Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILLYRIAN — “AGE OF CHAOS”

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Oct 072021
 

 

Take some big gulps of air and make sure your head is screwed on tight, because the fireball of a song we’re premiering today through a lyric video will suck the wind from your lungs and threaten to send your head spinning off into the clouds.

The track is “Age of Chaos“, and it’s off a forthcoming concept EP (Aegis) by Illyrian from Calgary, Canada, which presents an electrifying combination of thrash-fueled death metal with impressive technicality and an ear for evocative melody. The EP will also appeal to gamers, because it draws inspiration from the gaming world, and specifically Dark Souls. The song we present today is a prime example of these inspirations. The band explain:

“‘Age of Chaos’ is a song about a king’s hubris, a witch’s creation, and the downfall of a kingdom they built together. The Dark Souls fans in the room will recognize this story, along with those told on rest of the EP, but if you’re not familiar – it’s a whole lot of demons, dragons, and death (metal).” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURIAL –“INNER GATEWAYS TO THE SLUMBERING EQUILIBIRUM AT THE CENTER OF THE COSMOS”

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Oct 072021
 

 

Today we present our second track premiere from the debut album by the Italian death metal band Burial in advance of its October 29 release by Everlasting Spew Records. When presenting the first premiere, a track named “Halls of the Formless Unraveler“, we summed up the music as “both hideous and haunting, assaulting and anguished, unearthly and oppressive,” with “the capacity to hypnotize, and to create harrowing emotional disturbances”.

What we have for you today is the album’s title track, “Inner Gateways To The Slumbering Equilibrium At The Center Of Cosmos“. It’s a mammoth song, both in its length and in the stunning impact of the nightmarish musical sensations it presents. It sounds like a monstrous intrusion from some horrifying realm beyond our own plane of existence. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): GENOCIDE PACT, IN MOURNING, NECRONEMESIS, ROPE SECT, SOLAR CROSS, THULCANDRA

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Oct 062021
 

Picking up here with the second Part of the big alphabetized roundup of new songs and videos I assembled for this hump-day…. If you haven’t yet checked out what was in Part 1, I hope you’ll do that when time allows, because there’s great stuff there too. You’ll find it through THIS LINK.

GENOCIDE PACT (U.S.)

Even though Genocide Pact‘s new album is their third one, they’ve self-titled it anyway. Unless I overlooked something, the first song I’ve chosen to lead off Part 2 of this round-up is the first one to be revealed from the album. Its name is “Perverse Dominion”, and we get to see the band performing it in a video. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE DESIGN ABSTRACT — “DECRYPTOR”

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Oct 062021
 

 

Today marks the first appearance at our site of The Design Abstract from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, and it’s an enormously eye-opening advent. Though only a trio, their brand of sci-fi-inspired melodic death metal sounds like a cast of thousands, bringing into play orchestral and other electronic/industrial synth elements that magnify the scale, the sweep, and the mind-bending extravagance of the music in ways that vividly suit their futuristic narratives.

The band’s new concept album, Metemtechnosis, is their fifth record overall and it’s set for release on October 29th by Abstrakted Records. Through music that should appeal to fans of Scar Symmetry, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Soilwork, it tells the story of humanity being reborn as a creation of hyper-intelligent technology. The song we’re premiering today is “Decryptor“, and the band describe it’s place in their larger narrative with these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BELL — “COLD WALL RADIO”

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Oct 062021
 

 

Cyclopean Eye is a small label in India that releases black, death, and doom metal but has also been releasing power electronics/noise/ambient music from artists mostly based in the South Asian continent. Some of the more notable artists on the roster are Genocide Shrines, Serpents Athirst, Konflict, Reek of the Unzen Gas Fumes, Jyotisavedanga, and Sathara Ashtika, among others.

What we have for you today, however, is a track from the forthcoming second release by an mysterious American power-electronics/ambient artist named Bell. Entitled Enigma Calling, it’s an EP set for release by Cyclopean Eye on October 10th, and follows Bell‘s 2017 debut album Secrets from a Distant Star. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): AQUILUS, BLACK CRUCIFIXION, BORNHOLM, CADAVERIC FUMES, COLOTYPHUS, EXISTENTIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 062021
 

 

I’m trying to take advantage of a bit of free time to make the end of the week a less overwhelming time to gather up new songs and videos I’d like to recommend. Well, that’s the idea anyway, even though I’m pretty damned sure it will still be overwhelming by Friday, even after what I’m doing today. Such is the continuing deluge of new metal.

What I’ve done for today is to collect 12 new sights and sounds, most of them emerging in just the last few days. As the post title suggests, I’ve again resorted to the format of letting the music speak for itself, with just scattered comments from moi; I do have some other things to do today, including write-ups for a couple more premieres. I’ve again alphabetized the music by band name, which turns out to make for some interesting stylistic twists and turns as you go through everything, and then I cut it into two parts.

AQUILUS (Australia)

I’m happy to have a second opportunity to put Julius von Klever‘s artwork for the long-awaited new Aquilus album at the top of our page, but this time I have music to go along with it, a track presented with a gripping video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BELUSHI SPEED BALL — “WE’RE NOT THRASHERS, WE’RE HIPSTER POSERS”

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Oct 052021
 

 

As we all know, social media can become a cesspool of sarcasm, ignorance, and meanness. Most of the time, when you find yourself in the cesspool, the wise course is to stay silent and leave as fast as you can. The Kentucky band Belushi Speed Ball didn’t follow that advice, but instead used the nastiness as an inspiration.

This might not be a good long-term creative strategy, but it worked out pretty well in the case of the song that’s the basis for the video we’re premiering today. And it’s in keeping with the unorthodox (and sometimes absurdist) aesthetics of this crossover thrash band, who seem to revel in thumbing their noses at conformity.

For example, although I’ve never witnessed one of their live performances, I thoroughly enjoyed this evocative excerpt from a write-up in Louisville’s Leo Weekly: “Watching a Belushi Speed Ball show is a lot like going to a pro wrestling event. There are costumes, outlandish characters and antics, raw energy and the key ingredient: an involved audience.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GOLD SPIRE — “SKULL CHOIRS”

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Oct 052021
 

 

“Genre-bending” and “genre defying” are overworked phrases, and often misused in ways that exaggerate the extent to which bands bring differing genre ingredients into play. But those phrases are absolutely on-point in considering the wondrous music of the Swedish band Gold Spire.

The tale of the band points the way to the tales of the songs on their self-titled debut album, which will be released by Chaos Records on November 5th. Gold Spire was formed in 2019 in Uppsala by the brothers Erik and Påhl Sundström following the demise of Påhl‘s former band Usurpress. Functioning as co-producer and session drummer for Usurpress, Erik worked closely with Påhl on what came to be that band’s last album, 2018’s Interregnum.

We’re told that the ideas which were created during these sessions, together with the general focus on storytelling rather than genre considerations, formed the basis on which Gold Spire was born. And in keeping with those ideas, the brothers then enlisted musicians outside of the traditional metal spectrum: jazz saxophonist extraordinaire Magnus Kjellstrand and progressive rock bassist Petter Broman. They completed the circle by bringing in veteran death metal vocalist Heval Bozarslan (Sarcasm, Third Storm). Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SELF HYPNOSIS

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Oct 052021
 

 

(If you’re not fascinated by this interview and eager to give this band’s music a chance, there’s something wrong with you. There, we said it, and mean it. We thank Comrade Aleks and Kris Clayton for the time they devoted to this discussion.)

Kris Clayton, who did some strange things with his experimental doom project Camel of Doom, wasn’t satisfied with the level of its authenticity. Those things weren’t strange enough for him. But believe me or not, his latest Camel of Doom long-play Terrestrial is worthy of listening. However, in order to raise the level of his doom experiments to new heights Kris invited doom death psycho magician Greg Chandler (Esoteric) into his new band Self Hypnosis and a year ago their first album Contagion of Despair saw the light of day.

This album presents a beast of another kind, grotesque sometimes, built of abstract forms and ideas and yet alive, breathing and amusing. Kris and Greg combine in one vessel not only emanations of their own bands, they add more and more, holding the right balance which keeps Contagion of Despair coherent to some degree and exciting.

We do invite you to take a part in a Self Hypnosis séance together with Kris. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUNLESS — “ASCENDED FORMS”

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Oct 042021
 

 

As the song we’re premiering today abundantly demonstrates, Minnesota-based Sunless have mastered an unusual art form — the creation of intricate riffs and rhythms that are not conventionally melodic or predictable, and indeed are suggestive of chaos and madness, and yet still get quickly stuck in the head. This isn’t to say they’re the only band out there who have exhibited such mastery in making unnerving sounds seductive, but it’s definitely not a big crowd.

Today’s premiere, “Ascended Forms“, comes from the band’s new album Ylem, which will be released on October 29 via Willowtip Records. It follows their 2017 debut full-length Uracca, which we summed up as a record that delivers “an impressive variety of Gorguts-ian, dissonance-heavy technical death metal — an astonishingly well-composed, well-executed album that is frantic and terrifying in its sonic panic… a must-hear this year”.

Ylem functions as Part Two of a trilogy that Uracca began, and it’s even more fascinating than its predecessor — which is saying something. Continue reading »

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