heard before. It’s both a powerful reminder of what we loved about the past and a skull-cleaving, heart-palpitating illustration of what you miss if you confine yourself only to the old classics.

We have a riveting example of this point in the first single from the EP that we’re premiering today in advance of its May 27 release by Redefining Darkness Records. Its name is “Incantations At Dusk“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUPPRESSION — “LIFELESSNESS”

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Mar 302022
 

We’ve already been loudly banging the drum for Suppression‘s debut album The Sorrow of Soul Through Flesh. In a recent review for our site, Todd Manning dropped references to the likes of Monstrosity, Resurrection, Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation, and most especially the legendary Death. summing up the album as “brutal yet technical, ripping yet atmospheric”. He further wrote:

They are students of their genre but easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best. The most complex moments never sound forced but serve the songs. It’s just a killer death metal album from start to finish.

I added my own two cents here about the first single from the album, “Monochromatic Chambers”: “Prepare for a full-throttle rampage, a turbocharged attack of maniacal drumwork, jittery, jagged, and jolting riffage, mercurial guitar leads, and utterly rabid vocals. When the band temper the onslaught, they deliver a fascinating prog-influenced instrumental jam.” From that track I got flashes of old Atheist and Gorguts as well as Dysrhythmia.

And so it’s a thrill for us to give one more push for a fantastic debut full-length by these Chileans, as we premiere the second single “Lifelessness” (a song with an incredibly deceptive name). Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CENTINEX — “THE PESTILENCE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 302022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of a new MLP by the Swedish death metal band Centinex. It will be released by Agonia Records on April 1st.)

We have our pillars of consistency on this website, the ones we go to because we know exactly what we’ll be in for from moment one. Surprises are welcome but for the most part these are the bands who’ve long found what works for them and are sticking to it.

Centinex are one such band, part of the wave of death metal that so rigidly adheres to old school philosophies that you could pull any release from their discography and it would feel more like a snapshot out of an older time than a modern release. They found their power in the classic thudding bass and snare drum rotation and the joyfully-stupid guitar riff that buzzes so hard your headphones sound like you might’ve kicked a bees’ nest without noticing.

Since their reformation in 2014, Centinex have released a handful of solid-as-hell death metal records and shifted lineups sizeably once, with bassist Martin Schulman remaining the main pillar of the group. Centinex are his classic death metal band and when he wants to aim for something more in line with the current gallop-and-blastfest style, then he shifts into Demonical mode.

Both groups, however, find themselves with releases prepared for 2022, and for Centinex that means a brand new four-song EP entitled The Pestilence, with the same lineup that made 2020’s Death In Pieces. Would you believe us if we said that, once again, Centinex have written music that is about as red meat for the crowd as red meat comes? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DARKENED, FALSE CHURCH, VĀMĀCĀRA, DJEVELKULT, DISQUIET, THE DAMNNATION, SUPERDEATHFLAME

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 292022
 

 

I’m sure some of you noticed that I didn’t post anything at NCS last weekend, neither a new-music roundup on Saturday nor a Shades of Black column on Sunday. I was in my hometown of Austin, Texas, which was only my second departure from Washington since the pandemic began (the other one being a trip to Iceland last fall for Ascension Festival).

No reason to go into details about that trip, other than to say that it was packed with activities that led to late nights and hungover mornings, and I had no time to write anything for this site. I did have a little time to myself on Friday afternoon and used that to check out some new songs and videos. From that I assembled a tentative collection for a Saturday roundup, and even though I couldn’t get that done, I decided to stick with the list for today.

I enjoyed the hell out of all these songs when I first heard them — my kind of ear candy. I hope you’ll have fun with them too.

DARKENED (International)

This group of all-stars put out a hell of a debut album in 2020’s Kingdom of Decay, and early signs are that their new record will also be a rousing a success. Continue reading »

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