Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: AZOTHYST — “RITES OF ASCENDANCY”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 032021
 

 

Shrouded in underground mystery, the Canadian black/death band Azothyst are at last prepared to reveal their first diabolical recordings to a largely unsuspecting public that will either cower in fear or become exultant in the throes of such madness: Their debut album Blood of Dead God will be released on October 1st by a coalition of labels led by Vault of Dried Bones.

As the first sign of the tumultuous yet perversely mesmerizing terrors within the album, today we present its opening track, “Rites of Ascendancy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AEONS ABYSS — “PRELUDE TO TERROR”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 032021
 

 

Suitably on a Bandcamp Friday, today is the official release date for a new stand-alone single by the Melbourne-based death metal band Aeons Abyss. Fittingly named “Prelude To Terror“, it also serves as a ravaging introduction to the band’s sophomore album Terror Manifest, which is now set for release on November 5th. And to help spread the word, we’re premiering a lyric video for the track right now.

In crafting the new album, Aeons Abyss have built upon the work they began in 2017 and have drawn into play an array of stylistic ingredients that range from melodic death metal to experimental thrash/grind. But they’ve also drawn upon their skills as storytellers, with each track representing a card from the deck of Tarot and (as they reveal) delving into “what these characters mean, not just to the individual, but to all of society as we currently know it…. Terror Manifest explores what the world has made of us, and what acts of terror must be done to end the mental imprisonment thrust upon us by the greed of nations”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABSTRACTER — “ECLIPSE BORN”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 032021
 

 

More than a decade ago the founding two members of Abstracter came together in Oakland CA under the influence of such bands as Amebix, Godflesh, Blut Aus Nord, Corrupted, and Disembowelment, with the objective of creating “dark, bleak, and suffocating music as a vessel to channel their obsession with the apocalypse and other nihilistic end-time visions”.

So say the press materials for Abstracter‘s new album, and those materials further expose the animating environments and philosophies that spawned such hopeless and harrowing visions: “…the world’s unravelling, ruin, darkness, annihilation, nuclear devastation, war, plague, and mankind’s fundamental existence as a plague and as a deeply flawed species….”

In the years that have passed since the band’s inception they have been on a continuing quest for ever more astonishing, cataclysmic, and authentic ways of expressing the most abominable aspects of human existence, drawing upon elements from black, doom, death metal, crust and drone/noise, and making their music increasingly more difficult to classify. That quest now reaches its apotheosis (so far) in Abstracter‘s latest album Abominion, which will be released by Sentient Ruin Laboratories on October 1st. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NORSE — “PARASITE WARMONGERS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 032021
 

 

If you think of the eight tracks on the new album by Australia’s Norse as pieces in a subterranean nightmare museum shrouded in gleaming black cloth, Transcending Obscurity Records has been pulling the shrouds away, one by one, to disclose what lies beneath. Four of these terrifying obsidian sculptures have been revealed so far. Today we’ve been allowed to expose a fifth one.

Well, that metaphor only works to a limited extent, because the eight tracks on Ascetic aren’t fixed in place like sculptures. They move in strange and frightening ways, morphing like a viscous metallic liquid that’s freezing to the touch. The music writhes and contorts, twisting in unexpected but relentlessly frightening ways. Even when the band use ambient and symphonic textures to create mysterious and mesmerizing visions, as they do most prominently in “Fearless Fifth Seeker”, there’s a feeling of alien menace lurking within those sonic astral planes. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEADS FOR THE DEAD — “MANIAC”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 022021
 

 

Metalhead lovers of ghastliness in all its forms, but especially classic horror flicks from decades gone by, will have reason to rejoice when a new EP by Heads For The Dead hits the streets on November 5th.

Through two previous albums this group of metal veterans have already proven their devotion to supernatural subjects, but this time they’ve taken that a step further — providing their own reinterpretation of theme songs from movies such as Maniac, Halloween and The Thing. And as icing on this gory cake they’ve also recorded cover songs of tracks by Misfits and the Ramones.

What we’ve got for you today is the band’s homage to “Maniac“, presented through a video that’s replete with over-the-top lyrical pathology and an abundance of blood-drenched film clips. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCULSED — “CONCUPISCENCE OF FRENZIED HUMORS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 022021
 

 

We’re still banging the drum and yelling at the top of our lungs about Occulsed, with this being our third (but not the last) premiere of music from their debut album Crepitation Of Phlegethon. We’ve previously remarked about the intriguing wordplay reflected in the album and song titles, which have repeatedly sent us scurrying to the dictionary, and it’s true again with today’s new song: “Concupiscence Of Frenzied Humors”

For those who might have missed our previous premieres, shame on you this latest track vividly displays the band’s talents for creating electrifying visions of horror and disease, of madness and mayhem, and of blood-freezing intrusions from spectral realms. Continue reading »

BEER & LOUDNESS IN LAS VEGAS — THREE DAYS AT PSYCHO FEST 2021 (DAY 3)

 Concert Reviews  7 Responses »
Sep 022021
 

 

(We’ve been enjoying the hell out of our friend Gonzo‘s reports on the 2021 edition of Psycho Fest in Las Vegas a couple weekends ago, and hope you have too. Today we present his third and final write-up, concerning his adventures on the fest’s last day.)

 

“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

–Hunter S. Thompson

Those words from the good doctor rang out in my brain the moment I opened my eyes on Sunday morning. My ears were still ringing in spite of wearing earplugs for the majority of Saturday, but like so much else, Vegas cannot be bothered with your feeble attempts at self-care. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BIZARREKULT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Sep 022021
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us this fine interview with Roman, the man behind the once-Siberian and now-Norwegian black metal band Bizarrekult, whose debut album was just released this past July by Petrichor.)

“Progressive post Black Metal with angst-ridden lyrics from Oslo, Norway!”  When you read that one single line in Bizarrekult’s Bandcamp concerning the band’s new album Vi overlevde, I bet you have a right impression, as a Norwegian black metal band wouldn’t make that shit! But if you’ll read a bit more carefully you’ll easily find that Bizarrekult was founded in Barnaul, Siberia. So what would you say now? Which black metal is blacker?!

Dash it. This story of how a Siberian black metal band turned into a Norwegian one is set out by Roman, the man who has spearheaded the Kult since 2005. And you know, his black metal isn’t that “post” indeed. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: THE AMENTA, GADGET, RETALIATION, KONSENSUS

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 012021
 

 

(DGR prepared the following trio of reviews for 2021 releases that don’t require a lot of your time but make a big impact nonetheless.)

It still feels strange when we get to use the “Short But Sweet” review tag for the purpose it was designed for instead of the usual ‘these reviews will be shorter than usual’ style that I favor, but when you combine the total time of the three releases we’re discussing here you wind up with a little under twenty-five minutes worth of music. Two are short because they’re the usual suspects – grindcore groups smashing out music with reckless abandon – and the other is brief because the whole release consists of only two songs, but serves as a fantastic addendum to an excellent album released earlier this year.

The Amenta – Solipschism EP

Solipschism is the newest release from Australia’s The Amenta, a two-song EP consisting of tracks that were initially part of the run for their earlier-in-the-year return album Revelator – in case the continued portmanteau in the song naming wasn’t enough to tip you off. It serves partially as an addendum to that previous release, unleashing one crushingly heavy almost song recorded during the Revelator sessions that seems to exist solely to ratchet up in intensity while at the same time burying vocalist Cain within an abrasive wall of sound, and one quieter experiment, both of which fall perfectly in line within that album’s current run.

As to specifically where? It’s hard to tell, but they currently do a great job stitching themselves right onto the end of an album that is already difficult to describe at times, given its tendency to murder its own momentum for the sheer fun of it and try to create haunting soundscapes out of the rubble left behind. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEEDS OF PERDITION — “SUFFERING OF THE DEAD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 012021
 

 

On September 10th Horror Pain Gore Death Productions will release Suffering of the Dead, the second full-length by the death/thrashing barbarians in Philadelphia’s Seeds of Perdition. As the label accurately forecasts, it delivers a barrage of raw intensity yet also creates the kind of atmosphere that simultaneously makes it “a terror stricken journey into the darkness of mankind”. We have the pleasure of letting you experience this pulse-pounding trip for yourselves today as we premiere a full stream of the album.

Straddling a line between rough and ravaging and sharp and cutting, the fleet-fingered riffs are lividly savage and slashing. They’re anchored by viscerally thrilling work by the band’s rhythm section, who propel the songs with skull-snapping snare-work, war-zone double-kicks, and gut-slugging bass lines. And at the vehement vanguard of the attack are rabid (yet clearly intelligible) vocals that roar, bark, screech, and howl at the moon, occasionally doubled in ghastly duets; in all their ferocious manifestations they’re electrifying. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries