Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MEGALITH LEVITATION

 Interviews  No Responses »
Dec 232021
 

 

(In this engaging interview Comrade Aleks spoke with vocalist SAA from the Russian occult psychedelic doom band Megalith Levitation, whose newest album Void Psalms was released in the fall of this year by Aesthetic Death.)

If you remember our interview with Moscow-based coven IL and their heresyarch Vlad, I mentioned them as “one of three most solid and impressive Russian doom bands nowadays”. And as a second one, Dekonstrutor, don’t answer interviews (shame on you guys, shame on you Mitya!), then it’s much easier to get a response from Megalith Levitation.

This occult, psychedelic and ritualistic act grew on the poisonous soil of industry giant city Chelyabinsk, under its smoke-covered skies. This environment can break or inspire in some way, and Megalith Levitation took the best they could find there and effectively channeled it through their second album Void Psalms (Aesthetic Death, October 2021). Traditionally we get in touch with the band’s singing vocalist SAA. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2021  No Responses »
Dec 232021
 


photo by Catherine B Photografie

 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for six years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions.)

So, 2021 huh? At least it wasn’t ‘2020 part 2, this time it’s personal’. The theme of the year has to be ‘cautious optimism’ as things slowly creep back to something we can consider adjacent enough to what we used to call normal for us to become complacent once again. Shows are slowly starting back-up, I can eat at my favorite Pho place again, looks like we might just be on the other end of this shitstorm and we may even get a few months before the next one starts (omicron, nuclear warfare, global warming, the fall of capitalism, murder hornets 2: The Return, all bets are open on what will hit next!)

All in all, a much better year than the previous one, musically and personally. I’m turning in my list earlier than usual this year, for once having a list of 20 potential albums that I all feel comfortable including. I will still be scouring everyone else’s list for a potential entry in a ‘Shit I Slept On’ compilation early next year, but until then, hope you discover something new in here! Continue reading »

AN ASSHOLE’S LIST PT III: SYNTH AND SYNTH ACCESSORIES

 LISTMANIA 2021  No Responses »
Dec 232021
 

 

(Today we present Part III of a five-part series of year-end lists from Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood).)

I guess I’ve talked about my waning interest in dungeon synth every time I’ve written about it for the last few years, which has been frequent, so that makes me either dishonest with myself or an idiot. I’m sure the internet will provide a measured response to such an existential question so while I wait patiently for the polite and measured response I’ll walk you through the synth pieces I’ve really enjoyed in 2021.

As a note: not everything is dungeon synth or even remotely linked to it, the music here just shares the common thread of being ambient, electronic or synth-driven in nature. And like every year I tend to stick to the same few labels so I’m sure I’ve missed a few great recordings elsewhere (and probably a few hundred not so great ones). This is one genre that I’m always willing to listen to recommendations in, so if you have any then shoot your shot. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA: 20-11

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
Dec 232021
 

 

(Today we present Part Four of the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list, with a segment that includes his countdown from 20 through 11.)

I’ve joked about it before but I believe this may be the first time I’ve actually pulled it off. We’ve danced around the fringes of it before but if we’ve timed this just right as a website, we may in fact be releasing my year-end list in time to ruin the holidays. If so, this one should be getting up there with tomorrow’s final entries smashing right into the holiday weekend. If that is the case then Hello, how are you?

I’m more than happy to help supply you with a multi-entry playlist of music to blast incredibly loudly and hopefully terrify both your neighbors and family in equal measure. You could even consider some of this the anti-holiday music list, because this is the one where things start to get increasingly abrasive. If it hasn’t become clear, it’s probably the part of the list I’ve had on max volume at work in order to drown out whatever the muzak is playing. I’ve heard it’s my coworkers new favorite game: “Is he doing construction over there or is that what he’s listening to?”

As with any installment of my year-end lists, this is the part that gets increasingly tech-death. Every couple of years I wind up with a gigantic block of entries from that genre and this has been an especially fruitful year. If you enjoy some instrumental pyrotechnics and musical wonder-working then there’s a damned good chunk of music in this block here for you. Everything else darts between weird and abrasive… so pretty par for the DGR course. Let us sally forth and crash headlong into tomorrow! Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: BANDCAMP DAILY’S “THE BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021”

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
Dec 222021
 

 

Reading year-end lists that someone other than you made tend to provoke mixed feelings of validation, perplexity (which sometimes verges into anger), and discovery. The opportunity for discovery is the main reason we here at NCS devote so much space to our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza, even though we know those other feelings will also be in the mix of reactions. The list we’re re-publishing from Bandcamp Daily will probably be no different in any of these respects.

Bandcamp, of course, has become a vital platform for the digital release of music of all stripes (and physical merchandise as well) since its founding in 2007. Bandcamp used to release an annual compilation of performance statistics, but I haven’t found a similar report since the one they released for 2017. However, the main Bandcamp page today reports that “Fans have paid artists $854 million using Bandcamp, and $212 million in the last year”.

In the summer of 2016, the company launched Bandcamp Daily, an online music publication about artists on the platform. Bandcamp Daily regularly publishes articles of relevance to metalheads, though metal is of course only one of hundreds of music genres represented on Bandcamp. Recently Bandcamp Daily published its list of “The Best Metal Albums of 2021“ under the byline of Brad Sanders, who writes the monthly metal column for Bandcamp. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 METAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

 LISTMANIA 2021  6 Responses »
Dec 222021
 

 

(Long-time NCS contributor Wil Cifer weighs in here with his picks for the favorite Top 20 metal albums of the year.)

There are voices that cry out against lists such as these, saying music is subjective, and its merit cannot be measured . The obvious flaws with this might include highly derivative artists who are tribute bands trying to pass off songs as originals. The real measuring stick for a great album is songwriting. Do the songs get stuck in your head, finding you returning to them with a craving to hear more? How well music stands up over the course of time is another, though an end of the year list is not the best unit of measure since they have so far only endured 12 months at most.

My Last FM determined how much I actually listened to an album. Writers want our lists to appear as cool as all the other writers because the Corpse Painted Butt Plug demo is on it, but if I only listened to it once how inspiring could it really be? Sounding brutal is the easy part, you only need the right gear and producer, but writing songs is more telling . A rip your face off guitar tone might hold my attention for the first song, then after that the question is … but can you write a song? Continue reading »

AN ASSHOLE’S LIST PT II: SHIT THAT’S ON CASSETTE

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
Dec 222021
 

 

(Our friend Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) has joined us again with year-end lists as 2021 draws to a close, and today we have Part Two of a five-part series.)

2021 was an outstanding year for the cassette, at least until the last few months of it because the little screws that are used to hold the fucking things together were apparently stuck on one of those boats that contained 80% of the country’s supply chain. Even still there were a ton of releases that were pushed through, some of them were even good.

This was probably the most difficult part of this year’s trophy parade because there were so many killer tapes that I left off this list but I really had to cut the fat, otherwise this would be a thirty-band list and nobody wants that. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: THE DGR YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA: 30-21

 LISTMANIA 2021  1 Response »
Dec 222021
 

 

(Today we present Part Three of the week-long rollout of DGR‘s year-end list, with a segment that includes his picks from 30 through 21.)

On The Bubble:

The bubble is a difficult term to describe but it’s the one I’ve found myself applying to releases throughout the year. It’s the place where a lot of the albums that would normally make the ‘pretty good’ list for most people tend to reside. They’re ones that I enjoy tremendously throughout the year but I can often recognize when it’s a band playing to their comforts more than anything else.

Of course, that leaves a lot of room wide open for different hypocritical statements. Sometimes a band can be as ‘comfort zone’ as they can think of and still wind up winning me over, where at other times a band can just jam out a bizarrely ambitious release and have it not quite work. I don’t think I have the strength in me to truly ‘hate’ anything anymore – especially because at this point, I’ve learned to see a lot of signs for things that I just know I’m not going to enjoy and we’re not the type to force anyone to listen to anything here – but I definitely have room to recognize when things work less well for me than others.

It’s hard to tell what or why a band might break through and make it on to the year-ender proper, but you’ve probably noticed that this year I didn’t bother constructing a ‘bubble list’ of things I felt worthy to check out. I reviewed and wrote up a lot of shit this year so if you’re looking to go even further into the fruits of 2021 and none of Andy‘s expansive lists this year have you covered then you could likely make worse mistakes. Save for the few bands that have just always been hit or miss with me, but you’ll likely guess those when you don’t see a name like Converge popping up here. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITCHDEN — “RENEWAL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 212021
 


Photo by David Rubene

Fair warning: You had better get your neck and shoulders loose before listening to the song we’re about to premiere on this winter solstice day. Hell, get your whole body loose, because “Renewal” will make you move, and your conscious mind will likely have no power over that impulse.

The song is a new one by Minneapolis-based Witchden, and it reveals a further progression in their ever-evolving manifestations of metallic extremity. With three full-lengths to their credit so far — Consulting the Bones (2012), Salt the Earth (2016), and Deus Nihil (2019) — our beloved Metal-Archives still brands them a Sludge band, but the truth is that their music has been increasingly much more of a hybrid than the Sludge label suggests — and “Renewal” makes that fact even more evident. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DØDSLEIE — “WHEN THE TRUTH GROWS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 212021
 

 

The part-Swedish, part-U.S. black metal band Dødsleie, which features current and former members of Integrity, Broken Cross, and Unreal City (among others), made their first mark on the musical landscape in 2018 with the release of their self-titled demo. They have now prepared a debut album named Immortal Hand, which is set for release on February 11 by Bat Magick Records and Subversive Craft. It is intended (in the band’s words) “to serve as a guide to those lost souls who question conformity amidst the daily death of dreams”.

Unmistakably black metal, the album is nevertheless unorthodox. It is both feverish and gloomy, harrowing and eerily entrancing. As the press materials accurately portray, it will take listeners “on a fever dream journey beyond time and space”.

The opening track of Immortal Hand is a song called “When the Truth Grows“, and we’re premiering it today (through a surreal music video) as the first tangible sign of what the album holds in store. Continue reading »

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