Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: VAGRANT — “DARKNESS DURING THE REIGN OF A BLACK SUN”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 222019
 

 

For their debut album, The Rise of Norn, the German melodic death metal band Vagrant have constructed a conceptual narrative concerning the path of an ancient warrior, a tale that in part also seems to be a metaphor for broader ruminations on the depths of human volatility and despair, and the ultimate fragility of existence.

The first single from the album, “Blood On A Crow’s Beak“, happened to be its closing track, a tragic narrative in which the dying warrior seems to share his final thoughts as his body is returned to the land of his birth. Musically, it’s an irresistible gallop of heroic riffing and glorious leads, of compulsive rhythms and scorching vocals, accented by acoustic strumming and ominous keyboard layers.

Now we have a second offering from the album, the record’s longest and most intricate song. “Darkness During The Reign Of A Black Sun” portrays a young warrior’s sinister visions and dreams, in which he foresees a big war that eventually will be his last — yet the vision leaves a question about whether the prophecy can be trusted. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOL DE SANGRE — “ANTES DE LA CREACIÓN (BEFORE THE CREATION OF TIME)”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 222019
 

 

Three months ago we had the pleasure of premiering two songs from a split release by the Colombian band Sol De Sangre and the Spanish band Pánico Al Miedo, one track by each group. La Senda De La Muerte is the name of that split, and it includes the two bands’ covers of tracks originally recorded by giants of the death metal pantheon, with Sol De Sangre performing their versions of songs by Entombed and Unleashed, and Pánico Al Miedo extending their talents to the music of Pestilence and Death. For all the songs, the bands reinterpreted the lyrics in Spanish, giving them a new kind of vibe and atmosphere.

In January, the song we premiered from Sol De Sangre (through a lyric video) was “Festín De Carne“ — their cover of Entombed’s “Revel In Flesh” from Left Hand Path. Today we bring you another video premiere, this time for Sol De Sangre‘s second track on La Senda De La Muerte. Entitled “Antes De La Creación“, it’s a cover of “Before the Creation of Time” by Unleashed (from Where No Life Dwells). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ONKOS — “HEPATIC”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Apr 222019
 

 

And now for something completely different.

Let’s begin with the chekeré. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “it is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd…. In performance it is shaken and/or hit against the hands.” That same source explains that the chekeré “is common in West African and Latin American folkloric traditions as well as some of the popular music styles”.

As a result of the musical project Onkos, that last sentence quoted above will now have to be amended to add “and avant-garde death metal“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DRATNA, GOD’S BASTARD, ZAKAZ, SERPENTINE APOSTLE, FUROR BREVIS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 212019
 

 

To have any hope of finishing Part 2 of today’s column I’ve had to carve off some of the releases I had intended to write about too. Painful decisions to be sure, but between Part 1 and what follows in this Part 2, there’s probably too much music for any normal person to focus on already, and too many threats to your financial solvency if you like all of it well enough to go on a spending spree.

Part 1 was devoted to advance tracks from forthcoming releases (and one new single), but this installment includes complete streams of five new EPs, which ought to be enough to thoroughly burn this Easter to the ground. (Four of them are “name your own price” at Bandcamp.)

DRATNA

In the space of little more than a year, the Northern Ireland one-man black metal band Dratna (which is its creator’s name rendered in a medieval Irish language) has released three EPs of increasing quality and coalescing focus. The first two were Clíodhna and Altar (reviewed here), and the latest is An Cath (The Battle), which was on released April 20th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): GARDSGHASTR, UNGOLIANTHA, GRIFFON, KRODA, VERWOED, VALARAUKAR

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Apr 212019
 

 

As you can see, the game plan for this Sunday is to throw more than one installment of this column at you. I’m sticking my neck out because I haven’t started writing Part 2, and will be racing to get it done before I run out of time. In my head, I actually have a line-up for a Part 3 because I’ve found so much black metal over the last week or two that I’d like to recommend, but the odds of getting that done are really intimidating.

For Part 1 I picked advance tracks from forthcoming albums, and one single that will surprise you. For Part 2 I picked some recent full releases.

GARDSGHASTR

We begin with music by a new group composed of known names — Swedish veteran Swartadaupuz of Bekëth Nexëhmü plus Chaos Moon members Alex Poole and Jack and Steven Blackburn, joined by vocalist Glömd. A song from their debut album named “Of Crimson Eyes” debuted in February, and the album’s title track — “Slit Throat Requiem” — surfaced more recently. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MAJESTIC DOWNFALL, FORLET SIRES, HYPERDONTIA, FATHER BEFOULED, GOD SYNDROME, NECKBEARD DEATHCAMP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 202019
 


Majestic Downfall – great photo by Luis Roa

 

I decided to begin this Saturday round-up with a rare news item (because it involves a band that’s a personal favorite) and then get into a bunch of new music. It’s not nearly enough new music to make up for the fact that I only managed one other round-up over the last three weeks, but it’s the best I can do for today. I siphoned off most of the black metal from my selections, and those will appear in the usual Sunday column, which is already shaping up to be a two-parter. Instead of Shades of Black, today’s picks could be called Shades of Death.

MAJESTIC DOWNFALL

Here’s the news item, which is a rarity because we’re really not set up to share the word about new tour announcements, since that would become a full-time job, and I’d rather spend the time writing about new music. But in this instance I made an exception, because it concerns Majestic Downfall, and in particular an excursion by that fine Mexican band into the provinces of The Great White North. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRYLLE — “LES GRANDES COMPAGNIES”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 192019
 

 

Just two days ago, in introducing another premiere, I remarked that 2019 was shaping up to be a banner year for medieval black metal. In the forefront of my mind when I wrote that was this extraordinary album by Grylle. It’s not the only example I had in mind, but it stands in front. And perhaps paradoxically, an album that has proven to be one of the best of any genre I’ve heard this year (or likely will hear), in the midst of so much metallic extremity, is one performed almost entirely with acoustic instruments — and very old ones at that.

Les Grandes Compagnies is not stingy in its sharing of marvels either. It presents 11 tracks and more than an hour of music. Becoming immersed in it is quite easy. Leaving it behind 65 minutes later is very difficult. In some ways it’s like a time-traveling journey many centuries into the past, but not exactly like that. Rather than a pathway into a long-gone world that once did exist, it’s perhaps more like being transported into a world of the imagination, an ingenious hybrid of the ancient and the modern that exists only there. Continue reading »

XAON: “SOLIPSIS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 192019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Swiss metal band Xaon, which was released on April 12th by Mighty Music.)

Somewhere along the way we’ve developed a bit of a reputation here at NCS as a site that primarily covers Black Metal (I suppose the fact that my last three reviews were for Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, Skald In Veum, and Mephorash might have contributed to that a little).

So, despite the fact that I’m currently in Norway, the home of Black Metal, I decided it was about time to write about something of a less corpse-painted colour, in this case the new album from Swiss Symphonic Melodeath maestros Xaon. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PANZERFAUST — “THE DAY AFTER TRINITY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 192019
 

 

The Toronto-based black metal band Panzerfaust are about to embark on a very ambitious project. With their fourth album, The Suns of Perdition I: War, Horrid War, they will begin a planned tetralogy of full-length releases devoted to some of history’s most awful events. This first chapter in that monumental effort, which will be released by Eisenwald on June 14th, takes as its subject matter many terrible occurrences of the past century, creating a synthesis that mirrors a vision of the future described by George Orwell as “a boot stamping on a human face forever”.

Today we bring you the first advance track from …War, Horrid War, a song of punishing physical power and brain-mangling intensity, yet one that proves to be as spellbinding as it is titanically ravaging. The band describe the inspiration for the song’s name, “The Day After Trinity“, in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: POLYNOVE POLE — “ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 192019
 

 

This is a song dominated by two powerful voices, one male, one female. As you see and hear the lyrics in this video, you can interpret their interaction as a dramatic conversation that indeed happens on the edge of an abyss — one voice bitter, resigned, and hopeless, and the other offering earnest encouragement to go on. The hard-hearted among us may dismiss the encouragement as too earnest, and find the bitter resignation more familiar and realistic. But the music and the voices are so emotionally powerful that perhaps they will pierce even the hardest of hearts.

Obviously, that’s what happened to me, or you wouldn’t be seeing this premiere at our site. And it happened even though — or more accurately because — Marianna Laba‘s soprano voice is so clean and pure, which of course makes the song (in part) an exception to the “rule” in our site’s banner. It’s only an exception in part because that other voice is harsh and harrowing — and gargantuan in its gravelly tone. Continue reading »

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