Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORSEHUNTER — “NUCLEAR RAPTURE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 102020
 

 

In November 2019 Magnetic Eye Records celebrated its first decade of existence by hosting the “Day of Doom” label showcase at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus Bar. That event featured nine bands on the label’s roster performing back-to-back, and the four headline sets were captured live by engineer Chris Johnson (Deafheaven, Summoner). On December 11th, Magnetic Eye will release those recordings in a series of four records entitled Day of Doom Live, each one devoted to the headlining shows from a year ago at Saint Vitus Bar.

The bands featured in the series are Elephant Tree, Domkraft, Summoner, and the Australian sludge-metal destroyers in Horsehunter, whose discography includes two full-lengths so far, 2014’s Caged In Flesh and their self-titled album released in 2019. Today we present one of the live tracks from Horsehunter’s Day of Doom Live release, and it proves that the band are just as devastating live as they are on their studio recordings — maybe more so. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SOMBRE — “A TERRIBLE SILENCE FROM ABOVE”

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Nov 102020
 

 

The Dutch musician Maurice de Jong has become well-known as the man behind such projects as Gnaw Their Tongues, De Magia Veterum, Cloak of Altering, Hagetisse, and Golden Ashes, among many others. Each of these entities has its own identity, but it’s fair to say that despite their stylistic divergences they’re often unpredictable, disturbing, and even frightening, and just as often represent de Jong pushing at musical boundaries, or simply punching his fist right through them. And then there is The Sombre, which surprises in a different and mesmerizing way.

For those of you who are discovering The Sombre today for the first time, it is a vehicle through which de Jong pays homage to such early-’90s pioneers of doom/death as My Dying Bride, Anathema, and Paradise Lost. Compared to many of his other projects, the music is more traditional, yet if you might be expecting a formulaic clone of the sounds that inspired the music, perish the thought. De Jong still finds ways of putting sparks into the sounds, and there is also much to be said about the mastery displayed in the carefully crafted sonic ingredients within the music, and the emotional power of the downcast melodies.

The Sombre‘s first album, Into the Beckoning Wilderness, was released last year via Kapmes Records, and just in time to greet the pall of winter, a second album is coming soon. Entitled Shapeless Misery, it will be released on November 20th by Brucia Records. Several songs from the new album have already been revealed, and today we bring you one more — “A Terrible Silence From Above“, which is the song that opens the album. Continue reading »

DEAD AND DRIPPING: “PROFANE VERSES OF MURDEROUS RHETORIC”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 102020
 

 

(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by the New Jersey death metal band Dead and Dripping, which was released last month.)

I just love the feeling when discovering a new band that captivates you from the first note and hooks you in for the rest of your existence. That was the case for the one-man project Dead and Dripping,  born in 2016 in  New Jersey, USA.

They released a demo that same year entitled Disillusioned by Excessive Human Consumption, a 22-minute effort that reminded me of the late ’90s and early 2000s golden age of BDM. I discovered the band a year after its inception and got a re-press of that demo, and after all this time I have the same positive reaction as when I heard it the first time. It is aging very well, to say the least. Continue reading »

ANN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PLASTICBAG FACEMASK — “SHE’S THE COUSIN OF THE CHAINSAW”

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Nov 092020
 

 

By sheer coincidence the two video premieres we’re hosting at NCS today (the other one is here) are devoted to the music of two-person bands. But the music could hardly be more different. In the case of this one, imagine your mind as a pane of glass, and then think of the song as a hammer smashing it into shards.

The song in question is “She’s the Cousin of the Chainsaw“, and it’s off a forthcoming album named Content by PlasticBag FaceMask from Fresno, California. A two-man head-wrecking machine, it consists of Jacob Lee (Keeper, Elder Devil) and Patrick Hogan (Time Bomb, Shrug), who in this project have devoted themselves to creating a schizophrenic hybrid of math metal, grindcore, and death metal. The album will be released on on November 27th via PlasticSkull Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITHIN NOSTALGIA — “DESIDERATUM”

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Nov 092020
 

 

Void & Decay is the forthcoming second album by the Canadian band Within Nostalgia from North Bay, Ontario. Since the release of the first album, the band has down-sized to become a duo, combining the talents of Alyssa Broere (Rhythm Guitar/ Bass/ Vocals/ Drum Programming) and Kye Bell (Lead Guitar/ Bass/ Drum Programming). In addition to the changed line-up, fans of the band will discover that the music has morphed as well, and as represented on the new album it resists easy classification. The song we’re premiering today (through an official video) proves that, and it also proves what powerfully good songwriters Within Nostalgia have become.

That song, “Desideratum“, closes the album in stirring fashion, and both the song and the video connect as well with the themes of the album as a whole. As the band explain, “Void and Decay portrays the two extremes; the void is the destined path of our society whereas the decay represents the result of the chaos in the world we live in. The lyrics come from a personal expression that encompasses many forms of emotion and observation as well as relating these things to nature. The inspiration comes from self-reflection and the reflection of the world around us, turning negative events and emotions into something relatable.” Continue reading »

A DECADE OF DARKNESS

 Album Reviews, Listmania  12 Responses »
Nov 092020
 


artwork by Alexandra V. Bach

 

(In this post Andy Synn presents a listing of recommended black metal albums (or at least blackened ones) for each of the last 10 years, focusing on records and artists that he hasn’t written or read enough about.)

Wonder of wonders, Kerrang (yes, it’s still around) recently published a list of “The 13 Best Black Metal albums of the New Millenium” and… it was actually pretty solid?

I know, I was (pleasantly) surprised too!

And it got me thinking that, since I recently celebrated my tenth anniversary as a writer for NoCleanSinging, now might be a good time to publish my own thoughts on how the black (or, at least, “blackened”) arts have evolved, and endured, over the last ten years.

As far as possible I’ve tried to stay away from the biggest/most notorious names and focus more on those artists/albums which either I didn’t manage to cover myself, or which I feel didn’t get enough wider coverage/attention overall, but that doesn’t mean this article should be interpreted as an attempt to prove who is more “kvlt” (because it’s certainly not me).

What this is is simply a way of celebrating the art of Black Metal, in all its endless vitality and variety while also bringing some much-needed attention to some bands who richly deserve it. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: STORMKEEP, FROSTNATT, CIBOLA, CHANNELER, AKVAN, VOREUS, VALRAVNE

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Nov 082020
 

 

I spent a joyful day yesterday, though I was rooted in front of the TV instead of listening to metal. But the good feeling carried over into this morning as I began listening to things, and in rapid succession found music that just seemed to fit together beautifully for this column. The arc of sounds as I’ve arranged them here was almost exactly the sequence in which I heard them, and I’ve kept it that way even though not everything here qualifies as black metal.

What made the experience even more thrilling was that five of the seven bands here were new to my ears (some of the music comes from debut releases).

STORMKEEP (U.S.)

I don’t have to spend a lot of time formulating words to describe Stormkeep’s “Glass Caverns Of Dragon Kings“, because Jon Rosenthal did his usual excellent job in writing about it when Invisible Oranges premiered the track two days ago: Continue reading »

CHECKING IN ON A HISTORIC DAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Nov 072020
 

 

Two things have combined to cut way back on what I’ve been able to do at NCS this past week, and especially yesterday and today. First, my effing day job has gotten me busier than at any time since the pandemic hit hard in March. I even spent most of this Saturday morning working that job instead of listening to metal and pulling together a Saturday round-up. And second, you may be aware that here in the U.S. we had an election.

Even though I knew it wouldn’t be good for my mental health, I’ve been glued to the reports of vote counting since election day on Tuesday. Because of our screwy Electoral College system, the counting of national popular vote totals is irrelevant. Instead, we had to spend days and days watching votes dribble in on a county-by-county, State-by-State basis, which I imagine is something like being waterboarded. The four words I now hate the most are “Too Close To Call.” But at last it’s over. Continue reading »

AN INCS INTERVIEW: POEMA ARCANVS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 062020
 

 

(In this new interview our friend Comrade Aleks talks with guitarist Igor Leiva Benavides, one of the members of the Chilean band Poema Arcanvs, whose roots go back to the ’90s and who released their sixth album in August through Transcending Obscurity Records.)

Santiago-based doom-death band Poema Arcanvs was born back in early 90s. They played some raw ideas under the monikers Garbage and Garbage Breed beginning in 1992 and until 1997 when they changed the band’s name to the one we know nowadays. South America was always a dark corner for doom fans, and I can name you two-dozen bands or even more which were born in the same period and remained in the deepest underground for years. Poema Arcanvs is another thing. They aren’t hyper-productive, but they were always somewhere near recording and releasing new material.

Their sixth full-length album Stardust Solitude saw the light of day on the 28th of August, 2020, according to Transcending Obscurity Records’ schedule. They kept their mark of delivering excellent sorrowful and epic doom death with a few raw edges as always, and this time Enzo Toledo granted Poema Arcanvs really killer artwork!

As a Poema Arcanvs member since its first days, Igor Leiva Benavides (guitars) is the right person to ask about Stardust Solitude and things which happen around the band nowadays. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH 2020: BA’AL / COUNTLESS SKIES / CULT BURIAL

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 052020
 

 

(Here’s another installment in Andy Synn‘s long-running series of reviews devoted to releases by bands from the UK, where he’s based.)

Oh, what big plans I had for this week. I was going to write so much more for the site, about so many different bands/albums, some new, some old, that it was going to take most of you another whole week just to get through it all.

But, as it is wont to do, life got in the way, with work pressures and some last-minute setbacks in preparation for filming our next music video taking up more and more of my time (and adding more and more stress) with every passing day.

Still, things have slowly started to ease off now, meaning I’ve got just enough time to sneak in a brand new entry of “The Best of British” for you all to enjoy going into the weekend. Continue reading »

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