Islander

OUR LIST OF 2020’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): ENSLAVED, IMHA TARIKAT, VREDEHAMMER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2020  No Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

Well, here we go again: For the 12th straight year I present my list of the preceding year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

I’m going to dispense with repeating the operative definition of what I think makes a song “infectious”; if you’re encountering this series for the first time, go here to see that. But I will remind you what I do to compile the list, and why I currently have no idea how long it will be, or precisely when the rollout will end — which has been true in nearly every other year when I’ve done this. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: THE ROLLING STONE JOKE IS DEAD

 LISTMANIA 2020  13 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

Honestly, in recent years the only reason I’ve continued to post year-end lists by Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Listmania series is to give people a chance to renew the Gorguts joke. Sadly, Rolling Stone magazine has deprived me of the opportunity this year.

Mournfully, I must report that for the first time in a long number of years (I don’t really care enough to count them), Rolling Stone has failed to post a year-end list of best metal albums. I’ve waited patiently, but it’s now January 4th and no such list has appeared. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020:  CONSTRUCT OF LETHE / EYE OF SOLITUDE / PERSEFONE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews three 2020 album “reissues” that in different ways gave the original releases a new lease on life.)

“Out with the old, in with the new!”

That has, traditionally, been the mantra that accompanies the end of one year and the beginning of another.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to bit adieu to 2020 with a look back at three albums which originally reared their ugly heads in 2016, 2011, and 2004, respectively, but which were all given a new lease on life last year.

So I guess that opening mantra should have been “everything old is new again…”, shouldn’t it? Continue reading »

R.I.P. ALEXI LAIHO

 Metal News  9 Responses »
Jan 042021
 


photo by Tør

 

Decibel magazine and other media outlets have reported a statement released by Napalm Records, which we then found in our own in-box this morning, that the veteran Finnish musician and vocalist Alexi Laiho passed away at home in Heklsinki sometime last week. No cause of death has been reported. Laiho was 41 years old.

For me, as for many others, this is very sad news. In my case, Laiho and Children of Bodom were one of the important gateways that led me into extreme metal. I came to the genre much later in life than many of the people who visit our site, and have spent the last 15 years or so catching up and riding the tide forward. COB were one of a handful of bands that made the music finally click in my head. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NOEN HATER OSS, NIHTYMNE, ARALLU, GRUZJA, GRIMA, CHRIS WICKED and GAAHL

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jan 032021
 

 

Here we are, in this uncertain in-between time, with one foot still in the old year (because it seems to keep moving forward, refusing to let go) and one foot in the new year (which isn’t exactly providing solid ground to stand on). And so it is in the micro-world of extreme metal, when we’re still catching up with late-year releases while looking ahead to what’s coming in 2021. What you’ll find in this blackened round-up is a mix of such things.

NOEN HATER OSS (Norway)

To begin, I’ve chosen two songs that appeared during the last two months of 2020, both of which are part of an album entitled Siste stopp skjærsilden that’s planned for release later this month. The band is Noen Hater Oss from Stavanger, Norway, which began as the solo project of Raum and now also includes vocalist Morloc. Their discography includes a demo and two full-lengths, but they are new to me. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GATEWAY, VIELIKAN, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, BURNING PALACE, NUBIVAGANT, OSI AND THE JUPITER, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 022021
 

 

Last night I decided not to post anything today and instead spend the time trying to figure out how to begin rolling out my 2020 Most Infectious Songs list next week, and to get my shit together for when my day job starts whomping me in the head again on Monday. I have spent some time on both of those projects but my NCS obsession got the better of me, and I took a break to listen to some things on my ever-burgeoning list of music to check out. From that listening session, I picked what you’ll find in this round-up.

I have made a few compromises, compared to what I usually do in these posts, so I can get back to the other projects a bit faster. The main compromises were to dispense with tracking down, re-sizing, and uploading album art, and to write less.

GATEWAY (Belgium)

Been anxiously awaiting the first preview of music from this death/doom band’s new EP, Flesh Reborn, and it finally arrived today. The ferocity of “Slumbering Crevasses” will maul and mangle you, and the cavernous monstrosity of the vocals and quivering eeriness of the leads may put the hair up on the back of your neck too. When the song slows, it’s still punishing, and even more apocalyptically frightening. Continue reading »

HAPPY NEW YEAR? (WITH LASHBLOOD AND VETER DAEMONAZ)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 012021
 


New Year’s Eve, St. Petersburg Russia — but not this year (photo by Dmitri Lovetsky)

 

Happy New Year to all who may wander by our site today. But we extend that wish with one eye looking over our shoulder. Until we’ve cut the head off of 2020, put a stake through its heart, and burned the remains to ash, we fear it will remain with us, still shambling forward like a stinking zombie or coming back from its grave (which is just a temporary resting place) like a hungry vampire, ready to turn 2021 into something horrid just like itself.

The turn of the calendar means almost nothing of course. Today will be very much like yesterday and very much like tomorrow will be. If there is a meaningful change, it will only be one in our minds, which, however, is not nothing. I saw this poem today by Dana Gioia, named “New Year’s”: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

 LISTMANIA 2020  6 Responses »
Jan 012021
 

 

To the Teeth is the name of a Facebook-based metal blog that began life in May of 2016, and has expanded into a newsletter format. The proprietor, Dutch writer Peter van der Ploeg, regularly posts about new extreme metal songs and full releases, and as the year goes along he adds selected music to a growing Spotify playlist. He also has a Reddit thread in which he often goes into greater depth about what appears more briefly at To the Teeth on FB.

Peter has posted his own personal 2020 Top 20 list, which you can see HERE, but he again compiled a “List of Lists”, as he has done in past years. To do that he began by assembling a population of 87 year-end lists from 26 international critics, magazines, blogs, and other publications. Those included a lot of “big platform” mainstream publications as well as lists from metal-only outlets such as our own; those 87 also included separate staff lists from some sites (such as our own). This year, these were the lists he included in the aggregation process: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: A YEAR-END LIST FROM GONZO (PART II)

 LISTMANIA 2020  2 Responses »
Jan 012021
 

 

(This is Part II of a “Top 20 of 2020” year-end list compiled by NCS writer Gonzo. It counts down from No. 10 through No. 1. You can find Part I here.)

 

As I’m writing this, there’s less than 12 hours left in 2020, and the existential dread of how fucked up life might be through the first half of 2021 is slowly beginning to creep in. If it wasn’t for music and legal weed, I don’t know where the hell I’d be mentally right now.

But, enough of that. We’re here for the music. My top 10 albums of the year did a damn fine job of lifting my spirits when I needed it and were also malleable enough to wallow in grief and despair with me when appropriate.

While we collectively light a match and throw it into the five-alarm dumpster fire of 2020 without even so much as turning back to look at the explosion, may I present to you my soundtrack of choice for the occasion. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FEDSMOKER — “SPLATTER PATTERN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 312020
 

 

After listening to “Splatter Pattern” a few times, it occurred to me that when Fedsmoker decided to release the track on New Year’s Eve they really weren’t trying to ring out the old year, but to bludgeon and burn it to the ground — all of it, from January 1 straight through today. I’ll drink to that!

We’re told that “Splatter Pattern” was the result of this Pacific Northwest powerviolence/hardcore trio — drummer Benjamin Hall (from Rot Monger and Honey Badger), guitarist Devon Jensen (Infrablaster, The Festering), and vocalist Scott Rozell (Sterileprayer, Scatterbox) — experiencing months of pandemic cabin fever. They’re not alone in that experience, of course, they just have ways of letting the fever run wild which most of us don’t have. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries