Islander

IN MOURNING: “THE BLEEDING VEIL”

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Nov 302021
 

(DGR prepared the following review of the new album by the Swedish band In Mourning, just released on November 26th.)

In Mourning have definitely found a sound since the heady days of 2012 and their release of The Weight Of Oceans. Creating their own loosely conceptual lyrical universe, that album laid the groundwork for just about every release of In Mourning that followed it. While early works in the band’s discography would land them on the radar of prog-death fans – and I will go to bat for Monolith being an absolutely fantastic and underrated release – The Weight Of Oceans and its doom and post-metal influences would be where In Mourning would stake their claim.

Both 2016’s Afterglow and 2019’s Garden Of Storms continued along that path, acting as extensions of that musical world, sometimes wandering down a more death metal oriented path and sometimes going full avant-garde, as Garden Of Storms would reach its tendrils into every crevice it found. Now firmly ensconced in their corner of the progressive death metal world and with an even smaller gap between releases, In Mourning are with us once again with The Bleeding Veil, the group’s sixth full-length and the third release so far to contain seven songs in its track list.

Given that the throughline of The Bleeding Veil and its two most recent siblings is so similar, it’s interesting to see what paths In Mourning have decided to chart this time around. The Bleeding Veil is In Mourning in full focusing mode, as the disc takes all of the different directions that Garden Of Storms shot out and hones them down, refining them into a much more tied and tighter release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GATEWAYS — “GODS OF THE GAPS”

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Nov 302021
 

We’ wrote frequently and favorably about the music of the solo project Haustið (the work of one A. Enrique), which consisted of five demos released in 2018 and 2019. Haustið‘s creator has now prepared a new EP, Gods of the Gaps, although under a new name — Gateways — and today we’re presenting a premiere stream of its captivating title track in advance of the EP’s December 3 release date.

I learned about Haustið just before Thanksgiving Day in 2018, thanks to a recommendation from Rennie of starkweather, who vividly compared Haustið’s then-latest demo to “a cross of Emanation and Wolok on a suicide mission”. When I wrote about that demo, Howling, the Sol Above, Nothing Below, I described “a surreal quality to the music as it flows along its twisting course, with outbursts of dark, dissonant, thorny permutations interwoven with soulful, gliding, and sinuous instrumental passages, both moody and mystical, that sometimes partake of traditions other than extreme metal”.

The next Haustið recording, released in the spring of 2019, and also discussed here, was a two-track EP named Long Lost Ruins Cried their Black Soot. It was also a marvelously multifaceted experience, with both a “physically” powerful impact and a bitter and chilly atmosphere, delivering one changing experience after another. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LIEWEAVER — “OBSESSED WITH PURITY”

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Nov 302021
 

In September of this waning year the Italian label Lethal Scissor Records released a debut EP named The Origin by the Ukrainian extremists Lieweaver. The band first began to coalesce in October 2018 through the union of vocalist Vasiliy Kutsenko, guitarist Alex Choopov, and drummer Bogdan Fesenko. Soon, guitarist Alex Reshetnuk joined the group, and together they released a a debut single, “Paradox Of Creation“. A few months later bassist Bogdan Khoroshilov joined the band, and in February 2021 Ruslan Kovtun (keys/synth) completed the line-up for the recording of The Origin.

What we have for you today is a playthrough video for the EP’s closing track, “Obsessed With Purity“, and it features the talents of guitarists Choopov and Reshetnuk and bassist Khoroshilov. Watching them execute their missions within “Obsessed With Purity” is a fascinating thing to see, and the music has its own fascinations — in addition to delivering a bludgeoning beating. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): HÄSSLIG, DET EVIGA LEENDET, TERMINARCH

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Nov 292021
 

Somehow civilization didn’t collapse yesterday when I failed to post the usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column, though it did leave a black hole in our site for the day. I had plans for most of the day outside the house that took me away from my computer, and I unexpectedly slept in, so didn’t have time to get it done before departing.

My tentative selections for the column as of yesterday were extensive, which also contributed to my inability to get it done. I thought about cutting back the size of the column today, in an effort to make sure I got it done without further delay, but decided to hell with that. So here it is in all its humongous, twisting and turning, glory, though with only compact commentary — and divided into two Parts, with the second Part projected for tomorrow.

HÄSSLIG (Spain)

Dissociative Visions/Mystískaos sent out messages over the Thanksgiving holiday announcing four new releases, accompanied by music premieres. Three of those are targeted for release in February, but Hässlig‘s debut album is out now in full. Well, it’s called a full-length, but it falls just shy of 19 minutes across 8 tracks. Its name is Guillotine, and that turns out to be an evocative description; it drops, and heads will roll. Continue reading »

LOCK UP: “THE DREGS OF HADES”

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Nov 292021
 

 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by deathgrind superstars Lock Up, just released by Listenable Records.)

While everyone else was enjoying their holiday here in the States and those of us who worked retail dreaded the following day, your reviewer here was waiting patiently for that dreaded following day as well. Not because there was some innate urge to go trample someone in the charge to catch not only a potentially deadly disease but also a deal on a TV, but because that Friday also delivered to us an absolute bludgeoning of new releases to listen to. What this also provided was a fantastic case of genre-whiplash as Voices, In Mourning, and today’s subject Lock Up would also release their newest additions to their collective works.

The Dregs Of Hades is Lock Up‘s fifth full-length release in a pretty long career, but one that has seen newer releases becoming far more frequent than the gaps left between their second and third albums. It also has some new additions to the group. Notably, Nick Barker and his fantastic neverending drum fills have bowed out and Misery Index/Pig Destroyer drum-kit annihilator Adam Jarvis is in. Also, one of the changes that equally grabbed press was the return of Tomas Lindberg back into the fold on vocals – tag-teaming alongside Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp for an interesting hardcore punk tinge of gang shouts and dual-pronged vocal attacks to the group’s constantly hair-on-fire style of grind music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REJEKTS — “ADAMO”

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Nov 292021
 

 

I was unfamiliar with the previous recordings of the Italian band REJEKTS, but experienced a reflexive thrill when I read that their new album Adamo embraces “grindcore, black metal and more”. Blackened grindcore, when done well, usually gets my motor running, but it turns out that perhaps the most meaningful part of that quoted PR passage is the part that says “and more”.

The lyrical themes of REJEKTS are politically charged, in keeping with their punk and grindcore ethos, and on Adamo they do indeed strike with black-metal bursts of blasting drums, grim and cutting tremolo’d riffs, and shrieking vocal intensity. But yes, there’s more going on here — a lot more.

Unlike standard grindcore, the songs are elaborate and constantly surprising, fueled with gripping mood-changing melodies, and as devoted to the creation of harrowing “atmosphere” (for want of a better word) as they are to pushing a listener’s adrenaline into overdrive. The album experience is disturbing, but absolutely riveting from start to finish. And thus we take great pleasure in presenting a full stream in advance of its rapidly approaching December 3rd release by Slaughterhouse Records. Continue reading »

VHS: “I HEARD THEY SUCK… BLOOD”

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Nov 292021
 

 

(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by Ontario-based VHS, which is set for a December 3rd release by Wise Blood Records.)

Halloween lasts all year long unless you’re a poser. So it doesn’t really matter that Canada’s death fiends VHS aren’t dropping their album I Heard They Suck…Blood until December 3rd, the shit is going to hit you the same regardless. Like Halloween, the influences VHS lean on feel eternal in Metal’s history. Take one part Scream Bloody Gore, mix in some early Autopsy, Repulsion, and more recently Exhumed, and you have a fist-pumping, gore-spewing recipe for old school death metal.

While not exactly breaking the mold, VHS take the sound of their predecessors and make it their own. They look to a time when death metal’s DNA still had a lot of thrash mixed up in it. Not the polished excellence of the Bay Area bands, but that nasty sound pioneered by Kreator and early Slayer. Oftentimes, such as on “Fake Blood and Push-Up Bras”, a track that features Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, things take on an almost punk feel. For those sections, the Autopsy influence gives way to Abcess, yet when they do slow down, the evil melodies of Chris Reifert’s home base return. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NECHOCHWEN, SHAPE OF DESPAIR, THUMOS, SPIRITWORLD, REPENTANCE, ULTRA SILVAM, KAATAYRA, MAC GOLLEHON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 272021
 


Nechochwen

 

Very early this morning I spent time listening to new music in order to select what I would want to recommend to you, and made the following selections. But then I unexpectedly had to spend a couple of hours on the job that pays me (advising world leaders on how to deal with problems that confound their feeble minds), and that left me with almost no time to provide my own (unnecessary) impressions of the music. So it will have to speak for itself, which is no problem because it speaks so fluently.

This is an idiosyncratic set of song choices, with very little to connect them to each other other than my attraction to them. But I think it will be a very interesting, albeit unpredictable, journey if you stick with everything through to the end.

NECHOCHWEN (U.S.)

After nearly 8 years since the release of the fabulous Heart of Akamon, West Virginia’s beloved Nechochwen have returned, unveiling the title track from their impending new album, Kanawha Black. Kanawha Black will be released worldwide by Bindrune Recordings in Spring/Summer of 2022. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REDEMPTOR — “LES RUINES DE POMPEI”

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Nov 262021
 

 

The lineup of Redemptor includes current and former members of Decapitated, Vader, Hate, Sceptic, Sothoth, Banisher, Deivos, and more, which should be enough to attract your attention to their new album Agonia even if you hadn’t heard any of their previous works — which were the subject of NCS scribe Andy Synn‘s 93rd SYNN REPORT.

When Andy wrote in detail about the collective discography of Redemptor as it existed almost four years ago, he summed it up this way:

“Over the course of three albums and one EP the Polish quintet have steadily evolved their sound from the Schuldiner-esque strains of their debut album None Pointless Balance to the angular hooks and merciless precision of 4th Density and The Jugglernaut, with the process finally culminating in the gargantuan grooves and captivating atmospherics of last year’s utterly crushing Arthaneum.”

And now we have the band’s newest work,  Agonia. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOLLOW WOODS — “A FROZEN GLANCE”

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Nov 262021
 

 

Winter is upon us, and we have a soundtrack for its descent.

We know very little about the Finnish black metal band Hollow Woods, neither the precise location nor the identity of its member (or members). We know something about what inspired their debut album, Cold Winds Cleave the Earth, which will be released on the Winter Solstice, December 21st of this waning year.

We’re told that the artwork and the album’s themes were inspired by the Finnish linguist and ethnographer Kai Donner (1888-1935), taken during his expeditions to Siberia for the purpose of studying the Ugric and Samodeic peoples, including their languages.

Beyond that, the music must speak for itself as Hollow Woods works within a framework of devotion to the primal world and nature mysticism. The song we present today, “A Frozen Glance“, speaks in terms that are deeply haunting and harrowing. Continue reading »

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