Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROPHAGOUS — “WOLF MOTHER”

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Nov 042021
 

 

The Swedish death metal band Necrophagous boasts a line-up whose members have spent time in Visceral Bleeding and Entrails, and those pedigrees provide clues to the music encompassed by their debut album In Chaos Ascend, which is set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on January 7, 2022. It has an old school flavor — flavors of Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus, of Deicide and Cannibal Corpse, of Suffocation and Revulsion. The music is undeniably vicious, but also packed with contagious riffs and compulsive grooves.

What we have for you today is a stream of “Wolf Mother“, the third single released from the album so far. As you’ll soon discover, it’s an exercise in high-powered, high-speed hostility and flesh-stripping derangement, which ends with a devolution into grisly moods of degradation and decay. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PAYDRETZ

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Nov 042021
 

 

(In this fascinating new interview Comrade Aleks talks with Geoffroy “le Veuzou” from the distinctive French folk/black metal band Paydretz, whose debut album was released by Antiq Records in early October.)

I hope our constant readers are used to long interviews because for our luck there are a lot of both new and old bands who have something to tell and to open our eyes on the things previously unseen.

When I received a new promo pack from Antiq Records there was a new name on it – Paydretz — and again the cover art did its work, making me play their debut album Chroniques de l’Insurrection and try to search for the story behind it.

This French trio consists of Sven Avel Viz (guitars, bass, drums), Michel de Malvoisin (guitars, backing vocals), and Geoffroy “le Veuzou” (vocals, bagpipes, whistles and keyboards). Geoffroy explains the name of the band: “Paydretz” was the nickname given to the fighters of the Vendean general Charette, who came from the region of Retz, in French “Pays de Retz” which gives us “Paydretz”.

“Vendean” what? – you wonder as I did. Yes, this black / folk masterpiece tells the story of the Great Vendean Insurrection (1793-1796) from the point of view of the Vendean insurgents… And yes – this interview will reveal more about it, so lads and lasses take your copybooks and pencils and be ready. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE AMENTA — “TWINED TOWERS”

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Nov 032021
 

Surely you’ve listened to Revelator by now. If you haven’t, there better be a damned good excuse, like a protracted coma or meningitis-induced deafness or living-under-a-rock ignorance. Possibly you just don’t like absolute musical crushers you can headbang to and/or maelstroms of noise capable of causing your brain to lock up and/or hallucinatory experiences that will disturb your sleep. But we’ll discount those latter explanations, because you’re here at this site, aren’t you? Of course you’re attracted to such things.

We of course are big fans of the genre-colliding Australian band who made Revelator, none more so than our slave DGR who devoted many (MANY) words to it in his review. But we’re not only inveterate fans of the music. We also always relish the videos that The Amenta and friends craft for their songs, because they’re just as wild and unsettling as the music.

And thus we’re thrilled to present one of their jaw-dropping, skull-exploding videos today, for a song that arguably could be considered the centerpiece of Revelator. And in addition to that we also have an extended interview of The Amenta‘s vocalist Cain Cressall, who answers some of the questions that will inevitably occur to you after watching — such as “How the fuck did they do that?”, “Are those maggots and spiders real?”, and “What the hell does this all mean?” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEBER — “ASPIRE TO AFFLICTION”

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Nov 032021
 

The relatively new Swedish band Deber named one of the songs on their debut album for the title of the album itself (Aspire To Affliction) and another for themselves. By far, those are the two shortest tracks, positioned in a such a way that one of them begins the record and the other ends it. In between are three monumental songs — a trio of towering edifices, in terms of both minutes and the imposing visions they create.

We say that Deber are a relatively new band, but the members aren’t newcomers, even if they’re pursuing some new directions here. These two are DIE (in charge of strings and organ), who is a member of Anguish and Ondskapt, and HCF (who handles drums and vocals). What they’ve turned their attention to in Deber is funeral doom, drawing upon the influence of such masters as Evoken, Worship, Skepticism, and Colosseum.

As the album title suggests, they aspire to sounds of affliction, and they have achieved their aspirations, with staggering power. Continue reading »

GLASSING: “TWIN DREAM”

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Nov 032021
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Austin, Texas-based Glassing, which will be released on November 5th by Brutal Panda Records.)

At first you think …ok, this is a sludge album with a great deal of post-rock atmosphere, not an uncommon sub-genre these days. While that might be in play on the opener, there is a great deal of powerful heaviness that hits you outside the sonic scope of sludge. Angular twists and turns as well as sections that pound at you like an angry hardcore band, or I suppose screamo, since that tends to blend its sonic texture more in this direction. The scathing scream of the vocals meets somewhere between black metal and screamo.

When the kind of spastic chaos is expressed in say grindcore, the results are more abrasive. Here everything flows very smoothly. That is not to say that Glassing aren’t at times hyper-aggressive. This is a very heavy album, just heavy sonically. It falls outside the meaty chugs and blast beats most of the bands we cover here deal in, yet I am sure Islander will agree that my niche here is bringing bands on the fringe of metal into the spotlight. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CUTTERRED FLESH — “GOOD BOY”

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Nov 022021
 

 

The video we’re about to present shows us… how shall we say it?… an interesting household. A seemingly innocent little boy and his pet rabbit. An abusive mother who doesn’t realize where her rages are going to lead. And in the living room, a bunch of death metal barbarians turning the humble surroundings into a psychotic war zone.

Oh yes, it’s an interesting video, with blood spatter in its future. And it makes an attention-riveting companion to the absolutely bludgeoning and eviscerating song “Good Boy” that it presents — a bombastic, mind-mauling, and terrifically brutalizing track by the Czech death metal band Cutterred Flesh.

Adorned by the macabre cover art of Par Olofsson, which itself features a couple of “good boys”, the album that includes this track will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on December 3rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BROODING FEAR — “SCORN”

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Nov 022021
 

 

We’re about to give you a gift of thrills, the kind of full-throttle, head-spinning spectacle that comes with our occasional warning to take plenty of deep breaths before you press Play.

The song is “Scorn“, and it does indeed have a vicious, clobbering, and condemnatory intensity, but it’s also absolutely wild, and guaranteed to light a fire under your nerves. It’s the work of a part-Dutch, part-Hungarian band of technically jaw-dropping death metal marauders who’ve taken the name Brooding Fear. It comes from their explosive new release, Abomination, which will be detonated by Ungodly Ruins Productions on December 3rd.

Take a good look at the wild, savage cover art for Abomination, because it provides a further big clue as to what’s coming. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WINTAAR — “I WILL WAIT FOR YOU IN MY HELL”

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Nov 022021
 

We’re about to expose you to a big jolt of electrifying insanity, one that’s sure to get your pulse jumping and your head spinning. It’s a hell-for-leather, no-holds-barred song called “I Will Wait For You In My Hell” by the Russian black metal band Wintaar off their new album Tear You Down, which is set for release on November 25th by the triumvirate of Satanath Records, Valgriind, and Svanrenne Music.

Even a quick glance at Wintaar‘s Metal Archives page demonstrates that the project has been incredibly prolific, releasing nearly 30 albums in just the last four years, and that’s not counting the participation of its sole creator WV in many other bands. And now Tear You Down adds to that discography, but also represents a change, in that WV has now been joined by two other permanent members, guitarist Namiros and drummer E.J.C. (who also performs additional bass and backing vocal).

In addition, WIntaar characterizes the new album as one that takes the band’s aggressiveness to the boiling point, and represents its fastest and heaviest work yet, while still presenting significant variations among the songs. Continue reading »

OBSCURA: “A VALEDICTION”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 022021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli has re-surfaced with this review because Obscura‘s new album left him no choice. It’s set for release on November 19th by Nuclear Blast.)

I’ve been keeping a low profile as of late and probably won’t be submitting a year-end list for NCS or doing any more reviews for the year. Many things have brought this about, just personal life things and trying to get my shit in some vague semblance of an order going into next year. I might even change the alias I use for this website, and I feel like in the spirit of that I’d do my last review for the year and talk about Obscura.

It’s funny, because in the same “different face, same presentation” manner that I’m thinking of changing my writing alias for this website, so too has Obscura decided to do the same regarding their sonic identity with A Valediction. Obscura is one of my favorite bands of all time, although I didn’t used to feel that way. I was that guy who in the case of Cosmogenesis was was using unimaginative, uneducated language like “boring”, “pretentious”, and “wanky”to describe what was in reality some of the most mature guitar-centric progressive and technical death metal produced aside from Necrophagist. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONCRETE WINDS — “DEMONIC TRUCULENCE”

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Nov 012021
 

Good morning class. Today we have a case study for you, a study in paradox. The paradox in question is how musicians who have clearly taken leave of their senses are able to create sonic sensations that are utterly maniacal, and yet make their stupendously berserk convulsions somehow sound… catchy? Yes, catchy! (Although it’s possible we’ve taken leave of our senses as a result of listening to this.)

The subject of the case study is a track named “Demonic Truculence” (bonus points for using “truculence” in a song title, and for making music that merits the word, especially when modified by the adjective “demonic”). The two evident maniacs who made it (Jonatan Johansson and Mikko Josefsson) go by the name Concrete Winds. The album that includes the track goes by the accurately descriptive name Nerve Butcherer. Continue reading »

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