Islander

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): SAOR, WALDGEFLÜSTER, APRILMIST, TO CONCEAL THE HORNS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 132019
 

 

This weekend has been similar to the last one. I didn’t try to write anything for yesterday, and that left me free to focus on choices for today. With so much time, I found many things to recommend, so many that I’m again dividing this post into two parts (shocking, I know). And it made sense to put these particular selections together int Part 1.

SAOR

Roughly two years after the release of Guardians, the Caledonian metal band Saor are returning with a new record named Forgotten Paths. Along with another group of session musicians supporting him, Saor’s visionary Andy Marshall is also aided this time by Neige from Alcest (on the album’s title track, which opens the record).

Of the four songs on the new album, three are quite long, including the edited version of the track that debuted in recent days through a beautiful and mysterious music video that includes jaw-dropping vistas of the Scottish highlands (as well as appearances by Mr. Marshall and what seems to be a pair of twin witches). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): BLOODBATH AND BAEST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  2 Responses »
Jan 112019
 

 

After yesterday’s digression into obscure blackened realms, today I’m returning to death metal with two more additions to our list of Most Infectious Songs. I’m also again indulging in the delights of pairing up songs that seem to belong together, in this instance one from the old guard and one from some relative newcomers who are definitely kindred spirits, sonically speaking.

To check out the previous installments in this evolving list, they’re collected behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here. We’ll have other posts at the site this weekend, but I’m pausing this series until Monday while I try to figure out what to add to the list next week.

BLOODBATH

Surely it will come as no surprise that I’m including “Bloodicide” on this list. If you read my comrade DGR’s review, or the column in which he put The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn at No. 14 on his year-end list, you know that he loves that album but is “absolutely smitten with the sheer gall it took to name a song ‘Bloodicide'” — in addition to considering it one of the better tracks on the record. And I feel much the same way.

It’s a prime example of how much ridiculous fun Bloodbath must have had in writing and recording the album, and it proved to be (by my lights at least) the most infectious song on the track list, in part because of the joy that comes from yelling out “Bloodicide!” along with Nick Holmes (at least inside my head). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VILE APPARITION — “REPULSIVE DESIRE”

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Jan 112019
 

 

Depravity Ordained is the name of the debut album by Vile Apparition from Melbourne, Australia, which will be released by Memento Mori on January 21st — and the music is indeed depraved, delivering an especially brutish and electrifying form of old-school death metal malignancy.

But before we get to the music — a new excerpt of which we’re presenting today — how about that metal AF cover art?!? Immediately attention-grabbing, it’s also the kind of macabre rendering that stays with you, and will likely lure listeners into this music just as effectively as any words might do. Kudos to Chaostouched for this glorious creation! And now, on to the music… Continue reading »

EXPERIOR OBSCURA: “AWAKE, WAKING!”

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Jan 112019
 

 

The Italian black metal band Malvento has been a continuing source of fascination over the course of four albums and numerous splits as their esoteric musical formulations have morphed and evolved over a career that now spans more than 20 years. We have had the fiendish pleasure of premiering some of that band’s more recent twisted creations, and remain eager (and perhaps a bit fearful) to discover what they might do next. In the meantime, we’ve learned that Malvento guitarist Nefastus is behind a solo project called Experior Obscura, which is itself a source of chilling fascination.

A little more than two years ago Experior Obscura self-released in digital form a debut album named Iter in Nebula (on which Nefastus was aided by drummer “R“), and followed that in 2017 with a split release in partnership with Malvento entitled Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, which included two of the tracks from Iter In Nebula. That split took physical form as a cassette tape, but the quantities were so limited that only a few handfuls of people were able to draw it within their clutches.

In short, Experior Obscura, true to its name, has dwelled in a shadowed obscurity. But its existence is about to become less obscure, because the UK-based label Third I Rex, whose selections have proven to be persistently intriguing, will be releasing Iter In Nebula next month, both digitally and in a limited CD digipack edition. That will undoubtedly expose Experior Obscura‘s diabolical talents to a wider audience, and we’re doing our own part to advance that cause today by presenting the stream of a track named “Awake, Waking!“ Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 3): ELYSIAN BLAZE AND DEPTHS ABOVE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  5 Responses »
Jan 102019
 

 

For the third installment in this year-end list I’ve decided to take a turn into blacker realms, and to move deeper into the underground, too. To check out the previous installments, they’re collected behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

ELYSIAN BLAZE

Let me say up-front that long-form songs have been a rarity in these Most Infectious Song lists, because while such compositions can be truly wondrous experiences, they’re rarely what most people would consider “catchy” or addictive to the point of commanding frequent re-plays. But I consider “The Virtue of Suffering” by Australia’s Elysian Blaze to be all of those things. It is a truly memorable song, with numerous components that have gotten stuck in my head, and with such a strong appeal that I’ve been drawn back to it regularly — even though it’s nearly 19 minutes long. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE WANDERING ASCETIC — “I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC”

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Jan 102019
 

 

We have made no secret at this site of our long-standing admiration for the long-running Singaporean “Vedic Metal” band Rudra. And it was the wonderful memories of Rudra’s creations that peaked our interest in The Wandering Ascetic, another Singapore-based band whose line-up includes members of Rudra (vocalist Kathir and guitarist Vinod) along with bassist Jayakumar and drummer Kannan K.

The Wandering Ascetic‘s debut album, Crimson, reflects the compositional skill of Rudra, but pursues a stylistic course that’s different, though not without its own exotic accents. The album will be released on February 12th by Transcending Obscurity Asia, and today we present the second “single” from the album, a track named “I Sing the Body Electric“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WINDSWEPT, DOWNFALL OF GAIA, OAK, GOD DISEASE, INTO ORBIT, KRALLICE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 102019
 

 

Here are a few of the songs and videos that brightened and darkened my night. I encountered all of them in a rush of listening at full dark yesterday evening. Most of them appeared within the last 36 hours. If you’re like me, the flow of these songs will take you from a blazing high down into more cold and wretched depths, and then soaring again — and I’ll close with a stream of a new EP that was released by surprise last night.

WINDSWEPT

All three members of the Ukrainian band Windswept, including vocalist/guitarist Roman Sayenko, are also members of Drudkh, Precambrian, and Rattenfänger. Under the Windswept banner they released an excellent debut album in 2017 entitled The Great Cold Steppe (from which we hosted the premiere of a fiery song, “Shrouded In Pale Shining, So Sleeps Infinite Ancient Steppe”). Having been a fan of that album, it took about a nano-second for me to jump on the band’s new EP Visionaire when I discovered its existence last February, and (as explained here) found it to be powerfully moving as well.

Windswept now have a new album for us, which will be released by Season of Mist on February 8th. Its name is The Onlooker, and the first track in today’s collection is one released yesterday with the interesting title “Gustav Meyrink’s Prague“. (If you’d like to learn about Gustav Meyrink and of how his life changed in Prague, check this article.) Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): CONAN AND BLACK ROYAL

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  8 Responses »
Jan 092019
 

 

As old-timers among the followers of our site will remember, I have a habit of grouping songs in the rollout of these lists in a way that makes sense to me. Part of the fun is in pairing up tracks that sound made for each other, sometimes because they share genre characteristics and sometimes because the flow of the mood just seems right. I had the feeling that combining the two tracks in this installment would be a good call — but you be the judge of that. I’ll add that both tracks were initially released with videos that I quite enjoyed; the first one in particular was one of the best of last year, in my humble opinion.

I should mention that if you happen to be encountering this series for the first time, you can go here to find out what it’s all about.

CONAN

Many metal bands have come up with unique descriptors for their own music rather than rely on conventional genre terms. Most of them are simply clever (or not very clever) marketing tools rather than labels that have any meaningful connection to the music itself. But Conan’s name for their own brand of sound couldn’t be more perfect: “Caveman Battle Doom”. And I happen to have a crippling weakness for those sounds, perhaps because the music itself is so crippling. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PULCHRA MORTE — “SHADOWS FROM THE CROSS”

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Jan 092019
 

 

The American death/doom band Pulchra Morte (“beautiful death”) began to take shape in 2017 through the collaboration of vocalist Jason Barron, drummer/backing vocalist Clayton Gore, and guitarist Jeffrey Breden. Eventually they were joined by bassist Dylan Kilgore and guitarist Jarrett Pritchard, who also recorded the band’s new album, Divina Autem Et Aniles, adding it to a long list of other records he has produced and engineered (for such bands as 1349, Goatwhore, Wolvhammer, Gruesome, Exhumed, and Brutality).

But the talents brought to bear on the creation of Divina Autem Et Aniles don’t end with that quintet of artists (who collectively are current or former members of Wolvhammer, Eulogy, Harkonin, and Withered, among others). The album also includes the vocal talents of former Eulogy participant Heather Dykstra, the performance of cellist Naarah Strokosch, and additional backing vocals by Tor Stavenes (1349, Svart Lotus); it was mastered by Chris Common (Tribulation, Primordial, Exhumed, Gruesome); and it features cover art by Jordan Barlow (Goatwhore, Haarp, Psychon Vex).

We suspect all these credits will have seized your attention by now, but the payoff (of course) is in the music, and we have a hefty downpayment for you today in a premiere stream of the album’s eighth track (out of 10), “Shadows From the Cross“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KATECHON — “RENSELSEN”

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Jan 092019
 

 

The complex of concentration camps established by the Nazis at Auschwitz in occupied Poland is perhaps an unparalleled testament to the horrors that human beings are capable of inflicting on each other. At Auschwitz more than 1,000,000 people were exterminated in the gas chambers or died of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and grotesque medical experiments. One need not resort to demonology or monsters of the imagination to find embodiments of evil — Auschwitz showed that it walks the earth in the form of man.

The terrors of those death camps provided the inspiration for the new album by the excellent Norwegian black/death band Katechon, to be released by their new label Saturnal Records in March. Entitled Sanger Fra Auschwitz, the record is the result of almost a year and a half of work in the studio by a line-up that has changed since the band’s last album, 2015’s Coronation, and the music reflects changes as well, as will become apparent from the track we’re presenting for the first time today: “Renselsen“. Continue reading »

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