Islander

SEEN AND HEARD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: ROTTING CHRIST, SWALLOW THE SUN, ÖRNATORPET, DEATHCHANT, MORTAL SCEPTER (AND A LOT MORE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 252018
 

 

If today is a holiday for you, we hope you’re enjoying it, regardless of whether it has any ecclesiastical meaning to you. If it’s not a holiday for you, we hope it will be a good day for you, too.

We don’t observe any holidays at NCS, not because we’re against them, but because from our first year the goal was to post something every day of the year, a goal we’ve kept with very rare exceptions. I can’t exactly remember why I set that goal (come on, it was 9 years ago!), but probably because I thought our best chance of getting readers was to be out there on days when there was no competition. Now, we keep doing it out of sheer stubbornness.

Since it is Christmas Day, I thought about exclusively going with metal that has some kind of holiday theme, but with a trio of exceptions at the end of this giant new-music round-up, I tossed that idea out the window, unless you count the introductory music from Rotting Christ. And why wouldn’t you?

ROTTING CHRIST

My NCS colleagues and I seem to be having a disagreement about RC‘s new album The Heretics. One of us, who shall remain unnamed, thinks it’s repetitive and boring, a distillation of the sound of the last three or four albums but lacking in dynamic peaks and troughs. A couple of us (including me) acknowledge that it’s basically Rotting Christ firmly in their established groove, but is nonetheless a whole lot of fun. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 3): HELFRÓ, HUSK, HAIDUK, HOWLING WASTE

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Dec 242018
 

 

I need my head examined, but what else is new? Here we are on Christmas Eve, when fewer people than usual browse metal sites such as ours, but even after already raining a heavy deluge of blackened metal upon your heads in Part 1 and Part 2 of this column, I’m still not content to finish. It is undoubtedly an obsessive-compulsive disorder, but undoubtedly untreatable. So here we are.

As mentioned in Part 2, my plan was to use the third part of this column to round up a few more full releases from late 2018 that I wanted to recommend before the year ends. The four I’ve focused on here in these brief reviews don’t exhaust everything I’d like to mention, but perhaps you can figure out why I decided to combine these four (hint: today’s the 8th day before the year ends). Maybe I’ll get to more later — after all, we do have 7 more days before 2018 expires.

HELFRÓ

Of the four records in this post two of them come from bands I’ve written about before and two are newcomers, including this first one, a new Icelandic black/death metal project organized by members of Ophidian I. Their self-titled album, released on December 21st, was recorded in part by Studio Emissary’s Stephen Lockhart and was mixed and mastered by him, and that’s why I paid attention to it. Glad I did. Continue reading »

MASS: “MISERERE MEI”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 242018
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the British duo MASS, which is set for an official release on December 25th by An Out Recordings.)

It’s always flattering when a band submits a promo to our website with a specific request that I be the one to review it.

Of course, just submitting your promo and making this request doesn’t necessarily guarantee that:

  1. I’m going to actually cover it, or
  2. I’m going to actually like it

But, since you’re reading this right now, you know that at least that first condition has been satisfied, so let’s see about the second one, shall we? Continue reading »

EPICARDIECTOMY: “GROTESQUE MONUMENT OF PARAPERVERSIVE TRANSFIXION”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 242018
 

 

(We present Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by the Czech band Epicardiectomy, which will be released on the 30th of December by New Standard Elite.)

The following review is for Epicardiectomy’s third opus, Grotesque Monument of Paraperversive Transfixion, to be released December 30th via New Standard Elite.

This band was formed back in 2007 in the Czech Republic and their type of BDM/Slam has a huge fan base around the globe. Personally, I tend to be picky when it comes to bands that are in this sub-genre. When I first encountered them early in their career, I hated them with a vengeance, and talked ill things about their name. Now, you might wonder why, and might also wonder what brought about the change of mind? Well, to be honest, it’s because of “The Serge“, their guitar player, who used to play in a band called Fleshbomb.

I remember admitting to myself, “I’ve only heard two songs that I did not like, and this new guitarist used to play in this other band, so let’s give this a chance”. So I proceeded to the Coyote Records Bancamp to listen to their first and second albums with an open mind, and guess what? This fucker bought the two albums right there — and the songs I hated? Well that reaction has not changed. From this experience, I’ve learned that sometimes giving a second chance works, and this time it did, and I don’t give two shits what anyone else might think. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DROTTNAR, ÖRMAGNA, SEVERE AGONY, LUCIFERA, DEATHFUCKER

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Dec 232018
 

 

In Part 1 of today’s regular black metal column I mentioned I had a plan. Since it’s now two-thirds complete, I’m safer in explaining it: In Part 1 I focused on two remarkable albums that came out last week, which I wanted to be sure I said something about before getting carried away by the rest of my life. The second part of the plan, now finished, was to assemble a collection of attractive advance tracks from albums scheduled for arrival in early 2019.

Part 3, as originally conceived but conceivably could still be left unfinished if life interferes, is intended to present a variety of other late-year full releases that shouldn’t be overlooked before the year ends. If fortune smiles upon me, I’ll have it finished in time to post tomorrow, in time to darken Christmas Eve.

DROTTNAR

The first song in this collection isn’t exactly new, since it previously appeared in the first of this Norwegian band’s three-part sequence of EPs entitled Monolith, which were released between November 2017 and May of this year, but now “Funeral of Funerals” has become the subject of a new video, which accompanied the news that an album collecting the music of the three EPs, and what seem to be three new tracks (which would make a fourth), will be released on February 8th. The album’s name is also Monolith. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): GENUNE AND AB IMO PECTORE

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Dec 232018
 

 

Mr. Synn‘s preparation of a very interesting interview for publication yesterday allowed me to spend parts of Friday and most of Saturday focusing on what I might do for today. Like a cat playing with a ball of rough black twine, I unraveled more and more threads of spiky music. Now I’m going to try to make sense of this morass of strands that has snarled my brain (and snarled at it).

I’ve decided to begin with short reviews of two very impressive albums released last week. I hesitate to mention the rest of the plan, since at this point it’s only partially completed and could go awry. But as you can see, I do intend to provide some further recommendations from the black realms before night falls.

GENUNE

Daniel Neagoe left his imprint on many 2018 records, including Clouds‘ album Dor (which made Andy Synn‘s list of the year’s 10 best albums), Eye of Solitude’s Slaves To Solitude (reviewed here), and Pantheist’s Seeking Infinity. It’s fair to say that whatever he is involved in, we pay attention to. And that’s what led me to Genune. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: OMNIUM GATHERUM

 WAXING LYRICAL  1 Response »
Dec 222018
 

 

(In this week’s edition of Andy Synn‘s series of interviews focused on lyrics in metal, he poses the questions to Jukka Pelkonen, vocalist of a favorite band we never lose interest in — Omnium Gatherum.)

If you’re one of those strange, yet oddly wonderful, people who’ve been reading this site for a while then you’ll probably be aware that the entire NCS crew has been “ride or die” (that’s right, I’m hip) for Omnium Gatherum since at least 2007, meaning that our collective love for the band actually predates the site’s very existence!

And though that love has been tested at times, we’ve kept the faith with the Finnish sextet through thick and thin, and been richly rewarded for our dedication.

So, for the last edition of Waxing Lyrical for 2018, I caught up with OG’s long-serving vocalist Jukka Pelkonen to get the skinny on the in’s and out’s of his lyrics and his writing style over the years. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARKHETH — “TRISMEGISTUS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 212018
 

 

As the end of the year rapidly approaches, we have an occasion to cast our minds back to one of the astonishing ways in which the year began.

On the first day of February we premiered a song named “Trismegistus” from the third album by the Australian experimental black metal band Arkheth. That album, entitled 12 Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew, was subsequently released on February 20th by Transcending Obscurity Records. It really was a remarkable piece of music, one well worth remembering now on the solstice, almost 11 months later. And while the song itself is a rich tapestry of sound — mad, mercurial, mystifying, and majestic — it’s now being presented with a perfectly matched lyric video that presents an equally remarkable tapestry of sights. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONTRARIAN — “EXORCISM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 212018
 

 

As their name suggests, Contrarian refuse to be hemmed in by convention. Their vision of death metal as revealed in the new album Their Worm Never Dies pays homage to hallowed traditions, perhaps most especially the more progressive-minded stylings of the great Chuck Schuldiner, but their intricate compositions take the sounds in unexpected directions, creating an alchemical amalgam of visceral viciousness, eye-popping technicality, brain-whirling progressive extravagance, and mesmerizing atmosphere.

Such an unusual and demanding formulation might strain the capabilities of most musicians to the breaking point, but in the case of Contrarian, this convergence of sounds seems entirely natural and fluid, a forward-thinking approach that’s convincing even if eccentric — an inspired evolution of  ’90s progressive death metal into the modern age. Not surprisingly, it’s the kind of achievement that wouldn’t have been possible without a shared vision among the band’s members, and the possession of veteran talent, which is what Contrarian’s line-up brings to the table. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLOSSUS FALL — “DARKNESS SWIRLED AROUND US”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 212018
 

 

The Swiss band Colossus Fall are making their first appearance at our site today, but they’re hardly new to the scene, having previously released a 2012 EP (Sempervirens), a 2013 split-vinyl with Gacys Threads, and a 2015 debut album (Hidden Into Details), and having performed more than 100 shows in Europe, supporting such high-profile bands as Agnostic Front, Walls of Jericho, Terror, Neurosis, Clutch, and Nostromo. Now, they have a second album named Earthbeat on the horizon, which is set for release by Tenacity Music on January 25th, and that furnishes the occasion for our premiere of a new song: “Darkness Swirled Around Us“.

With a backbone of hard-hitting metallic hardcore, Colossus Fall bring other ingredients into play, including thrash and sludge. This explosive new track bounces and races, bruises and yet is buoyant. It’s a ticket straight to headbang city, it’s brazenly passionate, and it proves to be highly infectious. Continue reading »

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