Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ZARAZA — “THE YEARNING MOUTH OF THE FOREST”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 282026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we help introduce people to a new raw black metal band, a two-piece outfit named Zaraza born from the hills of Appalachia and the decayed streets of the Rust Belt. These two, Azara and Mictlantecuhtli, introduce their their music with these words: “Rising from holler and rust, gnawing at the marrow of time, a blasphemy against life and cosmos, summoning shadows that devour memory and light” — or more succinctly as “Appalachian darkness, Rust Belt desecration”.

In the coming spring Zaraza will release a debut EP named …And You Will Remember This Winter through So Below Productions, and what we have for you today is a video premiere of its first single, “The Yearning Mouth of the Forest“, which includes a guest vocal appearance by Mor Grish of Ofstingan/Burial Oath. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SPLENDIDULA — “KILTE”

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Jan 282026
 

(written by Islander)

On April 3rd Argonauta Records will release a new album by the Belgian band Splendidula, whose music blends atmospheric black metal and suffocating doom. The album’s title, Absentia, is a fitting one because the music’s emotional core lies in the tragic absence of loved ones, including the sudden loss of bassist Peter Chromiak in 2022.

In December of last year we premiered a video for the Splendidula single “Echoes of Quiet Remain“, which included a guest vocal appearance by Aaron Stainthorpe, and today we’re premiering another Absentia single and video in advance of the song’s official release on January 30th. The name of this one is “Kilte“, and to introduce it we begin with the comments of Splendidula vocalist Kristien: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TARLUNG — “AXIS MUNDI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 272026
 

(written by Islander)

As an older person who’s been smoking cigarettes since age 16 I feel like a band named TarLung was made for me. Though they probably have a natural following among coal miners, hash fiends, and people who do enough weed each day to stop a water buffalo in its tracks and haven’t changed their bong water since the Obama Administration.

With a name like that, I also expected this Viennese band’s music would be unhealthy, nasty, and possibly choking. And I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t entirely right either, because while their new album Axis Mundi does deliver crushing (and often nasty) sludge and doom, it includes many other captivating ingredients as well.

You’ll be able to understand that for yourselves because what we have for you today is a full premiere stream of the album in advance of its January 30 release by Argonauta Records. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): MESSA, MATALOBOS, AMORPHIS

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  2 Responses »
Jan 272026
 

(written by Islander)

Some fashionings of extreme metal are so brutally downtuned or launch such ruinous percussive assaults that melody doesn’t seem to play a role in the songs. But in truth, melody almost always plays some role, though it might be very subtle or heavily obscured. Melody probably plays a more prominent role in songs we think of as infectious. Although grooves can be very catchy on their own, it’s usually melodies of one kind or another that make metal songs memorable.

The three songs I’ve put together for today’s installment of this list have strong melodic components. Unlike the majority of what’s on the list at this point, the voices carry the melodies in important ways in two of them, which is to say they have earned exceptions to the not completely serious rule in our site’s name. Two of them also have unusual instrumental features that help carry the melodies. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): UMBRÍO, DEATH OBVIOUS, INFERNAL THORNS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

Now we begin the final week of this month-long song rollout. I know most of what this week’s last five segments will include, but not everything. I still have some agonizing decisions to make before calling a halt.

If you set your clocks by our posts (and of course you do), you’ll know that we got a late start today, and that this newest installment of our Most Infectious Song list is especially tardy in appearing. And so I’ll cut this intro short and plunge straightaway into these next three songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DECIPHER — “LITANY”

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Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

On March 20th Transcending Obscurity Records will release θελημα (Thelema), the second album by the Greek black metal band Decipher. T.O. introduces the album this way:

Decipher released a sublime album in Arcane Paths to Resurrection, which was steely and composed, enriched with melodic undertones. It was the timeless kind of black metal that was largely inspired by the classic black metal bands and yet didn’t sound too dated. Two years later, the Greeks return with a new opus, elaborating on the music forged on that album, adding better nuance and structure to the songs whilst retaining the sound and appeal.

Allowed better expression, the songs are comparatively longer and have a narrative quality to them without straying too far from the core sound. The riffs are drenched in emotions without being overtly melodic as the music marches ahead resolutely with its steely demeanour. This is the kind of black metal that gets its priorities straight – with the right focus on riffs, feeling, intensity, and passion.

To verify these claims, what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for the album’s second single, a dramatically powerful and harrowing song called “Litany“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ENNUI — “DECIMA”

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Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

On February 27th Meuse Music will release a new album by the band Ennui from Tbilisi, Georgia. Titled Qroba, it’s the first full-length from the band in more than seven years. In early January we hosted the premiere of a song from the album named “Antinatalism“, and today we’re premiering a second song — “Decima“.

We’ll begin introducing it by again sharing this statement from the label and Ennui:

Qroba means “Vanishment”. It is a story of coming to terms with the inevitable, told through melancholy and contemplation. The fifth full-length album by Ennui blends atmospheric funeral doom and death metal with Georgian poetry and the spirit of the land it was born from. Slow, heavy rhythms, cold harmonies, and haunting melodies evoke a descent into stillness, where pain and peace become one. This is music about the beauty of disappearance, majestic, inevitable and timeless.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WITCH RIPPER, CNOC AN TURSA, DIABOLUS MECUM SEMPERTERNE, UNMOTHER, GROWTH, MIRE, SLÔDDER, SUNDOWNER, MALUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 242026
 

(written by Islander)

A quick note before embarking on the new songs and videos I’ve collected for today: Tomorrow there will probably be no SHADES OF BLACK column. I’ll be over the water in Seattle tonight for a big annual party. Between getting ready, getting there, partying, and getting back, I won’t have much time for NCS and I don’t expect I’ll have a clear head whenever I wake up tomorrow.

And then tomorrow will also serve up a couple of NFL playoff games I want to see, especially the second one.

As for what I’ve picked for today’s roundup, out of a really mammoth week of new releases, I’ve leaned further into shades of black metal than usual because of the likely absence of the Sunday column, and for the same reason I’ve made this collection bigger than usual. I’ve also probably leaned pretty hard into music that seems in line with my perception that the world is going to hell even faster than I thought it would, with way too many people beginning the year still thinking thoughts like these. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SKULLD — “ABYSS CALLS TO ABYSS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 232026
 

(written by Islander)

Yeah, Skulld dropped the “e” from their name but it still sounds the same and it still accurately portrays how their music may leave you feeling, i.e., skulled, and you won’t need an exam in a blue concussion tent on your playing field to provide confirmation. Your inability to form a complete sentence will be sufficiently diagnostic (except for those of you have that problem all the time).

But in truth, Skulld’s new album Abyss Calls To Abyss has a great many other things going on in the music besides furiously ramming your head until you wake up to the most abominable conditions of life as many people must now endure it. Unquestionably, it is indeed a loud and angry deathpunk wake-up call, but it has deeper dimensions as well, in both its lyrical themes and its musical spectrum.

Below, we’ll dig into those depths and altering dimensions, but the main thing we’re doing is proudly giving you the chance to hear the album from front to back in advance of its January 30 release by Time To Kill Records. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): VALLETTA, LACABRA, MANTAR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 232026
 

(written by Islander)

In yesterday’s segment of this list I was explaining about the challenges I face in preparing it. Even though not one solitary soul asked me to do that, I knew you were hungry for the information — though maybe I was sensing a desire for pita bread and a big tub of hummus or a rack of ribs, and I just misinterpreted things. Desires don’t always reach me through the ether in their original form.

Anyway, I mentioned that one of the challenges was figuring out how to group together songs in these daily segments. Even within my odd mind there’s no particular rhyme or reason to many of the groupings, but sometimes there is, and today is one of those times. The first and third songs below just rock the fuck out, and even the one in the middle felt like it belonged, albeit for somewhat different reasons than rocking the fuck out.

All three of these songs were ones I was convinced I’d have to find a place for in this list from the first time (of many times) I heard them. Continue reading »

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