Islander

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 23): PIG DESTROYER AND MANTAR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  No Responses »
Feb 082019
 

 

In the famous phrasing of Browning, my reach exceeded my grasp yesterday. After finishing a pair of premieres and a very large two-part round-up of new music, my brain was fried and my NCS time had expired, and so I had to skip a day in the rollout of this list. But now, to resume, prepare to get blasted to smithereens….

The great thing about getting blasted by songs like these two, and the reason they’re on this list, is because you want to get blasted by them over and over again, every time you’ve put your pieces back together again. Or at least I do.

PIG DESTROYER

The latest Pig Destroyer album surprised some people (a dismaying surprise in some quarters), but it really shouldn’t have. As DGR put in his NCS review, “chaotic-ping-ponging around the metal genre-sphere” has been the band’s bread and butter, with their discography “translating to never quite knowing what you’ll get upon first picking up a new release, outside of the band’s trademark speed”.

In the case of Head Cage (again quoting DGR), it represented “the hardest right turn the band have made yet — like a car screeching against the outside railings of a highway off-ramp — taking on a groove-heavy sound in the midst of all that grind, resulting in an album that is overall far less chaotic than what they’ve put forth before, and also a hell of a lot of shameless ‘fun’”. Continue reading »

DROTTNAR: “MONOLITH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 082019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Norwegian extremists Drottnar, which is being released today by Endtime Productions.)

So it’s only the first week of February and I’m already feeling pretty overwhelmed and behind the curve when it comes to covering and critiquing new albums this year.

Heck, there’s at least three records from 2018 that I still really want to give some extra coverage to, if and when I can actually find the time!

As you might imagine then, this has forced me to make some pretty tough choices about how I use my time effectively and exactly what bands/albums I need/want to write about, with several painful cuts having to be made to my review list to accommodate all the other work, life, and band pressures currently competing for my attention.

Thankfully there are certain artists whose albums are basically guaranteed a write-up, and self-proclaimed “Bunker Metal” battalion (and previous Synn Report recipients) Drottnar are one of them. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RAGNHILD — “UNDER THE RED SKY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 082019
 

 

Pune, India, might seem like an unexpected place to find a melodic death metal band whose songs are based on pagan Viking cultures, with an affinity for Norse and Celtic melody and lyrical narratives based of the escapades of mythic warriors. But Pune is indeed where Ragnhild are based, and those are indeed the interests that have helped shape their songwriting so far (though they’ve said that their future plans will likely include writing songs based on ancient Indian culture).

After seven years of work as a band, Ragnhild‘s first album, Tavern Tales, is projected for release on March 10th, and today it’s our pleasure to host the premiere of a lyric video for a savage but glorious song called “Under the Red Sky“, which also includes footage of the band’s fiery performance of the track. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ROTTING CHRIST, VIRCOLAC, CROSSBOW SUICIDE, BAKUSHIN, SEBDOOM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 072019
 

 

As explained in Part 1 of today’s round-up, I feel particularly inundated by new metal this week, far too much for me to cover comprehensively (and I’ve still got a lot of catching-up to do with music that came out before this week). I’m not sure there’s much rhyme or reason to what I chose to write about in this two-part installment. The choices were pretty damned impulsive.

For example, I could have written about the new songs and videos by Allegaeon, Continuum, Kartikeya, Katechon, Latitudes, Nightrage, and Sectioned (to name just a few), but I haven’t — though you can click those hyperlinks and check them out anyway. Here’s what I am writing about:

ROTTING CHRIST

Yesterday the Russian site Satanath (home to Satanath Records) premiered another new song off the new album (The Heretics) by Rotting Christ, which will be released by Season of Mist on February 15th. The name of the song, “Vetry zlye (Ветры злые)“, explains the choice of Satanath for the premiere. But although the song title and some of the lyrics are in Russian, it’s not Sakis Tolis who “fights his way through a maze of Russian phonetics” in the chorus, but guest singer Irina Zybina (vocalist in the Russian folk metal band Грай [Grai]). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HERETICAL SECT — “VISCERAL DIVINATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 072019
 

 

Wondrous natural landscapes encircle the earth at almost every latitude, but it seems that every one marked by the footprints of humankind has been marred by legacies of violence and shame. Beneath the ground, at depths both shallow and deep, the soil is salted with bitter graves and crumbling bones, and the recorded histories preserve chilling memories, both haunting and horrifying, no matter how much living peoples might wish to brush them away like annoying flies or permanently erase them.

Within the boundaries of New Mexico are many such wondrous landscapes; much of the State is so beautiful it takes your breath away. But it too, like most of the southwestern United States (and almost everywhere else in the world), has been defaced by the footprints of humankind and scarred by its own legacies of human abomination.

New Mexico’s Heretical Sect disclose almost nothing about themselves (though we’re told they’re also members of more prominent bands, and that they live in one of that State’s most stunning locales, Santa Fe), but we do have some insights into their musical vision, thanks to an introduction provided by the three labels who are jointly releasing their self-titled debut EP on March 1st (Redefining Darkness Records, Caligari Records, and Vendetta Records): Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INSURRECTION — “SYSTEM FAILURE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 072019
 

 

When I first heard “System Failure” back in September 2017, I had an immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic reaction. The rest of the album launched by that opening track turned out to be just as wild, and every bit as good. We did our own part in helping spread the word about the record by hosting the premiere of another ferocious track, which further demonstrated the band’ ability to deliver bone-breaking, organ-rupturing punishment while creating mood-altering melodies that gave their brutalizing assaults an atmospheric quality.

The band in question are a group of explosive and technically adept death metal juggernauts from Gatineau, Québec, named Insurrection, and the album was Extraction, the band’s fourth full-length campaign against the human race (released by Galy Records). Today we have the chance to host another Insurrection premiere, and this time it’s a music video for that first track I encountered from the album — “System Failure“.

The song has lost none of its blood-rushing appeal since it first surfaced 18 months ago, and the video only makes the music more electrifying by giving those of us who’ve never seen Insurrection on stage a taste of the way in which the band and their audiences feed off of the riotous intensity of each other’s energy. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MISERY INDEX, ADVENT SORROW, CROWHURST, SEER, SEAX

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 072019
 

 

This week has been ridiculous. With the exception of the year-end holiday season, when releases slow down a bit, every week now brings a flood of new music from metal bands and labels, but this week seems to be turning into a typhoon. With most of Thursday (as I write this) and all of Friday still to come, it’s only going to get worse/better. So once again, I’m resorting to a two-part round-up.

But even with a two-part collection I’m still not going to be able to comprehensively cover the (rising) waterfront. I’ve still had to make some choices, and so in Part 2, in addition to the usual write-ups, I’m just going to link you to additional streams of music that I’m not writing about in more detail. I’m doing that then instead of now, because I haven’t yet figured out where to draw that line.

MISERY INDEX

Two days ago, via Loudwire, Misery Index released a lyric video for another new track off their forthcoming album Rituals of Power. As the band explain: “‘The Choir Invisible‘ is a euphemism for the dead, or those who have passed on. In the context of this song, it is an anthem of the dispossessed and the hopeless. Many across the world exist in an ‘in-between’ state that is often ignored and/or washed over because they lack the power and voice to plead their case as human beings. The song takes up this theme and tells it from the somber view of those who risk their lives, board ships and cross oceans in order to find a better life.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ELECTROCUTION — “PSYCHONOLATRY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 062019
 

 

If you were somehow ignorant about the history of the Italian death metal band Electrocution, you might guess from their possession of such a prized extreme-metal name that they first came to life a long time ago, and you’d be right. Originally founded in 1990, they’re rapidly approaching their 30th birthday. Not uncommonly for a band of such a vintage, there have been numerous line-up changes over the years, but founding vocalist/guitarist Mick Montaguti still leads the band, and on Electrocution’s new album Psychonolatry, he’s joined by other musicians whose astonishing performances, along with his own, send this record into the stratosphere.

Electrocuton haven’t been prolific in their releases. Two decades passed between the band’s first album and their second one, and this third one follows the second by five years. But once you listen to Psychonolatry — which we’re giving you the chance to do right now — you’ll quickly realize that something this extravagant couldn’t have been accomplished without a lot of careful planning, tremendous care, and a ton of hard work. Things like this don’t grow on trees, and they don’t get thrown together quickly. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 22): SULPHUR AEON AND WINDSWEPT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Feb 062019
 

 

For this latest installment of the list I didn’t have any particular organizing principle that motivated the pairing of these two songs. Stylistically, they’re quite different, and so are the compositional strategies that resulted in each of them becoming so memorable and so personally addictive. I just felt it was time to give both of them the recognition they’re due.

SULPHUR AEON

Having already released such exceptional achievements as Swallowed By the Ocean’s Tide (2013) and Gateway To the Antisphere (2015), perhaps it wasn’t much of a risk that Sulphur Aeon‘s third album would be overlooked despite its release so close to the end of last year. Though it might not have been trumpeted through year-end lists prepared a month or two earlier, the band’s reputation had already become so revered as a result of those two previous releases that it didn’t require clairvoyance to know that word of The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos would spread far and wide by other means — especially because it is also a stupendously good album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SVARTELDER (TJALVE)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Feb 062019
 

 

(In this new interview our Norway-based contributor Karina Noctum talks with guitarist Tjalve of the Norwegian black metal band Svartelder, whose latest album Pits was released by Dusktone on January 26th of this year.)

Svartelder is a Norwegian band that caught and kept my attention ever since I first listened to them. They bring forth dark melodies that are characteristically Norwegian. I can’t say I can compare their music to other bands directly, but however it does evoke Mayhem, Arcturus, and perhaps a bit of modern melody also comes to mind, like the sound of Old Man’s Child, although faintly. But this is why Svartelder is interesting. The music is a bit familiar, but it is something different at the same time.

The composition and performing reflect the high skills of seasoned musicians such as Tjalve (1349, Den Saakaldte, Pantheon I), Doedsadmiral (Nordjevel, Doedsvangr), Spektre (Gaahls Wyrd, Horizon Ablaze) and Renton (Trollfest). Their latest album Pits, which is out now, is very interesting as a whole. It stands as a cohesive piece; the songs seem to fit an overall plan when it comes to the song order (this is something to be truly appreciated in this era of iTunes albums made so that each song targets one particular section of the market). Pits is enjoyable because of the particular considerations that seem to have been given when it comes to tempos and arrangements, as well as the excellent musical performance.

But anyway, you should definitely try it for yourself, and form your own opinion, because it is worth your time. And now, we talk with Tjalve: Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries