Islander

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOTANIST — “HAMMER OF BOTANY + OPLOPANAX HORRIDUS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 032019
 

 

I concede that I’m stretching the definition of “premiere” in this post: The first five tracks on this new album by Botanist were previously released in 2015 as EP2: Hammer of Botany (in a limited CD edition sold during a European tour), and the new sixth track (“Oplopanax Horridus“) was out in the world for a time when Bandcamp pre-orders for the album were launched.

On the other hand, today really is the first day when you can listen to all six tracks straight through, from beginning to end, in advance of the album’s official release in vinyl and CD editions on May 10th, and that’s what you’ll have the opportunity to do at the end of this post.

In addition, because the artist here is Otrebor, bending the rules seems entirely appropriate, because bending the rules (and breaking them) has been Botanist’s forte for many years. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORNAMENTOS DEL MIEDO — “ESTE NO ES TU HOGAR”

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May 022019
 

 

On May 10th the debut album of the Spanish atmospheric funeral doom project Ornamentos del Miedo will be co-released by Funere (Armenia) and Solitude Productions (Russia). Its name is Este no es tu hogar, and today we present a premiere stream of the album’s title track.

Ornamentos del Miedo is the solo project of Angel Chicote, who is a current or former member of such other groups as Graveyard Of Souls, Mass Burial, Ad Nebula Nigra, Ultimo Gobierno, and Sinergia. He created Ornamentos del Miedo as a vehicle for stripping away “all ornaments and mirages that we have built to adapt us to a miserable existence,” and journeying deep into the subconscious “where truth exists naked and unpolluted by the ego and survival instinct”. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: PA VESH EN — “CRYPTIC RITES OF NECROMANCY”

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May 022019
 

 

In the fall of last year we premiered the unnerving debut album, Church of Bones, by the Belarusian black metal entity Pa Vesh En. To borrow from the review that accompanied it:

“As the album’s title might suggest, these seven tracks sound as if they were recorded in a vast sepulcher far beneath the surface of the earth, all the shuddering and shattering tonalities drenched in reverb, the music profoundly haunting and deeply oppressive in the weight of the desolation it conveys. The album is sweeping in the scale of its apocalyptic grief and shattering in the intensity of the pain it channels into sound — an expression of emotional collapse so profound that it begins to seem majestic, an intense and immersive experience so all-consuming that it swallows up the listener, as if engulfed by the maw of a leviathan.” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW (PART 2): SEIDEMANN (1349, SVART LOTUS, MORTEM)

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May 022019
 

 

(One of our Norway-based contributors, Karina Noctum, brought us this two-part interview of Seidemann, long-time bassist for 1349 and the principal creative force behind Svart Lotus. The interview was conducted shortly before 1349‘s recent performance at Inferno Festival in Oslo, this is the final installment. Go here to read Part 1. The interview includes photos from Inferno Fest by Metal Exposure and Silje Storm Drabitius, and we thank them for allowing us to use them.)

This is the second installment of the interview conducted with Seidemann (bass) from 1349 at this year’s Inferno Festival in Oslo. This time it deals with what to expect from the new 1349 album, news about other musical projects, and information about future plans when it comes to touring and the releasing of new material. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DAEMONI — “ABSTERSION’S RITE”

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May 012019
 

 

A long eight years have passed since the Colombian black metal band Daemoni released their debut album Stillborn Redeemer. They have not been idle in that time, having performed in Colombia in support of such bands as Mayhem, Suffocation, Dark Funeral, Krisiun, and Vader, among others, and having made their first European appearance with a show in Madrid last year. And they have turned their sinister talents to the creation of new music as well, with those efforts reaching fruition in a new 40-minute album ominously entitled Black Tyrant.

The new album is set for release on June 6th by Goathorned Productions, and today we present the second advance track to be revealed from the album, “Abstersion’s Rite“, which manages to be both blood-boiling and blood-freezing at the same time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DÉLÉTÈRE — “MILITES PESTILENTIAE III — BABYLONIA MAGNISSIMA”

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May 012019
 

 

The last time I wrote about the Québec black metal band Délétère, when we premiered a song from their stunning 2018 album De Horae Leprae, the music un-corked a flood of enthusiastic adjectives from the cask in my head. It’s about to happen again, because we’re premiering another Délétère song.

Conceptually, that 2018 album was devoted to Teredinis, a simple leper whose calling it was to become a prophet of Centipèdes as well as an incarnation of the Plague. I wasn’t the only scribbler of words who received that album so enthusiastically. I enjoyed, for example, this block of praise from Stereogum, which put it at the No. 6 spot on the site’s list of The 10 Best Metal Albums of 2018: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW (PART 1): SEIDEMANN (1349, SVART LOTUS)

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May 012019
 

 

(One of our Norway-based contributors, Karina Noctum, brought us this two-part interview of Seidemann, long-time bassist for 1349 and the principal creative force behind Svart Lotus. The interview was conducted shortly before 1349‘s recent performance at Inferno Festival in Oslo and will be continued tomorrow. The interview includes photos from Inferno Fest by Metal Exposure and Silje Storm Drabitius, and we thank them for allowing us to use them.)

Before 1349‘s majestic performance of pure Black Metal immersed in aural hellfire at this year’s Inferno Festival in Oslo, I got the pleasure to interview Seidemann (bass). This is the first part of the interview, in which Seidemann presents insights about the creative process behind the band’s latest EP, Dødskamp, which was a musical interpretation of a work bearing the same name by the famed Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, and an in-depth talk about Seidemann‘s band Svart Lotus.

Here you will also find some information about what is to come for 1349 in the near future, and that topic will be further extended to the second part of the interview to be published later. Continue reading »

KAMPFAR: “OFIDIANS MANIFEST”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Apr 302019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Norwegian black metal band Kampfar, which will be released on May 3rd by Indie Recordings.)

Metal is, perhaps more than any other genre I can think of, a style of music built around its own mythology.

The bands and artists whom we love (or loathe) become our heroes, and our villains, our gods, and our demons, often all at the same time, while certain places – the fetid swamps of Florida, the frozen mountains of Norway, the steel and smoke of Northern England – become invested with near-mythic significance of their own, giving birth to their own legends and lore and traditions.

Black Metal in particular is rich in its own particular brand of folklore and fairy tale – much of it drenched in the blood and sweat of its progenitors – to the point where it sometimes seems like the music plays second fiddle to the myths surrounding it.

But not with Kampfar. And not on Ofidians Manifest. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THONIAN HORDE — “CATHEDRAL SPIRE”

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Apr 302019
 

 

Two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering a track from Inconnu, the second album by the Maryland black metal band Thonian Horde, which was released in September 2017 by Grimoire Records. That album proved to be a huge eye-opener for this writer, featuring the kind of surprising and multi-faceted music that stretched the boundaries of black metal without losing touch with the more feral and ferocious through-lines of the genre. It was thus exciting news to learn that Thonian Horde would be returning with a third album, and here we are again, grateful to be premiering a track from it.

The new album, Downfall, will again be released by Grimoire Records, with a due date of May 24th, and the song we’ve got for you today is “Cathedral Spire“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUNERAL STORM — “FUNERAL STORM”

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Apr 302019
 

 

The origins of the Greek black metal band Funeral Storm date back to 2001, when it began under the name Raven Throne as the solo project of Wampyrion Markhor Necrowolf. After a long period of inactivity the band re-surfaced with its first release in 2012 under the name Funeral Storm. Further line-up changes occurred, and the band then participated in a 2017 split release (Funeral Rite) with the Greek band Celestial Rite — which is when I first encountered Funeral Storm‘s music, and became an immediate fan.

For the two tracks on that split, the band’s founder was joined by vocalist Necroabyssious (of Varathron, Katavasia, and Zaratus) and by Nick Christogiannis of Deviser on keyboards. Eskarth of Agatus also performed acoustic guitars and a solo on the song “Martyr Of The Lake”. I thought both songs were tremendously good. They embraced the mysticism and might of classic Greek black metal from the early ’90s, and included immediately compelling riffs in addition to powerful drumming and voracious vocals.

And now here we are, at last, with a full-length display of Funeral Storm‘s formidable talents. Arcane Mysteries is a fantastic album, a monument of sinister and mythic heavy metal majesty whose appeal should extend far beyond devotees of black metal. I am very excited that NCS is hosting the premiere of a song from the record in advance of its May 31 release by Hells Headbangers, particularly because it’s a song that shares the name of the band. Continue reading »

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