Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KEVIN KVÅLE

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Oct 122020
 

 

(Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum brings us this interview with drummer Kevin Kvåle, whose career includes performances with Gaahls Wyrd, Horizon Ablaze, and Svartelder, among other groups.)

I’ve been following Kevin Kvåle’s musical career for many years now. I remember when I got Horizon Ablaze‘s Dødsverk and since I like Pantheon I a lot, I knew it was going to be good before even listening to it. The music’s variety, technicality, and progression, without sacrificing the dark and cold Norwegian sound, appealed a lot to me.

I remember I met Kevin years ago in Bergen at a festival — Oh! the golden days of old when I took live shows for granted — and got to congratulate him upon hearing he was going to play together with Gaahl. I was not surprised — he was a natural choice. I enjoyed many of the live shows both in Norway and abroad and became a fan, so I was pretty happy when Gaahls Wyrd won the Spellemannprisen (the Norwegian equivalent to the Grammy). For all the aforementioned reasons I included him in my list of drummer interviews. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): IGNIS GEHENNA, CEREMONIAL CASTINGS, VALRAVN, WŸNTËR ÄRVŃ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 112020
 

 

I don’t have much to say by way of introduction here, other than to urge you to listen to the music in Part 1 of today’s column if you haven’t, in addition to the fine new sounds I’ve chosen for this Part.

IGNIS GEHENNA (Australia)

“Sulphur Pit” was first released by this Tasmanian band as part of its 2008 debut demo Ecclesia Diabolus. But the song has been “re-imagined and re-written” for Ignis Gehenna‘s new album Rites of Transvaluation (which is the successor to 2017’s Baleful Scarlet Star) and in fact iit’s the song that opens the new record.

I haven’t heard the earlier version of “Sulphur Pit”, and so I’ve taken this new version just as it comes. It’s quite a striking experience. At more than eight minutes in length, it has room to change and explore. An aura of ritual emanates from the opening ambient tones, but the music becomes a flame-like ecstasy of rippling chords, climbing the scale and descending. In the midst of those quasi-deranged manifestations there are outbursts of ravishing savagery (the teeth-bared roars are always savage), and the music also conveys a kind of poisonous and bombastic grandeur, as well as melodies both bleak and baleful. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): GRAFVITNIR, IMHA TARIKAT, EORONT, REIGN OF EREBUS

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 112020
 

 

Many of us have learned the hard way that it’s prudent to keep both eyes on the horizon, looking ahead in case something’s coming that will tear our heads off. Might give us enough time to dodge and only lose an arm. Good peripheral vision is also a plus. Not every peril is straight ahead. These days especially, self-preservation seems like a full-time job. Hard to know what’s coming next, but whatever it is, it probably won’t be good.

I tend to keep my eyes on the horizon when it comes to music too, albeit for different reasons. Something might be coming that will try to tear my head off, but I usually welcome that with open arms. For reasons I’ve never been able to adequately explain, I also welcome music of hopelessness and pain, of poison and the preternatural.

I wasn’t able to write this column the last two Sundays. In the meantime, the music has piled up like drifts of black snow at my back. I’ve missed recommending a lot, but decided the easiest way forward was to look at what’s coming over the horizon, eyes ahead as usual. That made the selection process a little easier, but to make up for lost time I decided to make this post a two-parter. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: YATRA, FURNACE, REPUKED, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, OLD MOTHER HELL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 092020
 

 

(NCS contributor Gonzo returns with another Friday round-up of new music, this time featuring recent tracks and videos by five bands from albums that are being released today, or will be forthcoming.)

I took a road trip down to Fayetteville, Arkansas, last week. Driving to the Deep South from my Colorado home is a study in culture shock, and not in a positive or constructive way. The entire length of Kansas is a desolate hellscape full of Trump flags and locals casting a weary gaze towards anyone wearing a mask in public. Missouri isn’t much better.

Fortunately, so much time in the car allowed for plenty of time to listen to all the new metal I’ve been meaning to get around to. It was also nice to roll down the windows and blast some of this shit at offensively high volumes in conservative rural towns. (It’s the little things.) Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEPRAVITY — “CASTRATE THE PERPETRATORS”

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Oct 092020
 

 

With a song named “Castrate the Perpetrators“, conceived and executed by a band named Depravity, you’re already expecting a savage experience even if you haven’t previously heard the music of these Australian death-dealers. And trust us, your expectations will be satisfied, in spades. Yet you’ll also discovery that maniacal savagery is only part of the experience (albeit a significant part), and that the other dimensions of the music are just as gripping. And thus this is the kind of death metal brutality and rage that doesn’t wear out its welcome.

Of course, many of you already know something about the musical proclivities of Depravity thanks to their 2018 debut album Evil Upheaval, which was an eye-popping display of the belligerent yet ingenious talents of Depravity’s experienced line-up. Their new album Grand Malevolence is likely to open eyes even wider. It will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on December 4th, and it’s home to the song we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROMETHEUS — “ASTROPHOBOS”

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Oct 092020
 

 

In May of this year the Greek black metal band Prometheus independently released a superb EP named Astrophobos, whose title track took its inspirations and its lyrics from a mystical, otherworldly poem by H.P. Lovecraft that (as one writer described it) “tells the tale of a misinterpreted golden star and its truly terrible reality”. Where once the narrator beheld with yearning a place in the night heavens that he imagined to be a utopia of happiness and virtue, he realizes, as the glorious light turns crimson, that instead demons gaze back from a realm of haunting horror.

Now Prometheus have expanded upon that EP, adding three more songs to create an album-length work that will be released by I, Voidhanger Records on October 23rd. Its title is Resonant Echoes From Cosmos Of Old. As the label explains, the music carries forward the heritage of both Hellenic and Scandinavian black metal (from early Septic Flesh and Rotting Christ to Emperor and Setherial), while also interweaving elements of the esoteric death metal of such bands as Morbid Angel and early Absu.

To help introduce the new album, we are today presenting that stunning song that grew from the seeds planted by Lovecraft’s frightening poetry. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NECROPHOBIC, DEMONICAL, PROFANITY, GAEREA, APPARITION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 092020
 

 

This is pretty much a DGR round-up, since it was he who urged the first three new songs and videos in this collection. They’re all from bands who’ve been around for a long time, from 14 years to more than 30 years (but are still kicking ass). To justify my own existence, I picked two more, one from a more obscure band than those first three but whose name is rising fast, and a second from an even more obscure name that I suspect will soon become better-known.

I have approximately 53 other new songs I’d also like to share with you. Maybe later. There’s a fly that’s making the rounds on the morning news interviews, so I need to check that out.

NECROPHOBIC

“Devil’s Spawn Attack” is the closing track on Necrophobic’s new album, Dawn of the Damned. I smell a review simmering in the NCS mess hall that questions the wisdom of that choice — not a question about the quality of the song (which is damned good), but about its position in the running order. But I’ll let that writer speak for himself in due course; maybe he’ll change his mind. Meanwhile, I’ll speak my own mind. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020: HVRT / KRUELTY / KVLL

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 082020
 

 

(Here’s a trio of enthusiastic reviews penned by Andy Synn, accompanied by a lot of crippling music)

Those of you who’ve been with us here at NCS for a while will, possibly, know that I usually do these “Unsung Heroes…” articles in January/February as a way of catching up with bands who I didn’t get around to reviewing the previous year.

You also may have noticed… it’s October 2020. Which means I’m kind of jumping the gun a little. But damn, I didn’t want to wait until January to get these three artists/albums written up because they deserve all the love and attention I/we can muster right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KNEEL — “AILMENT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 082020
 

 

Bewildering and distressing times we live in, where the unstopped global migration of a microscopic organism has exposed a multitude of fissures in human societies that have been accumulating for countless generations, and turned them into gaping fractures. The scale of these terrible consequences is vast, a devastation writ large, but in some ways a reflection of what happens in so many solitary lives, where the accretion of seemingly minor problems over time can lead, and often does lead, to tragic and unmanageable outcomes.

The persistent failure of both individuals and societies to deal with mounting flaws until it’s too late is a kind of seemingly incurable ailment in the human condition. And thus it’s fitting that Kneel‘s new album, which was inspired by such thoughts, is itself named Ailment.

As the solo project of Portuguese multi-instrumentalist and producer Pedro Mau (ex-Kneeldown, Wells Valley), Kneel released a debut album named Interstice seven years ago but at last is returning with this follow-up full-length, set for an October 16 release by Raging Planet and Planet K, with vocals and lyrics contributed by Mau’s Wells Valley bandmate and Concealment guitarist/vocalist Filipe Correia. What we have for you today is a full stream of Ailment, preceded by thoughts about what you will be hearing. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ULFVEN

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Oct 082020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks returns again to NCS with a new interview, talking with Jonathan Hultqvist, vocalist and bassist of the promising Swedish band Ulfven, whose music you can also explore within the conversation.)

New blood pours into the Pagan Cult veins with the appearance of the Swedish band Ulfven. They practice a bit blackened and melodic death-doom metal with lyrics written mostly in their mother’s tongue and a grim folklore concept behind it.

Born from biting cold and hostile forest shadows, their music carries on a dark message through their new EP Bland Aska Och Sten. Taking into account that Ulfven’s full-length Folklore was released just a year ago, I suppose that the heathen gods sped them on. Let’s learn how Jonathan Hultqvist, the band’s vocalist and bassist, sees it. Continue reading »

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