Islander

SEEN AND HEARD ON A FRIDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CRYPTOPSY, GREEN CARNATION, DESASTER, BRÉVINE, THEURGION

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 112025
 

(written by Islander)

Consider this a head-start on the roundup I usually put together on Saturday. A hell of a lot of new songs and videos popped up this week, and even with this head-start I still won’t be able to make more than a dent in that big moving wall, but at least it will be a bigger dent this week.

I decided to focus today’s collection on the bigger names scrawled on that wall, but before finishing we’ll still turn our gaze to a few names not yet written in such large letters. I haven’t figured out what tomorrow’s column will include, but my aim will be to dig even deeper into obscurities (at least relatively speaking). Continue reading »

EMBERTHRONE: “CURSIVE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 112025
 

(Sacramento-based DGR reviews a very recently released EP by Sacramento-based Emberthrone, and comes away happy.)

Sacramento’s Emberthrone are one we’ve kept a curious eye on for a little bit now. Part of a small-town-sized wave of deathcore-leaning projects that sprang up in the lockdown years wherein a lot of people suddenly had a bunch of free time out of nowhere for some reason, Emberthrone seemed like a solid union with a lot of potential just based off of its lineup alone at the time. Uniting some of the scene’s workhorses for vocals and drums in the form of Monte Bernard and Gabe Seeber, the group’s complete portrait included bassist Quentin Garcia and guitarist Martin Bianchini.

Their group’s four-song debut Godless Wonder found them a home on Seek & Strike, a label that has slowly developed an arc for being the home of boutique ass-kickers in prefix-core heavy form. Godless Wonder was a reliably solid brick of music that fell perfectly in line with a lot of the bruisers that’ve emerged from California’s filing cabinet over the years. In the three years hence, though, the lineup for Emberthrone has remained fairly solid save for what seems to be a new face behind the kit, translating into an interesting round two for the band.

Now more matured and gelled together as a band, Emberthrone returned in early-July with a second EP bearing the name Cursive that seems to be forged by experience and a stronger vision of what sort of project they want to be, while also much more determined to throw its heft around than they did before. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEBEPHRENIQUE — “VISIONS OF MAGDALENE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

“Think Gorguts by way of Mayhem, filtered through Anaal Nathrakh’s violent theatrics and a heavy dose of dystopian dread.” That’s part of how Gutter Prince Cabal and Brilliant Emperor Records vividly preview Decathexis, a new album from the Australian band Hebephrenique that those labels are set to release on August 23rd. And there’s more:

“Decathexis is a whirlwind of spite-fueled vocals, mechanical precision, and hypnotic ambience, anchored by songwriting that hurts as much as it surprises. It’s more technical, more aggressive, and somehow even more unstable than their acclaimed EP [Non Compos Mentis], a deeper dive into madness and alienation.”

At first blush it’s hard to believe that the new album could be more aggressive or destabilizing or disorienting than that 2023 EP. When we premiered it, we frequently resorted to words like “insane,” “crazed”, “kaleidoscopic”, “diabolical”, and “dazzling”. We analogized it to a theater of devilish carnivals set in hellish asylums and a labyrinth of lunatic splendors.

We further wrote that “it’s also one of the most fascinating and engrossing records we’ve heard this year, and it marks the advent of a remarkable new talent that we hope will return with more madness soon.” Now our wish is coming true. As a first sign of what new madness comes our way we’re premiering a video for “Visions of Magdalene“, the first single from Decathexis. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GJALLARHORN’S WRATH — “WICCAN WYRD”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

On September 5th of this year Non Serviam Records will release The Silver Key, the debut album from the Spanish band Gjallarhorn’s Wrath. It’s a new name, but the group has older roots. Non Serviam provides this background:

Gjallarhorn’s Wrath is an extreme metal band from Barcelona, born from the legacy of Oblivion, an atmospheric black metal act founded in 2001. Oblivion made a strong impact on the Spanish metal scene with their deep exploration of light and darkness. They performed across Spain and toured with Norwegian legends Ancient. Over time, the band members went their separate ways, and the group disbanded. However, the spirit of their music endured.

Years later, the core members reunited with a shared vision to create something even more ambitious. With the addition of vocalist Alex, Lord Ashler moved to bass, Javi Iron returned to handle drums, keys, and composition, and Arash continued as lead guitarist. Together, they formed Gjallarhorn’s Wrath, blending the raw aggression of blackened death metal with the grandeur of orchestral and cinematic elements.

What we’re presenting today is a transfixing video for a sonic spectacle from The Silver Key named “Wiccan Wyrd“, a song that justifies Non Serviam‘s description of this band’s new music. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MASS DECEPTION — “RUINS OF DOMINION”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

In 2016 the Dutch metal band Mass Deception launched their recording career with Revelations, the first album in a conceptual trilogy. They followed that in 2019 with Redemptions, and now (following the 2022 EP Halls of Amenti), they’re closing the story with a new album named Resurrections that will be released by Gruesome Records on July 25th.

To help spread the word, what we have for you today is the premiere of a riveting video for a riveting song off Resurrections called “Ruins of Dominion“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LOTAN — “INCANTATION OF HATRED”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 092025
 

(written by Islander)

For a change, let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in some additional details.

What you’re about to experience in this premiere, as the Danish band Lotan accurately say about their new album Yetzer Hara, is sound as a weapon, ruthlessly wielded to express both fury and crushing dismay over the pathetic failures of humankind. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAND CADAVER — “DARKENED APATHY”

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Jul 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Not long ago we were musing around here about the emergence of silver linings around the black clouds of death and dissociation that shrouded the world during the covid pandemic. The lockdowns were miserable for many and welcome for some but disruptive for all. They shut down certain species of communal creative activity but spawned others. They forced a suspension of many plans, but by the same token that gave people room to ruminate about how to fill the unexpected open time in their lives.

The Swedish band Grand Cadaver, forged during the 2020 lockdown, was one of those silver linings. It led five old friends from Gothenburg and Stockholm to collectively indulge their shared a love for old-school, HM-2-drenched Swedish death metal: vocalist Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect), guitarist Stefan Lagergren (The Grifted, ex-Treblinka/Tiamat), guitarist Alex Stjernfeldt (Novarupta, CHILD), bassist Christian Jansson (Pagandom, Dark Tranquillity), and drummer Daniel Liljekvist (Disrupted, Vorder, ex-Katatonia).

We’re told that their debut EP, Madness Comes, was recorded in just three days, and it was released in 2021 by Majestic Mountain Records. The band soon followed that with their debut album the same year, Into the Maw of Death. And fortunately for fans like us, Grand Cadaver still weren’t finished, even after the covid clouds passed.

More singles followed, along with a second album (Deities of Deathlike Sleep in 2023), and now Grand Cadaver have a new EP named The Rot Beneath due for release on August 15th via Majestic Mountain, giving us the occasion for the 10th (!) article/review we’ve written about Grand Cadaver since their spawning (the evidence is here). This time we’re premiering a song off the new EP named “Darkened Apathy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KRATORNAS — “EVIL AND PLUNDER”

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Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The last time we wrote about the music of the Filipino band Kratornas (here) was in the context of their third album Devoured By Damnation in 2016. In a nutshell, we described it as “an electrifying amalgam of grindcore, raw black metal, thrash, and death metal” that “pours sulfurous satanic hellfire down upon the damned (and everyone else) in a superheated torrent.” And while we summed it up as one of the most raw and wild thrill rides of that year, we also found “impressive intricacy and dynamism in the songs, as well as jaw-dropping technical skill and manifest blood lust.”

Now, more than eight years later, Kratornas is releasing another album. Bearing the name God of the Tribes, it was mastered by none other than Dan Swanö and is set for a CD and digital discharge by Grathila Records in August.

You will probably not guess what has happened to the music of Kratornas. You may also have difficulty stopping your head from spinning off your body as you listen to it. Continue reading »

DEFILED SERENITY: “WITHIN THE SLUMBER OF THE MIND”

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Jul 082025
 

(NCS writer DGR pays a debt today, finally reviewing a debut album released five months ago by Finland’s Defiled Serenity that he’s been enjoying since then.)

Just in time to be late enough for the bus tracks from the public transit we missed to not only fade away but also be paved over again as the street is resurfaced!

Just before we set off on our jet-setting lifestyles that had a block of this website traveling coast to coast in May to take in only the finest vintages of heavy metal on stage, yours truly set out with a machine to absorb an equally large block of the heavy metal that had been released throughout the year in order to queue up the website to always have something to chat about while we were off wandering venue to venue.

The result was a wide snapshot of the world of underground heavy metal as it had existed so far in 2025, a disorganized ball of chaos that didn’t really have much of a throughline existing in it so far. Some years become reflective of society at large, others take after more recent events, but 2025 has been as odd as your more avant-garde wings of an art museum — somewhat unnerving and almost surrealistic horror-movie in that sort of way. Whatever themes may be developing to define this year musically — not socially, we’ve already landed on “hell” there — they just haven’t congealed yet and are almost refusing to do so.

We have, however, landed within a realm of a few amusing statistical blobs for those who love themselves some numbers nerd-ery, such as how it seems a contingent of Finland decided that all of their projects should see a release in some form or another within the first half of this year. Granted, it’s a wide net to be casting but it’s a pattern I’ve been joking about for months now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARALLU — “SIERRA NEVADA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The long-running Israeli black metal band Arallu has provided the following background information concerning the inspiration for their song “Sierra Nevada” that we’re premiering today through a video:

In September 2003, five hikers set out on a two-week expedition deep into the jungles of Colombia, in search of a mysterious place known as “The Lost City”, an ancient ruin on a jungle-covered mountain hidden high in the Sierra Nevada range.

But what began as an adventure soon turned into a nightmare. One night, while they were asleep in their camp, they were ambushed and kidnapped by the brutal guerrilla group ELN (the “National Liberation Front”). The five were taken from their tents at gunpoint and held hostage under harsh conditions, surrounded by the unforgiving wilderness and the constant threat of death. Continue reading »

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