Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SE LUSIFERIN KANNEL — “VALTAKUNTA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 282019
 

 

As you prepare to begin listening to this album, imagine finding your seats with other members of the audience in the midst of a blasted concert hall, surrounded by the ruins of a dead civilization (your own), beneath a roiling red sky streaked with cascading black clouds. Soon you will be enveloped by dense waves and gales of sound, as Se Lusiferin Kannel perform four larger-than-life symphonies of Luciferian exaltation and lunacy, apocalyptic catastrophe, and the heart-ache of death and desolation on a massive scale.

These four compositions, each of them as long as an EP, make up the body of Valtakunta (a Finnish word for “kingdom”), the 71-minute debut opus of these mysterious visionaries. It was first self-released digitally in October 2017, but on February 1st it will be presented by Signal Rex on CD and double-LP vinyl formats, remastered by Stephen Lockhart at Iceland’s Studio Emissary and featuring new cover art by Heresie Graphics. Continue reading »

WITCHGÖAT: “EGREGORS OF THE BLACK FAITH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 282019
 

 

(Todd Manning wrote this review of the debut album by the band Witchgöat from El Salvador.)

With a name like Witchgöat, it’s safe to say we are probably not dealing with the latest Avant-Garde, Prog Metal sensation to sweep through the scene. Instead, these Salvadorians lay waste to everyone and everything in sight with their brand of Blackened Death/Thrash. Originally the brainchild of guitarist P. Scyther in 2016, the group issued their debut demo Umbra Regit via Morbid Skull Records, and now they are poised to release their full-length Egregors of the Black Faith on February 13th, also on Morbid Skull.

With their grim-as-hell artwork and general presentation, one might expect these guys to produce a whirlwind blast of Blackened noise a la Revenge or Conqueror, but that actually isn’t the case. While Witchgöat certainly owe a debt to ripping Black Metal, tons of molten Old School Metal and Thrash slag flow through their veins. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018 WRAP-UP

 LISTMANIA 2018  6 Responses »
Jan 282019
 

 

There’s a possibility that at this late date I might still receive another year-end list or two (and I do expect that Andy Synn will deliver his list of favorite songs from last year), but we’re close enough to the end of our 2018 edition of LISTMANIA that I’m ready to provide this wrap-up.

As in years past we posted an extensive series of lists. As usual, some of them were re-postings of lists that appeared at “big platform” web sites and print magazines, and others were prepared by our own stable of race-horse writers. But once again we had a large group of lists from invited band members and assorted other guests. Plus, we’ve again received valuable, extensive lists in reader comments on THIS POST (and new lists can still be added there).

In this article I’m collecting links to all of the 2018 year-end lists that we published, divided into categories and listed within each category in the order of their appearance. For people who are looking for the best metal that 2018 had to offer, these lists and our readers’ lists provide a tremendous resource, as they have in past years. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: THE MOTH GATHERER, LEPROUS, COLD COLOURS, ETHEREAL DARKNESS, HEAUME MORTAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 272019
 

 

If you came here this Sunday expecting the usual SHADES OF BLACK column, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The post you’re about to read is one I intended to publish yesterday before turning to the next SOB column, but I didn’t get it finished in time before turning to certain long-planned weekend activities. Those same activities prevented me from giving much thought to SHADES OF BLACK yesterday, and will probably make it tough to get that column done today either. Only time will tell.

I checked out all the following new videos and songs on Friday, and then revisited them this morning. It was one of those listening sessions where the stars seemed to align. Though the genres represented here are different, the music flowed in such a good, atmospherically dark way, in part because (as I hear them) they all incorporate ingredients of doom, without any of them really being what most people would call doom metal.

THE MOTH GATHERER

To open this collection I chose “Motionless in Oceania“, the first “single” from the new album by the Swedish band The Moth Gatherers, whose line-uo has changed a bit since their last record. Esoteric Oppression is the group’s third album, and it will be released by Agonia Records on February 22nd. It’s so immensely powerful that I felt flattened and stenciled by the sounds, like a thin sheet of tin beneath an industrial-strength die stamp. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: ENDOLITH

 WAXING LYRICAL  No Responses »
Jan 262019
 

 

(For this week’s edition of Waxing Lyrical, Andy Synn posed the now-familiar questions to vocalist/lyricist Frode Hofsøy of the Norwegian band Endolith.)

What more can I say about Endolith that I haven’t already said (here and here)?

I’m not even sure any more, to be honest. I mean, if you haven’t checked out this three-person Prog-Metal powerhouse – perfect for fans of Meshuggah, Devin Townsend, Arcturus, Fear Factory, and Strapping Young Lad – yet, then perhaps you never will?

Still, let’s hand things over to the band’s vocalist/lyricist Frode Hofsøy, and see if he can’t win you over himself! Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 14): LLNN, LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR, SVNEATR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  2 Responses »
Jan 252019
 

 

At least to my way of thinking, a song can be infectious for different reasons. It might have a melodic hook or a rhythmic pattern that gets stuck in your head. Perhaps a guitar solo calls you back to its siren song. The particular mood or atmosphere of the music might create its own mesmerizing and memorable effect. But particularly in the case of metal, perhaps the most primally appealing quality is the one that wrecks your neck, the one that gets heads banging hard. And that’s the quality that unites the three songs I’m adding to this list today, even though the genre styles are different.

To check out the previous installments of this expanding list, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

LLNN

When I reviewed and premiered Deeds, the 2018 album by this Danish band, I called it “a sonic super-weapon, one that operates on multiple levels, inflicting both psychic and physical trauma on a shattering scale. It fires the imagination on multiple levels as well, bringing to mind terrifying vistas of apocalyptic obliteration as well as unnerving diaphonous visions that gleam with astral light.”

Not surprisingly, given the vast scale of the music and its relentless intensity, the band explained that the overarching theme of Deeds was “about births and downfalls of civilizations in other worlds throughout the universe, from creation to final decay, the depletion of the host….” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HE COMES LATER — “ATONEMENT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252019
 

 

Much has been written by survivors of near-death experiences. As summarized in The Font of All Human Knowledge, in some instances survivors describe positive sensations of “detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light”. For others, there are “sensations of torment and torture”.

The Italian band He Comes Later explore a particular kind of near-death experience in their debut album, Cognizance (released last October), meticulously following the experience of a tortured protagonist who brings himself to the brink of suicide, and over the brink. Through remarkably evocative and eloquent lyrics, the songs trace the path into oblivion — and out again, with a second chance to go on, no longer despising the gift of life. Continue reading »

A SECRET REVEALED: “SACRIFICES”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 252019
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by A Secret Revealed, which will be released by Lifeforce Records on January 25th.)

I’d like to begin this review with a little aside, if I may?

The upcoming launch of the (probably terrible) Lords of Chaos movie has, unsurprisingly, sparked quite a few conversations about whether Black Metal has finally “gone mainstream” or not.

Now while I wouldn’t call it “mainstream” by any means – I fully expect this just to be another example of the popular crowd experiencing a passing fascination with a particular sub-culture, only to quickly move on to the next “in” thing as soon as it appears – I wouldn’t deny that Black Metal, and all its variants, sub-styles, and hybrid offspring, has experienced a definite upswing in exposure and awareness over the past several years.

In some ways this is a good thing. More people are discovering music that would, in other circumstances, have been well outside of their usual comfort zone, and many of these are then diving deeper into the history and importance of the genre (and, in turn, bringing new blood and new voices into it, preventing it from stagnating).

On the other hand, it’s also leading to quite a few people developing a very superficial understanding of what “Black Metal” is, one usually informed only by the most mainstream-friendly examples, causing them to misuse and misapply the term in all sorts of different ways, ranging from the simply misleading, to the downright mind-boggling.

And nowhere is this more obvious, to me at least, than in the liminal space where “Post Metal” meets “Post Black Metal”… which brings us, quite nicely to Sacrifices, the new album from German quintet A Secret Revealed. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MIST OF MISERY — “HALLS OF EMPTINESS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252019
 

 

We have been following the Swedish band Mist of Misery for several years, beginning with a review and full premiere of their second album Absence in 2016, following that with an interview of the band, and writing about their follow-up EPs in 2017, Shackles of Life and Fields of Isolation.

All those releases presented multi-faceted trips of changing moods and varying energies, managed with a sure hand, which created a blend of haunting ambience, symphonic power, and blackened ferocity, while repeatedly displaying the band’s knack for driving home their penetrating and memorable melodies as they moved among changing shades of darkness. But now they’ve completed work on a massive new album that includes songs which are longer, darker, and more atmospheric than on any previous release.

The new album is named Unalterable. It’s nearly two hours long, and will be released as a double-CD by Black Lion Records on April 12th. Today what we have for you is an official video for the first-released song from the album, “Halls of Emptiness“. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 13): RIVERS OF NIHIL, WITCH RIPPER, AUTHOR AND PUNISHER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  4 Responses »
Jan 242019
 

 

In this lucky 13th Part of our Most Infectious Song list, I’m doing what I’ve done a few times before — picking tracks from 2018 albums that were widely enjoyed among the ranks of our nefarious writers (and large swaths of our readers). This isn’t always the case, of course, since I’m just as likely to pick songs the other writers might not have even heard before, but that I relish. But not today.

To check out the previous installments of this expanding list, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

RIVERS OF NIHIL

The fact that all (or nearly all) of us were especially high on an album from last year doesn’t necessarily mean that we would all coalesce around the same track from the album from this list. I don’t know for sure, because the rest of our writers don’t all weigh in with their thoughts about what the list should include — not that I would necessarily bow to their wishes anyway. I do pay attention to what our readers have suggested, but there was quite a bit of scatter in their urgings with respect to Rivers of Nihil‘s latest album — which isn’t surprising. Continue reading »

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