Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STARGAZER – “PSYCHIC SECRETIONS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 282021
 

 

(On February 1st Nuclear War Now! Productions will release the fourth full-length by the Australian genre-splicing band StarGazer, and today we premiere a full stream along with a review by Andy Synn.)

Australian alchemists StarGazer have always been a hard band to properly pin down.

Ask ten different people to describe them and you’re likely to receive ten different answers.

They’re a Black Metal band. Or a Thrash band. Or a Death Metal band. And what that play is either Progressive Black Metal, Blackened Thrash, or Technical Death Metal… or some uniquely unorthodox hybrid of all three.

Or maybe they’re something else entirely.

Long story short, no-one seems to be able to agree, and the various permutations of style and genre which people ascribe to the band are now almost as innumerable as the stars themselves.

And now, with the release of their long-awaited fourth album (which we’re premiering here today) it’s time for that debate to begin anew. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2020’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 12): ANAAL NATHRAKH, UNDERGANG, VILE CREATURE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2020  2 Responses »
Jan 272021
 

 

Well, look at what happened. No sooner than I said in the last installment of this list that I wouldn’t have time to double-up on these posts in an effort to catch up from six missing days of the rollout, now I’ve gone and done it. (But don’t expect that I’ll be able to continue doing it.)

Unlike most of these installments, I have no particular rhyme or reason why I grouped these three songs together. I’ve searched my subconscious to figure out why, and have come up empty. Maybe it’s simply because I couldn’t find other groupings in which they would comfortably fit. Maybe it’s because I imagined (with a grin) the whiplash effect they would have on you when listening to them back-to-back-to-back.

ANAAL NATHRAKH

No surprise here, it was guaranteed that something from Anaal Nathrakh’s Endarkenment album would be on this list. If there was any anticipation or intrigue, that might have come only from wondering which song I would pick, because there were so many worthy options. Indeed, after compiling the lists generated by our readers, by myself, and by my comrade DGR, there were almost a half-dozen candidates. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2020’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 11): NECROPHOBIC, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, SWEVEN

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2020  No Responses »
Jan 272021
 

 

Like all the best-laid plans of mice and men, my goals for the rollout of this list have obviously gone seriously awry. With Part 10 having gone up on January 18th, I’ve missed six weekdays. That’s six missing installments of the list that will be very difficult to make up if I stick to my plan of finishing the rollout by the end of January. Which means I will probably have to change that drop-dead date, because I’d really like to load the list with more tracks than the remaining days of this month will allow, and I’m still busy enough with other things that it’s unlikely I’ll be able to double-up the installments every day.

Anyway, on we go…

NECROPHOBIC

Necrophobic’s 2020 album Dawn of the Damned was one of those records that was home to multiple candidates for this list, and as I considered them, no one track clearly stood out above the others. In an effort to settle on just one song, I sought the input of Andy Synn. As usual, he was very little help. He suggested it would be a choice between “Mirror Black”, “Dawn of the Damned”, and “As the Fire Burns”, which simply confirmed my own selection of candidates — though I also had “The Infernal Depths of Eternity” in that group. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRAVEDÄNCER — “RIPPING METAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 272021
 

 

As much as many of us enjoy the realms of the avant garde within the world of metal, no dyed-in-the-wool metalhead would ever deny the continuing appeal of the Old Guard, or the visceral thrills that can be generated by newer bands who embrace the sounds that formed the foundations of heavy metal and carry them forward with the right spirit and uncommon skill. Which brings us to Gravedäncer.

This Brazilian duo, composed of members of Flageladör and Tyranno, have created a debut demo, righteously named Ripping Metal, that’s an electrifying hybrid of early black metal and NWOBHM — think of a union between Judas Priest and Venom. The songs are stripped-down and unpretentious, neither forward-looking nor artificially embellished. They depend on the power of the riff, and a devotion to sulphurous audio aromas that promise the delights and dangers of hell.

And as you’ll discover through our premiere of the demo today in advance of its January 29 release by the Helldprod Records, the primal appeal of what they’ve done is damned near irresistible. Continue reading »

MEFITIS: “OFFSCOURINGS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 272021
 

 

(On January 30th Hessian Firm will release a new album by the California band Mefitis, and here we present a guest review by Lonegoat, the man behind the “necroclassical” project Goatcraft.)

An exhibition of metal understanding and dexterity, Offscourings presents some things to consider regarding the current state of metal and its possibilities. The first thing which is immediately apparent is that Mefitis will not traverse a solely death metal path. Their debut Emberdawn showed that they are capable of creating narrative songs within the death metal lexicon; riffs that are seamlessly glued together to present to the listener an experience of perpetual development during the songs’ duration. Offscourings takes a detour from standard death metal by assimilating avant-garde tendencies that have become more accepted in metal. This is not to say that they are playing it safe. The music is unmistakably their own and not something derived from appropriation. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABIGORUM — “ERHEBT EURE MIT BLUT GEFÜLLTEN HÖRNER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 262021
 

 

Abigorum began as the solo project of Russian musician Aleksey Korolyov, who is also the owner of Satanath Records. Operating on his own, and drawing upon traditions of doom, black metal, and dark ambient music, he recorded a sequence of releases that included a collaboration with Cryostasium (2016’s Unholy Ghost Liturgy) and a split with Striborg (2018’s Spectral Shadows). After that he expanded the line-up of Abigorum with the addition of two German musicians — guitarist/vocalist Tino Thiele (from Wulfgar and Metamorph) and bassist Sandra Batsch — and together they completed a 2019 debut album named Exaltatus Mechanism.

Ms. Batsch subsequently departed, and now the remaining duo of Korolyov and Thiele have recorded a new Abigorum album named Vergessene Stille that’s set for release by a consortium of labels on April 13th. Today we present the premiere of its first advance track, “Erhebt eure mit Blut gefüllten Hörner“, which manages to create an experience that’s both hypnotizing and nightmarish, both hauntingly seductive and terrorizing. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OCEANA — “THE PATTERN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  3 Responses »
Jan 262021
 

 

It has been a long time coming — a very long time — but on January 29th the Roman band Oceana will release their debut album The Pattern through Time To Kill Records. But it seems the time is right, even if the album is arriving 25 years after Oceana’s debut demo and EP, and the strength of the new album is such that fans of progressively inclined melodic death metal will be grateful the band did not die an early death.

Given the passage of so much time, all will be forgiven who are unfamiliar with the band. It was the brainchild of Massimiliano Pagliuso, who has been the guitarist for the Italian band Novembre throughout those same 25 years, and it was he who revived Oceana, bringing together original drummer Alessandro “Sancho” Marconcini and another old friend, Gianpaolo Caprino, as second guitarist.

How the rebirth happened, and the themes that inspired The Pattern, are subjects addressed by Massimiliano Pagliuso in an extensive statement that you will find below. What you will also find below is a full stream of the new album, preceded by a few reactions of our own. Continue reading »

NERVOSA: “PERPETUAL CHAOS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jan 262021
 

 

(We welcome a new contributor at NCS — Aleksha McLoughlin — who begins with a review of the new album by the revised Brazilian death/thrash band Nervosa, which was released on January 22nd by Napalm Records.)

April 2020 seemed like a death sentence for the female-fronted thrash/death metal band Nervosa. Guitarist and founding member Prika Amaral had the tough choice to make when it came to replacing their entire line-up. The result isn’t a resounding triumph, but it does enough to justify the band’s place at the fringe of female-fronted extreme metal.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way early on: Even when upgrading to a four-piece from their tried and tested original trio, Diva Satanica (Bloodhunter) simply lacks the vocal power of Fernanda Lira, and Mia Wallace’s bass lines are largely buried in the fairly mid-heavy mix.

“Venomous” opens the album as it means to go on. Guitars have a significant body; very much leaning into that old-school razor-thin tone and presence. We’re assaulted as listeners by a steady combination of bouncy thrash and proto-death guitar riffs that are catchy, but occasionally ring hollow. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HAUNTED CENOTAPH

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 262021
 

 

(In this interview Comrade Aleks talked with members of the Polish death/doom band Haunted Cenotaph, whose debut album was digitally released last fall and was released on tape by Redefining Darkness Records in December.)

I don’t remember how I found Haunted Cenotaph over a year ago. Back then they had just a raw self-titled EP with Lovecraftian death-doom from beyond the grave… But a year has passed and the quartet from Rzeszów returned with a debut full-length named Abyssal Menace, which is few levels higher than its predecessor.

Brewhammer (bass), Golem (guitars), Coffin Crawler (vocals), and Abyssal Conqueror (drums) present us quite an entertaining experience through straight old-school stuff with reverence towards Celtic Frost and Asphyx amongst others. Golem, with some help from Coffin Crawler, reveals the history behind Haunted Cenotaph‘s rising. Continue reading »

DALIT: “MOKSHA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 252021
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Norwegian band Dalit, which they released on January 15, 2021.)

Between my day job, writing for NCS, and various bits of ongoing band business, it’s going to be a busy week for me this week, so I’m not going to waste your time (or my own) with a lengthy preamble here.

Let’s just say, instead, that if you’ve ever wondered what a combination of Satyricon and Paradise Lost might sound like, well… you’re about to find out. Continue reading »

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