Islander

Aug 232021
 

 

Three excellent Greek black metal bands — Moeror, Human Serpent, and Kvadrat — have just released a split in support of a charitable endeavor which they describe as follows:

“All funds gathered through this split release are donated to help and support animals that were affected in the recent Greek wildfires. The consequences of which are going to heavily affect the hurt areas for the years to come. We witnessed the death of an ecosystem and we are facing a new reality that needs every bit of our help. Our goal is to gather funds that will cover the cost of medical care, food and the financial support for the early costs of an adoption”.

By now, many of us are painfully aware of the devastation that out-of-control fires have inflicted throughout Greece, a catastrophe that Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has described as a “natural disaster of unprecedented proportions”. It has forced the evacuation of dozens of villages and spawned rage against the government’s handling of the fires, but evacuations have not helped the animals caught up in the conflagrations. And thus the cause supported by this release is a worthy one.

As you’ll discover from our complete stream of the split at the end of this review, the music is also tremendously good, making the purchase of this release a true win-win situation. (The entire split is available now on each band’s Bandcamp page.) Continue reading »

Aug 222021
 

 

I’m going to dispense with an introduction to today’s column, other than to say that what I’ve chosen is going to give you a strange trip from beginning to end.

LIGHT OF THE MORNING STAR (UK)

I was quite taken by both of this band’s first two releases, a 2016 EP named Cemetery Glow, and a 2017 debut full-length named Nocta, both of which were released by Iron Bonehead. Now there’s another album headed our way, via the band’s new label Debemur Morti Productions. DMP describes the new one in these words:

“Potently blending cinematic Deathrock, ghoulish Doom, heavy Post-Punk and atmospheric Black Metal, Charnel Noir is a hook-ridden exploration of the necromantic Undead which captures the restraint, tension and dark romanticism present in the great canonical Gothic works”. Continue reading »

Aug 212021
 

 

The usual torrent of new music continued this past week, culminating in the expected high tide on Friday. Harried by my day job, I couldn’t keep up with what happened yesterday, though my compatriot DGR did, and he again funneled a lot of the new stuff my way. Five of the selections you’ll find below came from him, though I did manage to add eight more advance tracks that I scoped out this morning, to create a lucky 13.

As in other instances of gigantic round-ups such as this one, it includes a lot of bigger names, but I’ve infiltrated some lesser-knowns. It’s like putting out honey to attract flies, and then hoping something they weren’t expecting bites them. Welcome aboard flies! Here we go in alphabetical order:

1914 (Ukraine)

It’s exciting to see an underground favorite such as 1914 (whom we’ve been writing about since their early days) getting picked up by a big label such as Napalm, for the simple reason that it will expose their prodigious talents to a wider audience. The fact that Nick Holmes makes a guest appearance on the song/video that leads off this collection will help as well. Continue reading »

Aug 202021
 

 

For all those loyal to I, Voidhanger Records (and I’m definitely a confirmed loyalist), it takes nothing more to become interested in a band than simply knowing that I, Voidhanger has chosen to release their music. Having said that, the range of the label’s musical interests is quote broad. The choices will always appeal to adventurous listeners, but may not always hit everyone’s bullseye, given variations in individual tastes. Hence, even for ardent fans of the label, there is still a place for premieres such as the one we’re presenting today.

The song we present today is a demonstration of the label’s range. It is out on the most violent and mind-defiling end of the roster spectrum. But like so many I, Voidhanger releases, it’s nevertheless out of the ordinary, though in this case its mercurial permutations are twisted and tyrannical, catastrophic and crippling. The music’s morbid and maniacal maneuvers still manage to involve the higher faculties, in addition to being viscerally unnerving.

The song is “Vehemence“. The album is I Have Seen The Light, And It Was Repulsive. And the band is a diabolical duo from Ireland named Sermon of Flames. Continue reading »

Aug 202021
 

 

(The subject of this very extensive and engaging new interview by Comrade Aleks is Adam S., the lyricist and chief songwriter of the distinctive Slovak metal band Malokarpatan, though he also discusses another personal project with an album in the works.)

If you haven’t heard any of Malokarpatan’s albums, I bet you know about them anyway – no one could skip over the eye-catching artworks of Stridžie dni (2015), Nordkarpatenland (2017), and Krupinské ohne (2020). Slovakian pagan traditions shine through these authentic covers, and as you might surmise, the guys write their lyrics in their mother tongue. You’ll find translations easily enough, for example at Metal-Archives, and should find them if you’re searching for new poetic discoveries.

But probably we should start with the curious fact that Malokarpatan perform an authentic (again authentic!) mix of reckless yet tricky, non-trivial, heavy and black metal. Heathen energy, the pounding pulse of the wild, and a haunted atmosphere complete a sonic canvases filled with details and nuances…

I’ve found Malokarpatan in my “need-to-interview” list, and though their last record Krupinské ohne saw the light of day nearly one year ago, I believe you don’t need to wait for another official release to talk with a band you like and respect. I’m grateful to Malokarpatan ideologist and chief song-writer Adam S. for this deep and entertaining interview. Continue reading »

Aug 202021
 

 

As a long-time fan of Russian artist Anton Semenov (aka Gloom82), his “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” cover art for Infiltrated Mankind‘s forthcoming debut album Inside the Apelike caught my eye before hearing a single note. As it turns out, the band’s music is also apocalyptic and freakishly good, as you’ll discover through our premiere of a track from the album today.

World Wide Deicide” is crushing and crazed. It generally moves fast, which makes the overflowing abundance of technical acrobatics even more mind-boggling. With fingers flying at centrifugal speed, the guitarist (and yes, there appears to be just one) executes savage blaring eruptions, deliriously shrieking and blurting frenzies, bursts of rapidly veering angularity, and unnerving spasms of boiling mania. Continue reading »

Aug 192021
 

 

Last fall we made one of those surprise discoveries that’s a source of constant motivation to dig deeper into the underground rather than just paying attention to the names most people already know. That discovery was Conqueror Worm, the debut album released by Anthrazit Records from Sepulchre by the Sea, a genre-bending one-man band who drew inspiration from the works of Edgar Allen Poe. As we explained here, the music explored some adventurous and interesting (and frightening) ideas that were embroidered around a spine of atmospheric black metal.

Now we’re pleased to report that Sepulchre by the Sea will be releasing a new EP on October 1st entitled Ratiocinations. It continues the Edgar Allen Poe theme and is based on the famous, and first ever, detective stories that Poe wrote. And to help spread the word about it, today we’re presenting the video premiere of the EP’s first single, a multifaceted song named “Ghost of the Departed“. Continue reading »

Aug 192021
 

 

The signposts are there for all to see — the spikes and the corpsepaint, the pentagrams and inverted crosses, the image of a cloven-hoofed, goat-headed demon defiling a nun, the arrogant and  insulting blasphemy of the song titles. And thus Azazel return after a six-year hiatus with a new album, their third, entitled Aegrus Satanas Tecum.

These Finnish demons trace their spawning to 1992, with their first evil fruits released in the mid-90s. It was not until 2012, after a long silence, that their first album Jesus Perversions emerged, followed by 2015’s Witches Deny Holy Trinity. And now the new one is set to arrive via Primitive Reaction on September 24th. To borrow from the promotional material (because it sums up the experience so well): Continue reading »

Aug 192021
 

 

If you do a little poking around in the landfill of the internet you can find videos of legends before they were legends, such things as a 1989 rehearsal by Sepultura (here), a bootleg video of Carcass performing in that same year (here), and a Sodom concert from 1988 (here). One thing that jumps out, besides the energy of the music, is just how fucking young they all looked.

The Ukrainian thrash metal band Mortal Vision look damned young too — because they are damned young, in their early-to-mid 20s. But they’ve got that same kind of lightning-in-a-bottle energy you see in early performances by the legends, and a precocious talent for cooking up hell-raising, neck-wrecking music that’s highly contagious. Their label Redefining Darkness Records pitches them as “Schizophrenia-era Sepultura meets Persecution Mania-era Sodom at its finest”, and they are indeed a new force to be reckoned with.

As vivid proof of that, today we’ve got the premiere of an explosive video for “Devastated Existence“, which is a new single off Mortal Vision‘s forthcoming debut album, Mind Manipulation. Continue reading »

Aug 192021
 

 

I thought I could get this round-up finished in time to post it yesterday when most of these songs and videos were hot off the presses, but I got diverted by my day job. But day-old bread is still pretty good bread. (We don’t have any rule against mixing metaphors here.)

AEON (Sweden)

To begin, we worship in the “Church of Horror“, the first song from the first album by Aeon in nine years. It’s a fast one, with a blazing blizzard of jittery riffing and skull-assaulting drums providing the accompaniment to guttural fury directed against pedophile priests and the church that’s sheltered them. Bits of dismal melody and jolting slamtastic groove play a role in this outraged musical tirade, along with a queasy and maniacally quivering solo. If your ass is dragging, this will fix that for you. Continue reading »