Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FADEAD — “L’ESTREMITÀ DEL MONDO”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 092022
 

 

This coming April Lethal Scissor Records will release the debut EP of an Italian grindcore band who call themselves Fadead and whose experienced line-up includes Y. (Vomit the Soul, ex-Precognitive Holocaust Annotations), V. (Spells of Misery, Bolvangar, Vertebra Atlantis), and R.

The name of the EP is Terra Ferita, and it comes recommended for fans of Nasum, Cripple Bastards, and Napalm Death. To help spread the word about it, today we’re premiering a lyric video (in Italian) for a brutal assault named “L’estremità del mondo“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GRAND HARVEST

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 092022
 

 

(In a couple of weeks from now Sweden’s Grand Harvest will release their debut album, and in a timely move Comrade Aleks caught up with them for the following interview.)

Armageddon, the End of Mankind, Luciferian Gnosis, Death – that’s how Metal-Archives sum up the lyrical themes of Grand Harvest. This band was formed in Sweden in 2017 by five men who gained experience playing in different local bands. This time they gathered under the death metal genre but a few years passed and Grand Harvest’s sound mutated in something different, bringing in certain doom metal influences and some less obvious blackened echoes.

Their debut album Consummatum Est is to be released on March 25th, and we hurried to organize the interview with this band right in time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: COSMIC PUTREFACTION, EGREGORE, HÄXENZIJRKELL, AL-NAMROOD, SUNCZAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 082022
 

 

I had a premiere scheduled for today that unexpectedly fell through, so I decided to scurry around and grab some new songs and videos for a round-up. The scurrying didn’t allow much time for writing, so you won’t find much of that here. I did try to create a genre-spread, because unlike me not everyone likes every formulation of metallic extremity. Have a listen, and pick your poison. (Some very good artwork in this collection too.)

COSMIC PUTREFACTION (Italy)

You’d know if someone slipped this poison into your drink, because it doesn’t go down easy. Prepare for churning, gut-punching, fret-leaping, brain-broiling death metal mayhem by a virtuoso practitioner (Gabriele Gramaglia, with help this time from drummer Giulio Galati). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FALAMH — “BLACKENED WAVES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 082022
 


L-R: Dave Strba (guitar, backing vocals), Kyle Tayler (guitars, vocals), Kye Bell (bass)

 

Falamh, from North Bay, Ontario, Canada rose from the ashes of a previous band in 2019, and released their first EP (The Unbound Beyond: I) in 2020. Honing their blend of melodic black/death metal, they’re now readying the release of a second EP, which is due out on March 25th. Its title is Aeons Effigy, and what we have for you today is the premiere of the new EP’s second single, “Blackened Waves“.

As you’ll discover, it’s a moving and memorable song, but it delivers punch as well as pain, ferocity as well as desperation. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KONVENT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 082022
 


photo by Sebastian Apel

(The Danish quartet Konvent have a new album named Call Down the Sun that’s set for release by Napalm Records on March 11th, and so the timing is good for us to present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of the band’s bassist Heidi Withington Brink.)

Danish Konvent managed to shock the public in January 2020, when Napalm loudly presented the band’s first album Puritan Masochism. Being one of the very few death-doom bands with only ladies in the line-up, Konvent drew attention with their tense, powerful delivery and the absolutely infernal growls of Rikke Emilie List.

The pandemic interrupted their glorious take-off, and another band might have given up in such a situation but not Konvent. You probably saw their videos for the new songs ‘Grains’ and ‘Pipe Dreams’, and of course you know that Napalm announced that the second Konvent album Call Down the Sun is to be released on the 11th of March. And as that date fast approaches here we have a talk with the band’s bass-player Heidi Withington Brink. Continue reading »

ARKAIK: “LABYRINTH OF HUNGRY GHOSTS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 082022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album by the California death metal band Arkaik. The album will be released on March 11th by The Artisan Era.)

For a very long time I considered Arkaik something of a bellweather when it came to the modern tech-death scene. Up until the time following 2017’s Nemethia the group were a pretty reliable snapshot of that scene, every two to three years adding to their conceptual album universe with a battering of groove-oriented and rhythmically-complex songs that straddled the line between being overly technical and brutally-core without leaning too far in either direction. Despite an ever-shifting lineup, Arkaik have maintained a fairly strong and consistent output. Because of that, as noted, they’ve been perfect if you’re the type to dance into and out of many different subgenres of heavy metal.

Now though, the situation shifts as labels have gotten far more specialized than before. It’s not so much that Arkaik find themselves at the forefront of a particular genre any more, but that they have found another label that specializes in where Arkaik are at this moment in their musical journey. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BURNED IN EFFIGY — “TREACHERY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 072022
 


L-R – Mark “Smedy” Smedbron (Vocals) | Matt Watkins (Bass) | Eddie Dec (Drums) | Steve Bacakos (Guitar) | Mike Hisson (Guitar)
Photo Credit – Emily Fuschen (Dark Trix Photography)

When metal bands contemplate which of their songs would be a good subject for a playthrough video, they face an interesting choice. If they pick a technically demanding piece, the results can be especially impressive — but it’s a lot more challenging to achieve success. As you’re about to see and hear, the Chicago-based melodic death metal band Burned In Effigy didn’t shy away from the challenge.

The song they chose, “Treachery“, is by their own admission the most melodically and harmonically complex track on their recently released debut album Rex Mortem, which introduces the tale of a tyrannical king’s rule and demise. Bassist Matt Watkins tells us: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: 1/2 SOUTHERN NORTH — “HEARTS OF HADES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 072022
 


Photo by Elena Vasilaki, Athens

The Greek artist Ifigeneia Derizioti, who goes by the name IDVex in her occult musical project 1/2 Southern North, has a remarkable voice. Like an aural chameleon, it’s capable of changing colors in dramatic, spine-tingling fashion. It is the most compelling feature of 1/2 Southern North‘s debut album Narrations of a Fallen Soul, and not merely because her expressions are such a rarity in metal and metal-adjacent genres. It would stand out in any genre.

But we hasten to add that her artistry extends beyond those wide-ranging vocal talents. It extends to the conceptual and lyrical narrative that she and her collaborators have created for this first full-length, and to her songcraft, which itself ranges widely in style, texture, and mood.

In terms that would be familiar to metal lovers, she draws upon the influences of black metal, doom metal, and avant-garde music (she calls it the “Black Noise of Doom”), but as you’ll discover through the song we’re premiering today, her creations extend beyond the realms of metal. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AU-DESSUS, TERZIJ DE HORDE, BESNA, OURANOS, KURHAN, COLDWORLD, THERIOMORPH, VERUTA, ALL ARE TO RETURN

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 062022
 

 

Sometimes I begin these columns with well-known names (only if I think the music is good, of course), in an effort to lure visitors into the music of much less well-known bands. I thought about doing that today with new songs and videos by Dark Funeral and Watain, but decided to just move right into obscurity.

Having chosen new stuff by nine different bands, it was going to be hard enough to write very much about them even without also trying to comment about the new singles by those bigger names (if you haven’t heard those tracks, you’ll find them here and here).

AU-DESSUS (Lithuania)

When I heard the first single (“XI”) from this Lithuanian post-black metal band’s 2017 debut album, End of Chapter, I had a suspicion that we had something very special on our hands.

By the time we ourselves premiered the second one (“XII”), I had a firm conviction that this record would stand well out from the pack and become a highlight of the year. Finally being able to hear the full album provided confirmation. It was a powerful release from beginning to end, and was also home to a track (“VI”) that I included in our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

And so it’s exciting news that the band will be releasing a new EP next month through Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions. The first single is also exciting. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SEPTICFLESH, VITAL SPIRIT, ANATOMIA, UNDERGANG, COME MIERDA, OTTONE PESANTE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 052022
 


Septicflesh – photo by Stella Mouzi

I wasn’t able to pull together any roundups of new songs and videos this past week, which means that today I’m only scratching the surface of what surfaced. It’s more like scratching just the top molecular layer of a solid block of steel. I’ll be back tomorrow to do some more scratching. Maybe some of your musical itches will be scratched too.

SEPTICFLESH (Greece)

Yesterday Nuclear Blast released news about a forthcoming album by SepticFlesh and a video for its first singe, “Hierophant“. It’s a conceptual song that begins a story which continues in the track “Self-Eater”.

This first part of the story (to quote band member Sotiris Anunnaki V) “depicts the experience of a high priest, acting as a human conduit between Heaven and Earth. Having never heard a single word from the mouth of God, he grows tired of preaching the preordained words of the clergy. He turns to performing primitive and powerful rituals that have been long forbidden, as he seeks the guidance of a chaotic elemental consciousness”. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries