Islander

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FIAT NOX — “IN CONTEMPTUOUS DEFIANCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 272021
 

 

The German band Fiat Nox have already established a prominent place for themselves in the fire-and-ice realms of black metal through the strength of a debut demo (2016’s Light the Torches), and a debut album (The Archive of Nightmares, released in June of this year). Wasting no time, Fiat Nox have now readied a new EP for release by Personal Records on October 1st, and it further elevates the place of Fiat Nox as a band capable of creating marvelously dynamic and multi-faceted music that gets the blood racing with its muscular, hard-charging aggression but also creates wholly enthralling atmosphere through its emotionally powerful melodies.

We’ve previously lavished praise upon the EP, and now have the opportunity to present a stream of it in its entirety. Its entirely fitting title is In Contemptuous Defiance. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 252021
 

 

To avoid boring you and offending vegetarians and vegans out there, I’ll spare you the details, but I have to pick up an animal carcass and then burn wood in a pit for about 6 hours today before burying it. There’s a lot to be said about staring at fire for 6 hours, but I’m going to drink anyway.

And anyway, because this all has to get started soon and because I slept in, I’m unable to write this morning. Even in the “Overflowing Streams” format I usually manage to write a couple sentences about the new music and videos I’ve chosen and then leave pre-order and Facebook links. I don’t even have time to do that today. In the 11+ years of NCS I can’t remember another time when all I’ve done is installed the music streams and videos. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

To salve my wounded conscience I did decide to (mostly) limit this collection to what I consider well-known bands because you’ll probably have a good idea about what’s coming without me providing any guidance. But there may still be a few surprises.

P.S. There’s no new music from Lock Up in this collection. I just like Khaos Diktator‘s cover art for the band’s new album. The first single, “Dark Force Of Conviction”, will be coming on September 30th with a video. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: 1914, EREB ALTOR, COLONY DROP, FILTH IS ETERNAL, WINGLESS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 242021
 

 

Man, my head is spinning once again over how many new songs and videos I want to recommend from the week that’s now ending. There are only six of them in this roundup, and there’s not much rhyme nor reason about why I picked these — other than the fact that I like ’em — because they provide a pretty wild series of musical twists and turns rather than some kind of cohesive flow from one to the next. But I am smiling at the whiplash it’s going to give you. I guess I should add that in different ways they’re all pretty fuckin’ intense.

I’ve got a very busy weekend ahead, but I hope to collect a few more new things from the past week’s deluge in posts on both Saturday and Sunday.

1914 (Ukraine)

I’m beginning with a couple of very dark and (as promised) very intense songs, the first of which is 1914‘s “Pillars of Fire (The Battle of Messines)“. If you’re not already familiar with the horrific World War I event that’s the subject of the song, you’ll learn about it in the prelude to the animated video. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DESTRUCTO — “BLACK MARK”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 242021
 

 

Odds are, when you see references to black thrash it’s likely to be written “ripping black thrash”. But that’s the point, isn’t it? To get your heart pumping and your head moving, and to do it in a way that feels dangerously untamed, vicious, and yes, eviscerating. The music of Destructo is definitely all that, and it’s intoxicating too, the kind of experience that makes you go wild in your head.

The band’s name itself is reflective of their musical attitude. Further clues can be found in the inspirations of these Dutch deviants: Destructo was formed in 2018 as a side-project between erstwhile Dödsrit and Nuclear Devastation bandmates Soulcrusher and Motörphallus (and later joined by drummer Necrohammer) as a tribute to bands like Sarcofago, Syphilitic Vaginas, and Japan’s Sabbat, and in their forthcoming debut album they’ve also brought forward forward influences from Bathory, Hellhammer, and especially G.I.S.M., thus creating a bastard child of first-wave black metal and ’80s speed metal and thrash.

The album, fittingly entitled Demonic Possession, is indeed one very wild and blasphemous ride, a ten-track, 40-minute experience guaranteed to juice your adrenaline into overdrive. It’s coming out on November 19th via Dying Victims Productions, and we’re as happy as fiends to premiere a song from it that exalts the “Black Mark“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORTE INCANDESCENTE — “NÓS SOMOS O UNDERGROUND”

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Sep 242021
 

 

Portuguese black metal isn’t a monolithic or monochromatic sound, any more than black metal is in any other country. But it seems undeniable that one of the strongest and oldest strains of the black arts in Portugal is a particularly raw and hostile form of black metal. Among the progenitors of that movement are the two men behind Morte Incandescente, whose veteran talents have been built through involvement in an extensive array of bands over more than two decades.

They are perhaps best known from the work of their principal bands — Vulturius with IRAE and Nocturnus Horrendus with Corpus Christii — but Morte Incandescente has been much more than some side project. Indeed, on October 31st the band’s fifth album will be released through Signal Rex. What it shows is the benefit of veteran talent.

To be honest, a lot of raw black metal seems mainly calculated to inflict ruin, in the most ruinous ways possible, and that in itself can become monotonous and un-memorable. Morte Incandescente‘s new album, on the other hand, is definitely neither of those, as you’ll learn through the song we’re premiering today. “Nós Somos O Underground” (“we are the underground”) is primitive, feral, vicious, and viscerally gripping, and yet also remarkably dynamic and laden with many hooks. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VYRION

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 242021
 

 

(In this extensive and enlightening interview Comrade Aleks checked in with Dale J. Williams, vocalist/guitarist of the fine Australian black metal band Vyrion, whose latest album Nil arrived last year.)

Vyrion’s track premiere… how long ago was it announced here? October 2020? I remember clearly how this black metal song from Australia stuck in my mind with its hard and solid delivery and minimalistic yet expressive artwork. I still believe that the visual side of any album is absolutely important, and Vyrion’s latest album Nil has it.

Also this band is one of the rare kind who prefer bigger concepts behind their stuff than medieval deviltry and church-burning, so I would point to intellectual lyrics as another of Vyrion’s merits. Actually there was no news from the band since the Nil release, and I sent them a message to see if they could answer a few questions for NCS. It’s the band’s founder Dale J Williams (vocals, guitars) who answers our call. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPERIALIST — “THE MAW”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 232021
 

 

Three years ago we got the chance to premiere a track from Imperialist‘s electrifying debut album Cipher, a sci-fi-themed work that the releasing label (Transcending Obscurity) introduced with references to the traditions of Necrophobic, Dissection, and Sacramentum, with nods to the thrashier dynamics of Aura Noir and Vektor as well. That album caught lots of eyes thanks to the cover art by Adam Burke, and the music opened lots of eyes too.

As you can see, Adam Burke has done it again with the painting emblazoned on the cover of this California band’s forthcoming sophomore full-length, Zenith. And we’re again getting the chance to premiere a song from the new record in advance of its November 26 release by the same Transcending Obscurity Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VARIUS — “CONCORDANCE OF THE LEGIONFALL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 232021
 

 

After releasing a debut demo (Red Messenger) in 2017 and a follow-up EP in 2019 (The Great Tribulation), the Canadian melodic death metal band Varius decided to really live the way their name sounds.

For their new EP Concordance (set for release on November 5th), diversity was the strategic goal. Each of the four tracks was primarily written by a different member of the band, and was then worked on by the band as a whole, lending a degree of consistency across the EP while also endeavoring to support the writer’s original vision. The result is that each track reveals different influences, including death metal, thrash, progressive, doom, and classic metal, augmented by some experimental twists.

What we have for you today is one of those four songs, and it’s full of dynamic surprises — a song that’s bombastic and brazen, savage and scintillating, mysterious and magnificent — and its name is “Concordance of the Legionfall“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOODMOUTH — “COPCROCALYPSE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 232021
 

 

The chain-wielding, blunt-instrument-bearing, masked marauders in Bloodmouth are bent on inflicting audio carnage. This Aussie band includes members of Canberra’s Ploughshare, Mental Cavity, and IEXIST, and through Bloodmouth they discharged their fury through a pulverizing amalgam of ’90s grindcore and death metal that pays homage to the likes of Dying Fetus, Pig Destroyer, Nasum, and Arkangel.

The band’s debut release is a vile and violent 20-minute scourge named Unmanned. It will be fully uncaged by Brilliant Emperor Records on October 29, and today we’ve got one of its visceral assaults for you to check out, a track named “Copcrocalypse“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ROTHADÁS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Sep 232021
 

 

(Here we have Comrade Aleks‘ interview of one of the two men behind the Hungarian death metal band Rothadás, who have a highly anticipated debut album coming out next month.)

Coffinborn, Cryptworm, Mörbid Carnage, Necrosodomy, Tyrant Goatgaldrakona… Such names! Why would someone who already plays all forms of macabre’n’morbid metal start another band? But Tibor Hanyi did.

This man indeed has around six active bands and Rothadás (“rot” in Hungarian) is a relatively fresh addition to this list. Tibor (bass, guitars) alongside Lambert Lédeczy (drums, vocals) started Rothadás two years ago, and while none would expect it, the UK-based label Me Saco un Ojo Records has announced the band’s debut release Kopár hant​.​.​. az alvilág felé will be released on the 12th of October.

The choice of cover artwork (above) was damn effective, so why not check out this killer death-doom piece and its intoxicating and striking aroma of coffins, crypts, and death? Continue reading »

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