Islander

SEEN AND HEARD ON A FRIDAY: IGORRR, BEASTWARS, AFSKY, AEPHANEMER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 292025
 

(written by Islander)

With only one track premiere on our calendar for today I grabbed the free time to once again get a head start on our usual Saturday roundup of recommended new music. I picked four songs out of the great flood of new things that surfaced this week.

This little collection includes offerings from bands that have been personal favorites for a while (I’ll get to some newcomers to my ears over the weekend), and it begins and ends with songs paired with very good videos, both of which also include some very different combinations of metal and classical music (and the third song does too). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTIVERSUM — “DE NEMESIS OMNES ET OMNIA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 292025
 

(written by Islander)

Ten years ago we premiered Total Vacuum, the debut demo by the Swiss band Antiversum shortly before its release. Almost eight years ago we then premiered the title song from the band’s debut album, Cosmos Comedenti. Finally, Antiversum are coming back with a second album, this one named De Nemesis Omnes et Omnia, set for release on September 19th by Amor Fati Productions, and once again we have a premiere.

Upon learning about the album I couldn’t resist investigating the meaning of its title. It’s not a classical Latin phrase, but seems to be Antiversum‘s own construction. Most likely, it literally translates to “Of nemesis, everyone and everything”. An AI comment I didn’t ask for when google-searching suggested that it means “all people and all things are either subject to or derived from nemesis,” and possibly as “a declaration that divine retribution and vengeance apply to everyone and everything in existence.” I suppose the reference to divinity derives from the fact that Nemesis was, after all, a Greek god.

These interpretations of the album title, though unconfirmed, would be in line with the fundamental nihilism inherent in Antiversum‘s profoundly disturbing musical representations of horrifying menace, cosmic collapse, and the vast maw of the void that awaits. Continue reading »

DIVERGENCE: “IN CYCLED AEONS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 292025
 

(Here is DGR‘s review of the latest EP from New York-based Divergence, released last month.)

Following the paths charted by heavy metal’s history has long been a hobby around here, with others having taken up the travelling pack and walking stick and played musical cartographer as the genre became less one defining sound and more of a filter that conventional music was squashed through, only to have it emerge as its own ‘heavy metal’ counterpart. One of the things that is quickly revealed by such travels, though, is that heavy metal has a lot of divergences – four at least, if you trust the ole metal archives these days – and a person could easily lead a life in which many of those are ignored in favor of specializing in one or two breaks from the path.

This is how you have people who could easily name every sludge band to ever emerge from the muck of musical misery but would fail in separating a single song between bands like Sonata Arctica and Blind Guardian. It’s how you could lead a life in which you may never cross paths with a single band bearing the name of Divergence, even though there have been a few throughout the years with a concentration of them based on the East Coast.

This current Divergence then, hails from New York and plays a very technically infused style of death metal, with regional bleedover for taste when it comes to heavy, chugging riffs and a monstrous groove bordering on the overwhelming. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LECHEROUS NOCTURNE — “SERPENTENCE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 282025
 

(written by Islander)

Lecherous Nocturne aren’t in a race to amass a mountainous discography. Although this South Carolina band first came together in the late ’90s they’ve released only four albums, after some early demos and an EP. The last three were spaced five years apart. With five years having elapsed since the last of those (2018’s Occultaclysmic, enthusiastically reviewed at length here), it might be time for something new — and something new is indeed on the way.

We’ve learned that Lecherous Nocturne are at work on a new full-length assault of ferocity entitled Violust, and what we’ve got for you today is a playthrough video by the band’s bassist James O’Neal of one of the new songs, a blazing breath-taker named “Serpentence“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: UAAR — “GALGEÅS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 282025
 

(written by Islander)

“Fans of Tragedy, Skitsystem, From Ashes Rise, and Sibiir will find themselves right at home in the storm: crushing riffs, pulverizing d-beats, and an atmosphere so suffocatingly dark it feels like the world collapsing in real time. This is the soundtrack to disorder, decay, and the slow grind toward oblivion.”

That’s the daunting (and enticing) shorthand pitch offered on behalf of Fysisk Format Records for the debut album of the Norwegian band Uaar. In line with the description above, the album’s name is Galger og brann — Norwegian for Gallows and Fire. What we have for you today is the video premiere of the album’s first single, “Galgeås“. Here’s how Uaar introduce it: Continue reading »

METALITALIA.COM: A FESTIVAL PREVIEW

 Metal News  No Responses »
Aug 282025
 

 

(Our Slovenia-based contributor Didrik Mešiček plans to go to a festival near Milan in September and decided to make everyone else jealous about it — unless you go too, which he hopes you will, and he’ll be easy to find there. If he survives, we expect a report.)

Are you sad summer is almost over and with it festival season? Yeah, me too, mate. But while most, if not all, week-long festivals have concluded there are still smaller hidden gems waiting for us in September and in the autumnal months. One of those that caught my eye comes from Italian colleagues at https://metalitalia.com/ who are one of the biggest Italian metal webzines and, of course, also organise their own two-day festival at the end of September right on the outskirts of Milano, which they’ve called – and I hope you’re ready for this – Metalitalia.com Festival.

Where and when exactly? Well, the festival takes place on the 27th and the 28th of September, which is a weekend so it’s a bit easier to take a trip to Lombardy and see some majestic lakes while you’re there as well. Or tell your wife (if she’s not a metalhead) you’re actually going for the fashion and whatever else is in Milano that non-metalhead women are interested in, while you sneak off to see some really cool bands in the Live Music Club (yeah, they didn’t try very hard with the name of the venue, I know).  Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLIZARO — “SENTENCED PATHWAYS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 272025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to ignore the tongue-in-cheek name of our site and jump off our usual beaten paths in other ways too, jumping off and landing in a head-spinning musical never-never land.

The occasion for this big leap is our premiere of a song from Light And Desolation, the third album from the upstate New York band Blizaro, which will be released next month by Nameless Grave Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SADISTIC GOATMESSIAH — “STAINLESS STEEL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 272025
 

(written by Islander)

If you’re not smiling already, your day must really be going wrong. How can you not smile at a name like Sadistic Goatmessiah? Oh, for sure, I can imagine some of you shaking your heads even if you’re grinning, dubious about the music that a band with a name like that might devote themselves to. More dubiety might result from the bandmembers’ nom de plumes: Morbid Goatpriest of Lust, Filth and Mayhem (vocals, guitars), Goat Primator (drums), and Goatess of Fire (bass).

But unclench your sphincters, expel your doubts, maybe take your clothes off. As you’ll discover when listening to the song we’re about to premiere, these three demons clearly had a hell of a lot of wicked fun making their debut album Violence, and you should share in their filthy revels without restraint. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORDEALS — “SUFFER CURSED ORDEALS”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 262025
 

(written by Islander)

Six years after their last EP (Choose Death, enthusiastically reviewed here by our Andy Synn), the New York black/death trio Ordeals are returning with their debut album, which has the hard-to-forget name Third Rail Prayer. It will be released on September 26th by Eternal Death.

Much like the kind of mental imagery conjured by the album title, Ordeal‘s new music is convulsive, but its electrified (and electrifying) spasms shake and twist in often unpredictable directions, providing a collage of dread, damnation, delirium, and doom that’s disturbingly distinctive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRUENTATION — “PRAYERS IN PISS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 262025
 

(written by Islander)

Damned Fallen Angels is the debut album of the New England black/death band Cruentation, whose lineup includes current or former members of Witch Tomb, Impenitent Thief, Hirudenia, Cemetery Lights, Martyrvore, Ninnixu, and Embryonic Cryptopathia (among others). The album is set for release by Iron Bonehead Productions on September 26th.

Upon hearing the album’s title track when it debuted in early July, we advised people to “prepare for a vicious assault of furiously battering percussion, heavily undulating bass lines, caustically churning riffage, and grotesque vocal abominations, piercingly accented by a lead guitar’s berserk screams.” But we also advised that the song was a two-headed monster:

“The song also slows, becoming a big stalking menace that’s dismally oppressive in its mood, but the riffing also heats up again, like inflamed carnivorous insects rapidly surging into flesh. These fashionings of frenzy and morbid gloom trade places until the end, a ghastly tandem for sure.”

And now we have another debut from the album, a song called “Prayers In Piss“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries