Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 102024
 

(Last week we forced Andy Synn to listen to and review The Monolith Deathcult‘s new album, and this week we forced Comrade Aleks to interview TMDC‘s Robin Kok, and although we can’t affirm that Aleks got away unscathed, he did provide us the interview… below….)

The Dutch band The Monolith Deathcult began its underground career more than twenty years ago with quite brutal and moderately unbridled death metal, which over time was symphonized, electrified, industrialized, and decorated with various, often unexpected, samples. It sounds scary, but, for example, one of The Monolith’s past hits “Fist of Stalin” gained an exorbitant number of plays on streaming services, and on YouTube the views of this video amount to almost a hundred thousand, which is not bad.

As the years go by, The Monolith has changed within the framework of the formula discovered by its members, but the composition of the group has remained unchanged for many years: Michiel Dekker (guitar, vocals), Carsten Altena (keyboards, orchestrations, guitar, vocals) and Robin Kok (growls, bass). If we take into account the band’s tendencies towards electronic sound, then we can assume that their drums are programmed, but for several years now the invariably professional guest drummer Frank Schilperoort has been working in this position. He also worked with The Monolith Deathcult on the new album, released in April by Human Detonator Records, The Demon Who Makes Trophies of Men, which we spoke with Robin Kok personally about. Continue reading »

CONCERT REVIEW: WAYFARER PRESENTS “AMERICAN GOTHIC,” BLUEBIRD THEATER, MARCH 29, 2024

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 092024
 

(Below we present our Denver-based contributor Gonzo‘s wonderful review of a unique show in March by Wayfarer performing the entirety of their American Gothic album, with support from Paul Riedl, Munly and the Lupercalians, and some special guests.)

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my lifetime, metal music turned into the audial equivalent of Sriracha: You can add it to anything.

And few bands really understand this in the way Denver’s Wayfarer does. Their fusing of black metal’s raw underbelly with Old West lyrical themes and imagery is one of the best musical marriages happening in metal right now. They’re a huge part of what makes the Denver metal scene the unending adventure that it is. Any chance to see them perform live is a momentous occasion.

So when the quartet announced they’d be riding out to the Bluebird Theater for a one-night-only performance of their 2023 opus American Gothic, featuring some special guests that I’d never see coming, you could be damn sure yours truly would be present for it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DOGTAG REMAINS — “HILL 731”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 092024
 

Dogtag Remains are a death metal band from Greece, and their debut album Forgotten Battlefields is now set for co-release by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Australis Records (Chile) on April 25th.

As both the band’s name and the new album’s title suggest, the band have focused the subject matter of their music on war and all its madness, terror, and destruction — and the music itself renders those themes with devastating power and electrifying intensity, while also oppressively dragging listeners into the sinkholes of agony and hopelessness that inflict warfare’s victims.

Many of the new album’s 8 songs are apparently based upon historical events that the band wish us to remember, and that includes the one we’re premiering today — “Hill 731“. Continue reading »

DÅÅTH: “THE DECEIVERS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 092024
 

(Below we present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new comeback album from Atlanta-based Dååth, which will be released by Metal Blade on May 3rd.)

After a decade-long hiatus bands often return to a musical landscape that has shifted. With metal, the stakes are higher. Headbangers are like addicts who build a tolerance requiring an ever-increasing level of sonic stimulus to get the same results. This leaves musicians with the choice of either cashing in on nostalgia or trying to find their place in the new musical climate. Producer/ guitarist Eyal Levi finds a balance between the two with Dååth‘s new album. Levi might be the sole original member, but he brought long-time growling machine Sean Z along for the ride. Sean’s multitracked performance lends to this album’s massive sound. Continue reading »

BENIGHTED: “EKBOM”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 092024
 

(Benighted‘s new album Ekbom comes out this Friday, April 12th, via Season of Mist, so the time is right to present DGR‘s review… which proceeds in phases.)

Benighted are old friends around here – No Clean Singing has taken the banner up for the band for a long time and have been covering them in one form or another since 2009(!).

We’ve covered their EPs, singles, and albums and there’s a pretty hot chance that your author here has been involved in a large part of that.

The high-speed core of Benighted‘s evolution into deathgrind form was found pretty early on, and well, they’ve danced into and out of -core, black metal, and brutal-death-inspired circles but they’ve always cycled back around to the sort of relentless blastbeating backbone that is their foundation.

For the last couple of years they’ve subsisted on a somewhat steady drip-feed of singles that allowed them to get the horror movie craze out of their system during the pandemic downtime, and Ekbom – upon first listen – doesn’t really mess around with the formula.

But it doesn’t take long – nor many listens – for the band’s latest album to start revealing itself as being something more. Continue reading »

CICATRICES: GRIS CELEBRATE A DECADE OF SILENCE (Interview)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Apr 082024
 


L-R Neptune, Icare

(We welcome to our pages Jon Rosenthal, who brings us a very special and extensive interview with the duo behind the Québec band Gris on the 10th anniversary of Gris‘ latest album À L’âme Enflammée, L’Äme Constellée….)

Gris‘ music has been with me for a long time. Seventeen years ago, I first heard their debut (under the Gris banner, having been previously named Niflheim) Il était une forêt…, and nothing had quite struck my sad teenage self like the work of these two Quebecois musicians. Morose, complex songwriting, mammoth ambience, and absolutely throat-rending vocals all find a home in this album. It’s glorious, even now, and unraveling the mystery behind these two low-profile artists, multi-instrumentalists Neptune and Icare, has been both delightful and inspiring.

Initially lumped in with “depressive/suicidal black metal” (heretofore referred to as DSBM), Gris‘ music dealt more with the balance of joy and despair, to the point where a logo of theirs even featured plus and minus symbols to really drive the point home, rather than wallowing in the latter. You’d never guess it, though, especially due to Icare‘s vocals, especially on Il était une forêt… (I later found out that, yes, he did, in fact, harmonize his screams in a melodic sense, too, but I digress). Unlike DSBM, though, Gris‘ music is compelling, featuring dense harmonies, practiced and thoughtful chord progressions, and a very deliberate songwriting approach that, while other DSBM bands revel in minimalism, maximizes on the space it occupies, revealing an inner depth to their music that many might not catch upon first listen. To think this was the work of two Canadian teenagers still baffles me, honestly. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERITERAS — “THE DARK HORIZON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 082024
 

Sometimes a relatively new band’s love for a relatively old and well-established brand of music is so evident that it runs the serious risk of having nothing new to say. The risk exists even when the love is genuinely earnest and not a cash grab (though about the only cash-grabbing most underground metal bands are capable of achieving is by looking for lost coins in the crevices of couches).

The relatively new Seattle band Veriteras wear their love for old-school Scandinavian melodic death metal on their sleeves, and it is clearly an earnest and genuine love, with the influence of such bands as early In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and Kalmah reverently embroidered on such sleeves.

So, the question arises: Do they have something new to say, and if so, what is it? The answer arrives in their second album, The Dark Horizon, which we’re premiering today in advance of its April 11th release. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME IV: BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 082024
 

(We present another one of Dan Barkasi‘s monthly collections of reviews and recommended music, taking stock of 8 records that saw release in March.)

The year is moving quickly, isn’t it? March brings us the reminder of Julius Caesar’s big mistake, the conclusion of the UEFA Champions League round of 16 (Heja BVB), and some of the final episodes of the timeless Curb Your Enthusiasm. Whilst I agree with most of Larry David’s neurotic observations, we have to especially take his side on the cheese debate. Also, text chains are the worst. But, we could go on all day. Kevin P and Madder Mortem know the score.

We’re a quarter of the way through already, and the volume of releases is on a steady upward trajectory. That leaves a metric ton of music to take in – not that we’re complaining, mind you – in order to dig out a smattering of quality stuff that may be hiding between some of the more obvious heavy hitters. The month also brought its share of puzzling releases – Coffin Storm is the sonic equivalent of melatonin – but thankfully, there was more quality than not from the bigger acts on down. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ACOD, ANTIFLESH, ASPERNAMENTUM, DAUÞUZ, DRAUGNIM, EX CINERE, HÄSSLIG, MACHUKHA, NAXEN

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Apr 072024
 

Last week I came across a verse from American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski that begins this way: “our public hell creates a / private hell and / there is no hell / except on / earth.”

Hell is a realm that exists in human imagination and belief too — a place in parallel to earthly existence or what comes after life. That is one way it exists on earth, even if it has no other existence, in addition to the public and private hells Bukowski wrote about — the hells that human beings make for others and for themselves.

I’m thinking about all these hells today, the realms of demons and the realms of human depravity and anguish, because I happened upon a sequence of new black metal songs and videos that I can only think of as hellish in one or more of those ways. Those songs fill up a lot of today’s collection.

But I only quoted part of Bukowski‘s verse. After positing that there is no hell except on earth he wrote: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AL-NAMROOD, AORTES, BLACK SORCERY, COGNITIVE, CRYPT SERMON, DARKNESS EVERYWHERE, GRAND CADAVER, HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, REZN, VÁSTÍGR, WARDRUNA, BATHORY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 062024
 

Saturdays after Bandcamp Fridays should be named just like hurricanes. I’m left staring hopelessly at the wreckage of the NCS in-box and the high-water marks left by the musical flood, which still hasn’t really receded.

In case you were wondering, an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization maintains and updates the annually rotating list of hurricane names, with one name for each letter of the alphabet, except for Q, U, X, Y, and Z. This year the list begins with Alberto. However, I see no reason not to use the letters omitted by the WMO, so let’s call this Saturday Quorthon.

Let’s listen to these 12 songs, all but the last of which breached the surface of the flood during the last week, while we wait (hopelessly) for the carpet to dry out. Continue reading »

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