Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROSS VAULT — “AS STRANGERS WE DEPART”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
May 242021
 

 

On May 28th Iron Bonehead Productions will release As Strangers We Depart, the third album by the German “Viking doom” band Cross Vault, and their first release since the 2016 EP, Miles To Take.

Each song on the new album is an immersive, time-traveling spell that seems to carry the listener back to a mythic age. They meld poignance and passion, heaviness and heartbreak, with an unmistakable feeling of reverence. It’s a devotional album meant to be savored, to be soaked up from start to finish, the kind of experience in which any sense of time passing vanishes. And thus we’re proud to present a full stream of it today. Continue reading »

NATURE MORTE: “MESSE BASSE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 242021
 

 

(Our old friend Justin C. has paid us a visit with this guest review of the second album by the French band Nature Morte, recently released via Source Atone Records.)

Nature Morte‘s new album, messe basse, is one that almost slipped by me. The folks over at Invisible Oranges included it on their list of notable releases, with the brief-yet-intriguing description of “Expressive, atmospheric black metal with lacerating melodies carving out their paths in your mind.” Sadly, delays pushed the Bandcamp release back a little bit, and during an already busy Bandcamp Friday (possibly the last), the album almost slipped my mind. I mean, do I really need to check out every so-called “atmospheric black metal” album?

I’m glad I followed up on this one, though. Nature Morte‘s self-chosen genre tags of blackgaze and post-metal puts this album squarely in one of my favorite areas of metal, and better yet, they’ve managed to carve out a bit of sonic space in that area that’s uniquely their own. Continue reading »

SOL DRACONI SEPTEM: “HYPERION”

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May 242021
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of the debut album by the French band Sol Draconi Septem, which was released in March of this year.)

The genesis of this review happened some time ago and it is one that has been long simmering.

Believe it or not, it was actually our featuring of the prog band Wheel – of whom I’m a fan – in one of our round-ups a while back that was the ‘something different’ which caused the re-activation of dormant neurons that led to where we sit right now. In our round-up we covered their song “Fugue”, which is a peaceful interstitial number in between two much larger tracks on their latest album Resident Human, and our editor mentioned that the song had been inspired by the Hyperion Cantos series of books by Dan Simmons.

There are actually a few songs throughout Resident Human that take cues from those books, but it was that mention which reminded me that in one of the many metal rabbit holes I have a tendency to tumble down I had come across another group who also pulled inspiration from that series: the French space-prog/black-metal hybrid of Sol Draconi Septem and their early-March release of the aptly titled Hyperion.

If anything, I figured that if the admittedly excellent Wheel release wasn’t our usual reader fare, then the plumbing of the depths of space and all things synth that happens during the forty-five-or-so minutes of Hyperion probably would be. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VALAIS, ABKEHR, VREXIZA, MURKDWELLER

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
May 232021
 

 

You may have noticed that for the last three days in a row I had time to create some pretty large round-ups of new songs and videos. But the time I found to do such things eventually ran out, and so this Sunday column of blackened sounds isn’t as extensive as I had hoped. in subsequent posts over the coming week I will endeavor to include other choices I made for today, but didn’t have time to write about.

Still, you won’t go away hungry today, because the following four choices include two full albums and a complete EP, as well as one advance track.

VALAIS (Ireland)

I don’t know much about this new project, and I’m not sure I’m free to disclose what little I do know beyond the apparent fact that it’s based in Dublin. So, until more info becomes public (if it ever does), we’ll have to let the music speak for itself. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DECOHERENCE, COILED AROUND THY SPINE, MEPHARIS, TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD, ISSOLEI, GASTRIC PHANTASM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 222021
 

 

This is a rarity. In fact I can’t think of another time during the last miserable year when I’ve managed to pull together three round-ups of new songs and videos in three successive days. But my fucking day job has been leaving me alone and my spouse has been out of the house a lot with her visiting sister, so here we are. And on we go….

DECOHERENCE (Mutinational)

As mentioned above, this is the third day in a row when I’ve managed to compile a round-up, but it also happens to be the third in a row that includes a cover song. The pandemic year has produced a ton of covers, perhaps because that’s been easier to pull off than writing and recording new music when band members have been indefinitely separated from each other physically. Many covers have been quickly forgettable or never should have been attempted, while others have been very impressive. The first song in today’s playlist is in the latter category. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VUKARI, GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT, WHOREDOM RIFE, TOTHEM, TEMPLE OF DREAD, ARSENIC ADDICT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 212021
 

 

I woke up stupid early this morning, even more stupid early than usual. So after writing today’s premieres that were on my plate I had some time to continue crawling through my list of new songs and videos and came up with this sextet. I decided to really bounce your head around with these picks and the way I arranged them. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

VUKARI (U.S.)

I’ve decided to begin with a new single by Chicago’s Vukari, because it’s the most absolutely riveting and ravishing piece of music in today’s collection. The track is identified as a demo version of a song called “Omnes Nihil“. Continue reading »

TRANSCENDING RITES — “AWAKE!” (AN EXCERPT)

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 212021
 

 

These are notes I made to myself after listening to the song-excerpt we’re premiering in this article:

“I have never awakened in a house on fire. I imagine that would send me in a nanosecond from somnolence to a rocketing fight-or-flight level of adrenaline. I’ve never escaped a raging inferno and raced outside only to discover that everything around me is also in flames. But listening to this music, those are the experiences I imagine. In listening to it I also imagine the terrible feeling of loss that would come from the inferno-destruction of everything, every memento and memory, that I enshrine in the place where I live.”

Obviously, those are some intense emotional reactions — a commingling of exhilaration, fear, and despair. And those reactions were provoked by only a portion of the entire song, the roughly 8-minute excerpt from “Awake!“, that we’re now presenting. The full song is a daunting 21 minutes long, but I’m anxious to hear it and I think you be will too after you listen to what we’re streaming below. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DØDSFERD — “LOYAL TO THE BLACK OATH”

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May 212021
 

 

August 10 of this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Greek black metal band Dødsferd, which was first formed in Athens by Wrath (Nikolaos Spanakis) as a one-man band, with the assistance of session musicians, and has been based in Crete since 2018.

Dødsferd’s discography is extensive, and now includes two demos, ten full-length albums, nine split albums/EPs, four EPs, one live album, three compilation albums, and two boxed-set albums. The most recent full-length was 2018’s Diseased Remnants of a Dying World, and the most recent EP is Skotos, which was released earlier this month by Transcending Obscurity Records on CD, in an edition that combined Skotos with Diseased Remnants of a Dying World. (The artwork for both the album and the EP was created by Giorgos Gyzis, aka Bacchus from Grab.)

In commemoration of the impending 20th anniversary, Wrath’s label, Fucking Your Creation Records, will also be releasing the combination of Skotos and Diseased Remnants… in a limited box cassette tape that features layout and graphic design by by Nikos Stavridakis (VisionBlack), and to help spread the word about it, we’re premiering a striking video for the equally striking song “Loyal To the Black Oath“, which first appeared on Diseased Remnants…. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: ODRAZA – “ACEDIA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 212021
 

 

(It is our privilege to bring you this premiere of the experimental and unpredictable new release from Odraza, out tomorrow on Gods Ov War Productions, featuring a foreword by our own Andy Synn)

Ah, Odraza. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard since… well, since just last year, as a matter of fact, when I heaped praised upon their sublime second album, Rzeczom (an album which only just missed out on a place on my “Critical Top Ten” of 2020).

The band’s latest release, however, is even more unique and unusual than its provocative predecessor, comprising as it does a single twenty-minute track, conceived and brought to term as part of an exhibition to be presented at the Museum of Podgórze later this year.

Of course. this isn’t the first time that Odraza have strayed off the beaten (left-hand) path – their 2015 EP, Kir, for example, was a twenty-minute instrumental commissioned and performed live for an event at The Museum of the City of Krakow in tribute to the fallen in the Płaszów concentration camp – but there’s no question in my mind that Acedia is the band’s most unorthodox and unpredictable work yet, as well as a welcome reminder that strange times often breed even stranger art.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HOODED MENACE, PANZERFAUST, LYKHAEON, FILTH IS ETERNAL, NEFARIYM, PAIN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 202021
 

 

I managed to grab a few hours of listening time yesterday before they evanesced. I barely scratched the surface of my gargantuan list of things to check out, but it didn’t take long before I found the songs and videos I’ve compiled here, which collectively made a gripping impact. I book-ended the collection with some bigger names and stuffed the interior with some names that need to be bigger.

HOODED MENACE (Finland)

Hooded Menace have a new album named The Tritonus Bell headed for release in August. Guitarist Lasse Pyykkö commented that the first advance track, “Blood Ornaments“, “comes with some of our most intriguing ingredients yet”. He continued: “There’s a contrast between death/doom misery and head-bangable heavy metal riffs like never heard before in Hooded Menace‘s music, making ‘Blood Ornaments‘ my favourite track from the album”. Continue reading »

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