Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE — ANTAGONY’S “KIP AND MITCH” — AND A REVIEW OF “ASHES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 152019
 

 

It’s not uncommon for bands and labels to re-release older records. It’s less common, but still not unheard-of, for bands to re-record older songs in a way that burnishes their sound or updates them in other ways. Sometimes these things work, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes die-hard fans will grab up re-releases and re-recordings for the sake of having a complete collection, or because they’re so die-hard that they’ll reflexively seize on anything their idols might do, even if the music sounds like a relic of a lost age. For more discerning and less slavish listeners, whether such projects are worth the time (and money) depends on how well the music has held up over the passing years.

The Bay Area band Antagony, who carved their place in the history books of metal over the decade from 1999 to 2009, have embarked on just such a revival project. Older, wiser, and (it must be said) more skilled as performers, the original line-up has come back together again after a decade spent in other projects since Antagony’s disbanding. On their new album Ashes, they’ve re-recorded a selection of tracks that all date back to demos and EPs released from 1998-2000, plus one new song that shares the title of the album. Having listened to the album (which will be released on May 24th), the verdict for this writer isn’t a close call: This is one of those revival projects that is an extravagant success. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PREMATURE BURIAL — “CREATOR AND DESTROYER”

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May 152019
 

 

The Spanish multi-instrumentalist and vocalist JM Dopico has put his talents to good use on a small mountain of releases by almost two dozen bands since the early ’90s, including records by Machetazo, Dishammer, and Bodybag, as well as session work. But he now has a solo project in which he’s given himself free rein to mix and match beloved genre influences — “the darkest Heavy Metal, Doom Rock, and Punk from the glorious ’80s” — and the results are damned good, the kind of music that electrifies the pulse rate and poses a high risk of sore-neck syndrome.

Dopi has named this new project Premature Burial. On the debut album, entitled Antihuman, he pulls from influences that range from Black Sabbath to Celtic Frost, from Motörhead to Voivod, from Saint Vitus to Mercyful Fate, from Obsessed to Venom, Carnivore, and Amebix. To keep it real, he recorded everything live in the studio, with no triggers on his drumkit and no cut-and-paste pro-tool tricks. He did have outstanding help from virtuoso guitarist and music teacher Óscar Dafonte, who recorded all the solos on the album (which are spectacular), but otherwise Premature Burial is his baby. Continue reading »

AMON AMARTH: “BERSERKER”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 152019
 

 

(This is DGR’s review of Amon Amarth‘s 11th album, which was released by Metal Blade Records on May 3rd.)

Amon Amarth are fun when Amon Amarth get “weird” around the fringes of their music.

Well, let’s walk that back a bit, since there’s a lot of power in those quotation marks around weird. It’s not weird in the usual sense, as Amon Amarth remain fairly conventional, and hew pretty closely to all of the traits that make them recognizable, on their latest album Berserker. They are one of the trope vanguards of the term ‘shuffle band’, in that their music has found such a consistent bar of quality that you don’t really need to do full-album runs any more. You can throw their whole discography onto a playlist, shuffle it up, and still have a good time.

That happens to a lot of bands when they strike upon a sound that they then make their own, and Amon Amarth did that sooo long ago — about the time of Fate Of Norns and With Oden On Our Side — and since then their discography has felt like iterations upon that particular formula. Huge and epic for Twilight Of The Thundergod, surprisingly death metal for Surtur Rising, weirdly experimental on the fringes of their sound on Deceiver Of The Gods, and a big old block of a lot of the ‘same’ on the concept album – about Vikings – that was Berserker’s immediate predecessor, Jomsviking. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IDOLATRY — “THE SERPENTINE POSSESSION”

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May 142019
 

 

We have been following the triumphs and travails of the Edmonton-based band Idolatry since the release of their first EP in 2014, a path that has produced both excellent, multifaceted black metal and more than a fair share of personal misfortunes. It is very good to know that the band have persisted, and that they have finally reached the point of readiness for release of a second album, which follows their 2016 debut full-length, Visions from the Throne of Eyes. The new album, In Nomine Mortis, will be released on May 31st via Humanity’s Plague Production.

Even from the beginning, Idolatry have shown themselves capable of both creating incinerating storms of unbridled ferocity and interweaving atmospheric moods of emotional depth that leave bleak memories in their wake. For want of a better word, there has been a “dramatic” quality to their music, a sign of the band attempting to dig deep into primal aspects of human experience and use those as feedstock for their creations, while also manifesting the presence of dark forces that aren’t part of our natural world at all.

These qualities are still evident on the song from In Nomine Mortis that we’re premiering today, but what’s also evident is that Idolatry have reached new heights of fearsome power. They’ve titled their album in the name of death, and death seems to be a vivid presence in “The Serpentine Possession”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EVIL ANGEL — “SACRIFICIAL SLAUGHTER”

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May 142019
 

 

Heavy metal, even in its most extreme forms, was never just one thing, even in its earliest formative years, but as the decades have passed it has flourished into nearly countless permutations. It may be impossible today to identify any common qualities that unite the sprawl of genres and sub-genres, but a case could be made that at its core metal conveys strength, defiance… and evil.

Even if those qualities aren’t universal across the current landscape of extreme metal, they are unquestionably hallmarks of Evil Angel’s brand of vicious black thrash. Founded in 1998 in Lahti, this Finnish band discharged a stream of demos, EPs, and splits beginning in 2002, leading up to their 2007 debut album, Unholy Fight for Metal. A long dozen years of near-silence have passed since then, but Evil Angel are finally returning (with a new rhythm section in place), and on May 31st Hells Headbangers will release the band’s second album, with a title that continues to brandish what Evil Angel have always stood for: Unholy Evil Metal.

One song from the album (“Nekro Black Mass“) has already been uncaged upon the world, and today we’re setting loose a second one — “Sacrificial Slaughter“. Continue reading »

ABNORMALITY: “SOCIOPATHIC CONSTRUCTS”

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May 142019
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by Abnormality, which was released by Metal Blade Records on May 10th.)

The blindingly-fast, whirlwind death metal crew Abnormality’s newest album Sociopathic Constructs starts off on an interesting note if you’re a longtime fan, with an opening song entitled “Monarch Alpha” — recalling the days of the group’s song “Monarch Omega”, which began the album Contaminating The Hivemind way back in the yonder days of 2012.

That earlier song could easily bore its way into your skull due to the repeated “MONARCH OMEGA” roar that tore its way through the track. Bringing up the spectre of that song and starting the new one in a very similar manner of going zero-to-one-hundred in the span of .5 seconds (not unlike other releases this year) makes it so that the two are tied in together. In much the same way that Massachusetts-based Abnormality have mastered the art of the frighteningly technical/caveman-stupid branch of death metal, so too does “Monarch Alpha”, an addition to an already vast collection of headspinningly-fast death metal songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RXAXPXE — “HOLY FIRE (STRANGULATION)”

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May 132019
 

 

There you did offer them to the Prince of Devils
sitting upon his throne, and did draw off their fat to be kept
for your use, and cut off their heads, hands, and feet, and did
cook and stew their trunks, and sometimes roast them, and at
the bidding of your aforesaid evil Father did eat and
damnably devour them.

Those words were among the extravagant condemnations of witches included in a death sentence announced by the judges of Avignon in 1582. If you scroll down the Facebook page of RXAXPXE, you will see those same words, preceded by the pronouncement: “We are doing the Devil’s work.” And when you listen to the sounds created by RXAXPXE (a name more easily pronounced when you mentally remove the Xs), you will have little doubt of that.

The latest of RXAXPXE’s creations is an album named Death Trance, which will be released on May 31st by Dunkelheit Produktionen. It is a three-track, 30-minute audio rite that draws upon a mind-mauling mix of Terror Noise and Power Electronics. The first of those tracks has been previously revealed, and today we’re streaming the third, leaving one in the middle undisclosed. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORDBRAND — “DÖDEN / EFTER DÖDEN”

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May 132019
 

 

Gustaf Fröding, who died in 1911, is considered “one of the greatest poets of verse that Sweden has ever produced”. In his own life he struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, and according to the same source just quoted, “His poetry combines formal virtuosity with a sympathy for the ordinary, the neglected and the down-trodden, sometimes written with his own dialect. It is highly musical and lends itself to musical setting….”

While musical adaptations of Fröding’s verse have been wide-ranging, the range is even wider now because the Swedish death metal band Mordbrand have made two of Fröding’s poems the lyrical subject of songs that will be released digitally and in a 7″ vinyl format on May 15th, via De:Nihil Records — and today it’s our pleasure to present streams of both tracks: “Döden” and “Efter Döden“. Continue reading »

ULVER: “DRONE ACTIVITY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 132019
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Ulver, which they released two days ago)

A long time ago, in the distant land of Norway, a band was born.

Their name was Ulver, and though they made their start (and their mark) in the Black Metal scene it was clear very early on that they were a little different from their brothers.

No one at the time, of course, could have predicted the weird and wonderful places that their career would take them, but one thing has always been certain about the band’s music… no matter what they turn their minds towards it always results in something fascinating taking shape.

And it’s this endless fascination with their work – always compelling, sometimes frustrating, yet never quite what it seems to be – which keeps us here at NCS listening to and writing about Ulver regardless of how far their sound has strayed from our usual remit.

As long as they keep making music which inspires us to write about it, we’re going to keep doing so. Continue reading »

BLOGIMUS INTERRUPTUS

 Off Topic  16 Responses »
May 122019
 

artwork by Sylwia Smerdel

 

With deep regret, I must disclose that I will not be able to post a SHADES OF BLACK column on this Sunday, just as I was unable to post a SEEN AND HEARD round-up yesterday. My day job has run me ragged not only for most of last week but straight through this weekend. I don’t think tomorrow will be any better, so I doubt I’ll be able to catch up. I’m posting this notice because I know some of you look forward to the black metal features every Sunday. Sorry to let you down.

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