Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: SPEEDKILLER — “CIRCLES OF BLOOD”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 132020
 

 

Based on this band’s name (Speedkiller) and their nation (Brazil), you might be expecting raw and ripping black thrash, or perhaps balls-to-the-wall speed metal, and Speedkiller do indeed give you high-voltage doses of thrash and speed, but their debut EP Midnight Vampire turns out to be a much more multi-faceted experience, in which the band also draw on elements of death metal and classic heavy metal — and a genuine talent for cooking up addictive melodies and hook-heavy riffs, and delivering the experience within a supernatural atmosphere.

Speedkiller leaped into this new EP after releasing only a couple of singles via YouTube, and when you hear it you’ll understand why both Helldprod Records and Edged Circle Records leaped at the chance to release it. Sadly, covid-related delays at manufacturing facilities have recently caused a postponement in the EP’s release date from December 11th to January 29, 2021, but to tide you over until then we’re presenting a track from the album today named “Circles of Blood“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BESTIALIS — “RITUS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 132020
 

 

Just yesterday I was confessing that one of the reasons I’m so open to hosting premieres every day is a selfish motivation — because it affords the opportunity to discover new music from new bands that I might otherwise miss (and that you might miss too!). Sometimes those opportunities bring thrilling surprises, and today it has happened again through the discovery of a fascinating German black metal band named Bestialis.

What you are about to hear, on the day of its release by Vendetta Records, is the debut recording of this group, an EP named Ritus. The formidable success of the EP will be less surprising if you understand that Bestialis is the result of of a long-term artistic and spiritual conspiracy between two artists — vocalist Lastaurus and guitarist Absorber — who have been making music for 20 years; both of them are part of northwestern Germany’s Culthe Collectiv/Culthe Fest (Münster).

What they’ve achieved is both conceptually and musically tantalizing. In their lyrical focus, Bestialis focus on a concept “whose basic premise is to understand humans as – primarily and in the most positive way – animal beings, and thus, at its essence, to explore, proclaim and worship the bestia or beast in man.”. Ritus thus offers an introduction to this concept and puts into its narrative tales of prehistoric bull cults and Persian mythology (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, provided in the band’s own reinterpretation). Continue reading »

FATAL CASTRATION: “DIVERSED PARADIGM OF LUNACY”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 132020
 

 

(In this post Vonlughlio recommends the second album by the Filipino brutal death metal band Fatal Castration, which was released on November 6th by Sevared Records.)

One of the joys of the internet is that moment when out of the blue you find a new band that just blows you away the moment you push play and the first notes emerge. This is the case of FC from the Philippines, who released their second offering Diversed Paradigm of Lunacy a week or so ago via Sevared Records.

This project was born back in 2009, and as they were deep underground there was not much information about them, not until the release of their debut album Perishan Grinder back in 2014. The release included songs from a 2008 demo that I could not find. But I’m not going to dwell on that album, but will say that it’s straight-forward BDM with a raw sound that’s capable of captivating from the get-go. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): YSGAROTH — “STORM OVER A BLACK SEA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 122020
 

 

It’s well-known that we host a lot of premieres at our site — every day, in fact. It requires a lot of effort since we always accompany them with reviews, and that can detract from other things we might be doing instead. But one reason we’re so open to them is the opportunity they provide to introduce not just you, but us as well, to music we might otherwise overlook. And sometimes, those opportunities prove to be rapturous discoveries — which is the case with Ysgaroth’s album Storm Over A Black Sea, which is set for release tomorrow.

Simply put, the album is an enormous surprise, an unexpected gem that arrives without much advance fanfare. It is, after all, this Vancouver trio’s debut album. But they’re not taking tentative steps here. The songs are remarkably ambitious in their construction and remarkably demanding in their execution. Fortunately, the instrumental skill displayed here is at a very high level, and the songcraft, while elaborately multi-faceted and wide-ranging in its stylistic scope, is thrilling to behold. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2020

 LISTMANIA 2020  16 Responses »
Nov 122020
 

 

Wow, it’s already that time of year again, and wow, I’m aghast all over again at how early this is starting.

It has become an annual tradition at our putrid site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and yes, they’ve done it again. But there’s also the fact that, in my humble opinion, it’s still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal, so it would be worth paying attention even if they published their list for the first time on January 1, 2021.

The DECIBEL list actually will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2021 edition, which hasn’t yet hit my own mailbox, but DECIBEL again decided (for the fifth year in a row, or maybe the sixth) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line earlier today, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place.

Of course, there will be a lot more content in the January issue (which has Judas Priest on the cover), including commentary about each of these 40 albums and why they were selected, as well as dozens of contributor-conceived year-end Top 5 lists, a Hall of Fame feature on Priest’s Painkiller album, and a brand new Venomous Concept flexi disc. You can order a copy of that issue here HERE. Continue reading »

BELTEZ: “A GREY CHILL AND A WHISPER”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 122020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the German band Beltez, which was released on October 30th by Avantgarde Music.)

What is it about the German Black Metal scene which makes it such a hive of activity and vitality?

Far from the cliched, mechanistic precision which so many still hold as their primary preconception of the country, in my experience it’s awash with bands as emotive and progressive as they are corrosive and aggressive, from the creative complexity of Bethlehem to the ever-evolving darkness of Ultha, from the introverted intensity and extroverted extremity of Infestus and Imha Tarikat to the keening catharsis of Der Weg Einer Freiheit and the gloomy grimness of Farsot… and beyond.

With their last album, 2017’s Exiled, Punished… Rejected, Cologne quintet Beltez took their listeners on an emotional roller-coaster of pitch-black fury and white-hot anguish, which firmly put their name on the map.

But, as good as that record was, A Grey Chill and a Whisper is another beast entirely, one which finds the band expanding their creative vision, adding new shades to their emotional palette and new shapes to their mental architecture, and stretching their skills and their songwriting like never before. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MATALOBOS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 122020
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with Clemente Escalona, drummer for the Méxican melancholic death metal band Matalobos, who have a new album coming out soon.)

 

We had a conversation with Matalobos about three years ago (published here). Back then these guys from Guanajuato had released the EP Until Time Has Lost All Meaning, which was the follow-up to their debut full-length Arte Macabro (2016). And though there weren’t changes in the lineup, Matalobos took their time and meditated over new melodic doom death tunes for some time. Now they’re ready to reveal the result of their work to listeners, and the release date of their new album The Grand Splendour of Death is set for December 4th.

We’ve discussed the new album with the band’s drummer Clemente Escalona alongside a few other topics. Covid-quarantine is at the first place, as always. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: RAMCHAT — “ZNELO LESOM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Nov 112020
 

 

There is a risk that Znelo lesom, the new album by the Slovak pagan metal band Ramchat, will fly under the radar of lots of listeners, when it should instead come across it like a comet in flight. It certainly made that kind of astonishing impression on this writer, who didn’t know what to expect going into it, having failed to pay attention to any of the band’s previous releases. But now this album is one that won’t soon be forgotten.

The songcraft of Ramchat is, for want of better words, idiosyncratic and mercurial. At a high level, it could be described as a fascinating amalgam of folk-influenced blackened metal and devilish rock that’s capable of generating (among other things) orchestral levels of grandeur, barbaric levels of savagery, bewitching episodes of sinister sonic sorcery, and heart-breaking moments of melancholy. In each song (no two of which are quite alike) the band pack an ingenious array of sonic sensations and moods, and while the changes are often unexpected, there is still a natural flow and integration among them which makes the progressions cohesive rather than jarring.

It’s thus a real pleasure to help put Znelo lesom on your radar screen through our full album premiere today in advance of its imminent November 13 release by Slovak Metal Army. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUCK THE FACTS — “AN ENDING”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 112020
 

 

A well-educated metalhead friend once told me that the term “grindcore” wasn’t coined to capture the parts of grind songs where the bands chase you around like rabid barbarians, but for the slow sludgy parts where they catch you, pin you to the ground, and methodically beat you with hammers. He didn’t use those metaphorical terms — those are my own embellishments — but you probably know what I’m talking about.

I think at one point I probably researched the origins of the term, but I’ve forgotten what I found. Regardless, grind fans know this dichotomy between high-speed mayhem and down-shifted thuggery, and sometimes it’s tough to predict which aspect will generate the most violent mosh pit at a show (you remember mosh pits, don’t you, even if just barely?).

But in the case of the veteran Canadian band Fuck the Facts, it’s been evident for a long time that “dichotomous” egregiously under-represents their remarkably distinctive and multi-faceted approach to grind. In fact, there’s usually so much more going on in their music that some ingenious word-smith needs to come up with a different genre term for their music altogether. “Grind” really just doesn’t cut it. Continue reading »

TOMBS: “UNDER SULLEN SKIES”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 112020
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Tombs, which will be released by Season of Mist on November 20th.)

I am going to assume that since Mike Hill has been pumping it out with this project for 13 years you know what Tombs is about. If you have read my reviews before, then you know darkness is what I am listening for when it comes to any genre of music. Hill delivers darkness in full here.

Flanked by the same line up that played on the Monarchy of Shadows EP, the band open with the almost thrash-tinged Swedish touch to black metal. In the first song alone (“Bone Furnace”) there are almost all the staples of their sound. A more overt metal chugging powers “Void Constellation”. The songs have a more focused and hooky bite than what I remember coming from the Monarchy of Shadows EP. They have certainly retained the dense guitar sound they have had since The Grand Annihilation. Continue reading »

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