Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUCKER — “BASTARD LIAR”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 252021
 

 

As historical artifacts go, the forthcoming compilation of music by the Russian band Fucker (entitled Dichlofos) is an un-earthing of sounds that’s unlikely to generate global headlines. It may be immediately meaningful only to a collective of nostalgic Russian fans, but though I knew nothing about Fucker before being introducing to this new comp, I’m still getting my own feelings of nostalgia from the music, and so agreed to make this premiere today.

Fucker’s music is sometimes pretty far off the usual beaten paths at this site. The vocals do get harsh, but mainly consist of singing in the tracks we’re presenting, and those tracks are far more rock ‘n’ roll and old school heavy metal than the kind of extreme stuff we usually spread around. But on the other hand, the songs do pack a visceral punch, and they’re definitely devilish. But before we get to the music, a history lesson is in order, one with its fair share of tragedy. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SHAMBLES

 Interviews  1 Response »
Mar 252021
 

 

(In this interview Comrade Aleks spoke with Chainarong Meeprasert — bassist, vocalist, and co-founder of the Thai death/doom band Shambles — about the band’s past, present, and future.)

As a tireless doom metal researcher I was surprised when I found that Shambles had been hidden from my radars.

This Bangkok-based gore-thirsty outfit was founded in Thailand back in 1997. The guys tried to express their addiction to Satanism and Darkness through brutal death and black metal, but in the end they chose a path of heavily death-influenced doom metal with huge influences of Incantation and like bands.

After a series of demos and splits Shambles recorded the Realm of Darkness Shrine full-length in 2016. They didn’t stop, and new releases like the Primitive Death Trance EP (2017) and a split with Japanese Anatomia, Abyssal Doom Oriental (2020), followed.

Recently we talked about Shambles’ past, present, and future with one of the band’s founders, Chainarong Meeprasert (bass, vocals). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NUCLEAR WINTER — “THE HARVEST MOON”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 242021
 

 

The Zimbabwean metal band Nuclear Winter (the solo work of Gary Stautmeister) is following up its last release, the 2020 EP Stormscapes, with a second full-length named Greystone. It’s projected for release via the South African label MMD Records on May 21 of this year. In the lead-up to the album release Nuclear Winter has begun releasing stand-alone singles from the record. The first of those was “Corridor of Shells“, and today we present a second one, “The Harvest Moon“.

Nuclear Winter‘s music has evolved, and as Stautmeister has commented, this new release is “more electronic” than the previous EP and displays improved production values, but still employs an amalgam of industrial and melodic death metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UTBURD — “STORIES OF WORLD WINDS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 242021
 

 

Story of Frozen Souls is the name of the forthcoming third album by the Russian atmospheric black metal band Utburd. It is a concept album which takes as its historical subject matter the early exploration of Antarctica, encompassing the journeys of James Ross, Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott, seasoned with Edgar Poe’s novel (his only complete novel) about the adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Anyone who has done any reading about these explorations is aware that they are replete with tales of heroism, foolhardiness, terror, madness, and death, all of them shrouded in bitter cold and oppressive darkness. How has Utburd attempted to capture such sensations in sound? We have an example today in our premiere of the album’s eighth track, “Stories of World Winds“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HYMNR — “PART III”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 232021
 

 

Providing only a glimpse of its extravagant talents last year, the black metal band Hymnr (a trio of unknown locations) will soon reveal the full flowering of their unearthly wonders through a debut album named (fittingly) Far Beyond Insanity. With a release date of April 23rd through Saturnal Records, the album consists of four long tracks ranging from 8 to 13 minutes in length, and today it’s our great pleasure to premiere the longest of them.

Both the band and the album have a conceptual focus (the tracks on Far Beyond Insanity are identified only as Parts I through IV), though the concept is mysterious (as is the music). We are told only that “the concept of Hymnr is its own tale of the tragic path that has led the world, humanity, and religion down this downwards spiral that this cosmic plane has become.”

Every Part in this tale of how everything ended up here is so fascinating (and disturbing) that the experiences become transfixing — and that is certainly true of Part III, the piece that we’re presenting today. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOLDEN BATS — “UPSTAIRS POWER SKULL CAVE PROTECTION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 232021
 

 

I’ve been flying along with Golden Bats now for about seven years now. Even though I’ve become somewhat acquainted by long distance with Geordie Stafford, the transplanted Australian (now living in Rome) who’s behind the project, I’ve never asked him where that name came from. I think it’s because I’d rather not know, and instead rely on imagination, picturing from the music an immense supernatural beast overhead, fearsome and frightening, a harbinger of doom, capable of blotting out the light, but radiating a chilling yet mesmerizing shine of its own.

In genre terms Golden Bats is a sludge-doom leviathan whose music tends to be titanically heavy, built upon mammoth riffs that are as corrosive as battery acid, but also steeped in a kind of gothic gloom, and so haunting in its laments that it threatens to split the heart even as it’s splintering bone. Capable of emotionally devastating manifestations of grief and pain as well as humongous heaviness, the music has repeatedly hit home with staggering force on multiple levels.

And now we have another new Golden Bats creation, one of the best yet. It’s a new EP with the mystifying name Upstairs Power Skull Cave Protection, and we’re premiering it now on the day of its release. Continue reading »

ABANDONED BY LIGHT: “DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Mar 222021
 

 

(We present Aleksha McLoughlin’s review of the new album by the British melancholic black metal band Abandoned By Light, just released last week.)

There are few names as prolific in British black metal than Sheffield’s Abandoned by Light, a one-man project that for eight years has been putting out a steady stream of solid records, with this newest one being the ninth overall, and the best effort yet. I must disclose that I have worked on records with Karhmul, but that does not cloud my judgement.

People may remember this project for its origins as a DSBM band, but in recent years Abandoned by Light has shifted over to a melancholic sound. This was done in order to break away from the genre staples of depressive black metal, as many of these songs have a much faster tempo and increased aggression, without sacrificing the intensity.

Like some other Abandoned by Light albums such as The Angel Experiment, one of the band’s most well-regarded releases, Gentle is a concept album, in this instance based upon the 1951 Dylan Thomas poem of the same name, with various references throughout. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APES OF GOD — “EMERGIDOS DEL ODIO Y RENCOR”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 222021
 

The Salvadoran death/thrashers Apes of God made their first demo release in 2016 and followed that with an EP, a pair of splits, and then their debut full-length Misanthropy in 2018. Additional short releases followed, but the band was jarred by the murder of their vocalist César Canales in August 2019 during a festival performance. The band decided to remain active but never to play a show in El Salvador again.

With new vocalist Aldair Mejía in the line-up, Apes of God have recorded their second album, En el Recinto de la Tempestad, and it’s now set for release on April 28th by Death in Pieces Records, Deathrockersorrow Records, and Morbid Skull Records.

This is a 10-track album, and today, to help introduce it, we’re premiering the record’s closing track “Emergidos del Odio y Rencor”. It’s a savage scorcher of a song, and turns out to be a highly infectious one too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GREY SKIES FALLEN — “COLD DEAD LANDS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 222021
 

 

The New York band Grey Skies Fallen first took shape in 1996 under the name Eve of Mourning before adopting their current moniker the following year. In the quarter-century since then they’ve released a pair of EPs and five albums. The last of those full-lengths, Cold Dead Lands, first saw the light of day in January of last year, with an independent digital release and a CD release by Old Souls Collective. But the album is about to be jointly reissued by GrimmDistribution with Paragon Records and More Hate Productions, and we’re helping to spread the word about that by featuring the album’s title track today.

And so this is one of those situations that isn’t a true premiere, though it will undoubtedly be the first time some of you have heard the song, and thus hopefully will provide a good introduction to newcomers about the immense sonic and emotional power of the record in advance of the April 8th reissue. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SLEEPWALKER, HANTERNOZ, KASSAD, ULVEHYRDE, THANATOMASS, BLACK CEREMONIAL KULT, STWORZ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 212021
 

 

I guess it’s usually true that I try to put a lot of variety into these Sunday columns, but today’s selections seem to be even more divergent than usual. As a result, I had a devil of a time figuring out how to arrange the tracks, and I don’t think I succeeded in creating any kind of rational flow, probably because all the songs resist that. However, I do think I succeeded in creating a whiplash effect at the end, so there’s that.

There’s only one full release to be found here. The rest are either singles or advance tracks from forthcoming records. Enjoy!

夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER) (Russia, Japan, U.S.)

I decided to begin with the most head-spinning track of everything you’ll find here. Although my head has been spun around before by the escapades of this multi-national avant-garde collective, they’ve really outdone themselves this time. Continue reading »

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