Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXPUNGED — “STOLEN LIFE”

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Jun 302021
 

 

The roots of death metal grew from rotten soil, and from its earliest phases there has always been an attraction to supernatural horrors. That attraction is vibrantly evident in the debut album of the Canadian band Expunged. But the creation of ghastly visions isn’t the only thing Expunged are very adept at doing on this new record. They also sound like a massive tank attack that’s capable of bringing crushing heaviness along with cemetery nightmares.

This new album, entitled Into Never Shall, will be discharged on July 30th by Hells Headbangers, and it’s being strongly recommended for fans of Nirvana 2002, Carnage, and especially Bolt Thrower. As proof that those references are entirely appropriate, and as a demonstration of the amalgam of humongous and horrifying sounds referred to in the preceding paragraph, today we present the album’s closing track, “Stolen Life“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACRILEGIOUS CROWN — “TENEBRA I – THE PROFOUND SECRET OF ETERNITY”

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Jun 302021
 

 

On August 6th Xenoglossy Productions will unite the works of two of its close associates from the realms of raw black metal and dark ambient music — the Italian band Sacrilegious Crown and the Estonian band Illuminated Manuscripts. Those two solo projects have combined forces to contribute two tracks each to a split entitled Meditations on the Revenant Enigma, and Xenoglossy is making it available in an extremely limited cassette tape edition, and digitally.

Today we’re presenting one of the two creations by Sacrilegious Crown, whose most recent EP Plenilunium Cult we premiered and reviewed in March of this year (here). Like that EP, it is devoted to the creation of atmosphere, and it ushers the listener into an inhuman realm. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VESSEL OF INIQUITY — “DYING”

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Jun 292021
 

 

Vessel of Iniquity‘s third full-length is named The Doorway. It will be released by Sentient Ruin on August 6th. To borrow some of the words from the completely accurate press materials announcing the LP, Vessel of Iniquity reveals itself (again) to be a vicious “aural weapon” devoted to “overwhelming sensory annihilation”, “funneling a blinding scourge of swirling atmospheric harsh industrial and lacerating abstract black metal into forty-five minutes of pure concentrated chaos.”

Lest you doubt the truth of that description, we present today the premiere of one of the album’s experiments in “overwhelming sensorial annihilation”, a track named “Dying“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIGRUM PLUVIAM — “FROM THE EARTH TO THE ABYSS THROUGH SUFFERING”

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Jun 292021
 

 

In a fundamental sense, simplicity is the hallmark of Nigrum Pluviam‘s forthcoming debut album, Eternal Fall Into the Abyss. The compositions are uncomplicated. The technology seems primitive. The instrumental ingredients are spare. It’s not difficult to imagine that its sole creator (Kraëh Määtruum) made it in a cold, sodden, dimly lit place, removed from the rest of life, bereft of creature comforts, and disdainful of both human interaction and any distractions from the severe belief that humanity is worthless and the future is cursed.

The album’s conveyance of such complete and hermit-like dedication to such a dark craft generates a kind of frightening respect. And so does the atmosphere that it so relentlessly creates. Even with such a stripped-down approach, or perhaps because of it, the album powerfully succeeds in creating a submersive effect that builds over time in its changing phases of fear and hopelessness. It becomes weirdly enthralling even as it steadily generates an array of unearthly sensations that will chill you to the bone. Continue reading »

DEATHLY DELIGHTS: CRAVEN IDOL, DECREPISY, SHRIEKING DEMONS, OBRIJ

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Jun 282021
 


Craven Idol

This is another SEEN AND HEARD collection, but I decided to give the title a twist today because I’ve leaned so heavily into death metal with the following four songs. The first three come from forthcoming records, and the fourth seems to be a stand-alone single.

CRAVEN IDOL (UK)

I could have sworn I’d already written something about the first single from the new Craven Idol album, but can’t find any evidence that I did. So, time to make up for lost time. But first, gaze upon the full gatefold cover art created by Eliran Kantor — which is stunning: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURIAL IN THE SKY — “MECHANISMS OF LONELINESS”

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Jun 282021
 

 

After two increasingly impressive and adventurous albums — 2016’s Persistence of Thought and 2018’s Creatio et Hominus — Philadelphia’s Burial in the Sky are returning with a third full-length named The Consumed Self, which will be released on August 13th by Rising Nemesis Records. If anything, it’s an even more adventurous amalgam of technical and progressive death metal than the records which preceded it, and even more elaborate and multi-faceted in both its compositional approach and its textures of tone and mood.

This is a band bursting with ideas, and they’re not timid about showing that. All the members also happen to be highly skilled performers, and that’s what makes possible the realization of their most high-flying ideas — and the somehow seamless juxtaposition of dramatically changing emotions and styles, bewildering or bone-smashing in one moment and then visionary or entrancing the next. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MASQUERADE AMONG GODS”

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Jun 282021
 

 

With two albums to their name released by Inverse Records — Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019) — and work now beginning on a third full-length, the Swedish extreme metal band Godhead Machinery will be releasing a new EP on July 2nd through Black Lion Records, and we have the pleasure of presenting it in its entirety today.

Sometimes in the space between full-length releases a band will record an EP as a “filler”. In some cases you get the sense that a group just wants to remind fans that they still exist. But in other cases, and this is one of them, the EP represents a serious work, with just as much dedication to composition, performance, and emotional impact on the listener as you would find in a full-length endeavor. In fact, when the work is done as well as Godhead Machinery have accomplished on Masquerade Among Gods, the intensity of that impact might even exceed what could be achieved through more tracks and minutes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ONDFØDT, NORDJEVEL, XANATHAR, A PREGNANT LIGHT, VARGSTUHR

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Jun 272021
 

 

Reporting to you today from the hellish Pacific Northwest heat dome, where the second highest temperature ever recorded in Seattle at any time of the year happened yesterday and new records will be set today and tomorrow, I bring you  Part 2 of today’s expanded column devoted to black-ish metal. I decided to include three new EPs of very different styles, and to bookend them with one advance track from a forthcoming record and one song that opens a recently released album.

ONDFØDT (Finland)

Part 1 of today’s column was entirely devoted to videos, and I thought I’d begin Part 2 with another one. This one is for a song named “Mörkri” from Ondfødt’s new album Norden (their third full-length), which is set for release by Immortal Frost Productions on July 30th.

The heaviness of the bass and the hammering of the drums give the song visceral punch and power, but the mood of the music is severely desolate and distraught, with a haunting feeling of isolation and abandonment that’s matched by the frozen vistas in the video. But the song is a multi-faceted one. A militaristic drum pattern announces a change, with swinging, swaggering, and swirling riffs and scorching blasts of vocal ferocity giving the song a healthy dose of feral, carnal energy — though it becomes cold and cruel before the end. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MORK, AGRYPNIE, TOTALITARIAN, LYKHAEON

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Jun 272021
 


photo by Terje Johansen

 

You might have noticed that I didn’t publish the usual Saturday round-up yesterday. I’ll spare you the reasons, but will say that I spent hours going through dozens of new songs and videos that I’d added to my enormous listening list over the last week. Some of those were black metal songs of different styles. I made some hard choices about which of those to include in this usual Sunday column, but still wound up with enough for a two-parter.

What you’ll find in Part 1 are four new videos, two of them for songs from releases that have been out in the world for a while and two of them for tracks off forthcoming albums.

MORK

I learned about the first video through a press release by Peaceville Records that arrived yesterday. I had to scroll through lots of text and photos about Darkthrone’s new album before coming to the Mork news, and I haven’t yet seen any reports about the video on social media or elsewhere. Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit in writing about it, but the press release treated the video as something that had already premiered, so it seems fair game. I assume word will spread further on Monday.

The song featured in the video, “Født Til Å Herske”, happens to be one of my favorites on Mork’s newest album, Katedralen, which is packed with strong songs. “Født Til Å Herske” includes a guest vocal appearance by Kampfar’s Dolk (who also appears in this video), and the additional tonal texture and feeling he adds to the song is one reason why it stands out to me. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JÄRNBÖRD — “GÖR OM, GÖR FEL”

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Jun 252021
 

 

Imagine having electrodes jammed into your neck and someone spinning up the voltage dial to full power while other marauders beat you with hammers, scamper about the room in savage ecstasy, and bray in your face with raw, vitriolic yells. You spasm, become savagely bruised, and yet it all feels fucking great.

That kind of vision might be what comes to mind when you listen to the title track off Järnbörd‘s new album Gör om, gör fel (meaning something like “do again, do wrong”), which will be released this year by Downfall Records. The album includes 10 tracks of fast and heavy grindcore and punk, plus a long 11th track that presents a remix of the first 10 tracks using harsh electronics and synth-filled landscapes of noise. Continue reading »

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