Islander

ACCURSED SPAWN: “THE VIRULENT HOST”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 272019
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Accursed Spawn from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, which was released by PRC Music on March 23rd.)

For whatever reason we here at NCS seem to have developed a bit of a reputation, in certain quarters, as a site that solely covers Black Metal.

Of course, you and I know that’s not true (even if my next edition of The Synn Report is most definitely going to be blacker than the blackest black… times infinity), but I’m willing to accept that perhaps it sometimes looks like we feature our blackened brethren more frequently than any other members of our disparate metallic menagerie.

Still, you know we love our Death Metal too, in all its myriad forms, and to prove it I’d like to introduce you all to Canada’s latest extreme export… Accursed Spawn. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FALAISE — “A PLACE I DON’T BELONG TO”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 272019
 

 

A Place I Don’t Belong To is the third album by the Italian duo Falaise. It will be released on March 29th through A Sad Sadness Song, but we have a full stream of the album for you today.

The band’s first two albums, As Time Goes By (2015) and My Endless Immensity (2017), have charted an evolutionary course as Falaise has moved in a direction that may now cause many listeners to put them in the company of such bands as Alcest and Lantlôs, as they have fashioned an amalgam of sound that now includes depressive black metal, post-rock, and shoegaze. They are creating music of changing shades but persistent, unabashedly heart-felt, emotional intensity, and the new album finds them at the peak of their powers so far, delivering elaborately-textured and dramatically contrasting music that’s completely captivating. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEVOID OF THOUGHT, SLAVES BC, EXCRUCIATION, AMBER TEARS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 272019
 

 

I wasn’t sure I would have a time for a round-up this week, given the continuing press of my day job, but I did manage to pull this one together based on some late-night listening over the last couple of evenings. If I stay up late enough and wake up early enough, I find that I’m still able to squeeze in something like this, despite having a lot fewer daylight hours to call my own. Here we go:

DEVOID OF THOUGHT

In October 2017 we premiered a demo named Astral Necrosis by the Italian band Devoid of Thought, whose name I thought would also describe the mental state of listeners exposed to the demo’s three tracks. The music was a whipsawing amalgam of death metal and thrash, with the kind of fireball instrumental performances and brain-spinning intricacy that might lead one to slap a “progressive” label on the ingredients as well — except the music seemed too maniacal and vicious for that word. It was insanely good, and also just insane. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TROLL — “LEGEND MASTER, BOOK 2: THREE EVIL WORDS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  8 Responses »
Mar 262019
 

 

This is another day when newcomers to our site will become confused, or will complain about “bait and switch” tactics. For those folks, let’s be clear up-front that we do make exceptions to that rule brandished in our site’s name. It doesn’t happen often, and when it does it’s well-earned, as it is in the case of the song by Portland’s Troll that we’re premiering in this post.

The band’s frontman, Rainbo, really does have a remarkable voice — clear, strong, and capable of channeling varieties of emotional intensity with gripping force. In this new song, as in others from Troll’s new album, Legend Master, he pairs parts of his range to create harmonies of haunting power. His voice is a dominant presence in the music, but it’s far from the only appealing ingredient in the music, as you’re about to discover. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JOHN, THE VOID — “CURSED”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 262019
 

 

In their first two releases, a self-titled EP in 2014 and an album entitled II in 2016, the Italian band John, the Void explored conceptual themes rooted in science-fiction and visionary experiences. Their new album, III Adversa, follows a different path. As they have described, each track represents a different feeling, “based on a more-concrete sense of despair, where the human kind must face the irreparable sense of helplessness against the fate, the pain, the loss, the guilt, and the exhausting war to conquer a moment of peace”.

In manifesting such struggles through sound, the band have drawn upon ingredients from catastrophic sludge, post-black metal, and doom, with careful use of electronic accents. It’s not “easy listening”. Like the ever-present and immutable experiences of human existence that inspired these songs, they are instead intense, often harrowing sensations — but they’re emotionally gripping, like strong hands that have seized the back of your neck, forcing you to look at things you might rather not see but won’t be able to ignore for very long. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECRATOR — “CONFRONTING CHORONZON”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 252019
 

 

With each new release, I’ve become increasingly transfixed by the music of Sacramento-based Defecrator. That’s saying something, given that I was knocked down pretty hard by their very first recording, the 2015 demo Tales of Defecration (reviewed here). But they’ve moved from strength to further strength, through their 2016 EP Satanic Martydom (reviewed here) to the three songs on their 2017 split with Ritual Genocide (reviewed here).

At last, Defecrator will be releasing a debut album. Entitled Abortion of Humanity, it will be released on March 29th through Drakkar Productions, and the early signs are that Defecrator have continued to advance their sound, moving deeper into dimensions of their music which add a sense of terrifying grandeur to the merciless destructive power of their black/death onslaughts. We have one of those early signs for you today, a new track named “Confronting Choronzon“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLOSON — “USURPER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 252019
 

 

In fairly short order the Swedish sludge/post-metal band Gloson have plowed a massive furrow through the landscape of metal — and not the kind of furrow in which pliable earth has been turned, but more like a deep, jagged track carved through granite. We’ve had the pleasure of watching this happen from the beginning, and done our own small part to spread the word, following them from their eye-opening 2014 debut EP Yearwalker through the release of their stunning first album Grimen in 2017. Along the way we hosted premieres, and chose songs from each of those releases for our lists of the years’ Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

It is thus with great pleasure that today we present the premiere of a video for a song from Gloson’s new EP, Mara, which will be released on April 5th by Black Lion Records. With “Usurper“, Gloson have again created something that’s immediately in contention for our Most Infectious Song list, and, at last, have hit upon visual imagery that’s a match for the prodigious power and unsettling, unearthly atmosphere of their music. Continue reading »

WHITECHAPEL: “THE VALLEY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 252019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Whitechapel, which will be released by Metal Blade Records on March 29th.)

While we don’t always cover the so-called “big name” releases here at NCS, on those special occasions when we do we always try write something that actively adds to the conversation, rather than simply rehashing the same old tired tropes and clichés.

Of course that begs the question, is it actually possible to write anything new or insightful about Whitehcapel at this point?

After all, this is a band who have now comfortably reached that “critic-proof” level where a sufficiently large proportion of their fanbase will likely pick up whatever they put out, sight unseen, while their more committed detractors will continue to deride and denigrate the band for their ‘core roots, and nothing I write is likely to massively influence anyone from either side.

However, this presupposes that the only point of a review like this it to rate an album as “good” or “bad”… whereas I’d contend it’s just as, if not even more, important to provide potential readers/listeners with context and perspective so as to help them make their own, educated, decision(s).

Which brings us to The Valley. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENTHRONED, ÁRSTIÐIR LIFSINS, VALE, DAUÞUZ, AKRAL NECROSIS, SUICIDAL MADNESS, CORNIGR

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Mar 242019
 


Cold Black Suns

 

I’m assuming everyone knows that Darkthrone will be releasing a new album named Old Star through Peaceville Records on May 31st. Fenriz says that he and Ted will be continuing in the style of Arctic Thunder — “BLACK OLD HEAVY METAL with slow thrash, classic doom and slow death metal” — which is just fine by me. The album is available for pre-order HERE.

With that piece of news out of the way, I’m devoting the rest of this post to things we can hear right now.

ENTHRONED

Cold Black Suns is the new album by the almighty Enthroned, their 11th full-length in a career that stretches back a quarter-century. Their new label Season of Mist will release it on June 7th. The first song in today’s collection, “Silent Redemption,” comes from that album and premiered a couple days ago at Ghost Cult Magazine. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OCTOBER TIDE, NOCTURNUS AD, MUTILATE, THE CORONA LANTERN, ATARAXIE, EVEN VAST, PLAGUE WEAVER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 242019
 

 

Yes, I know it’s Sunday, but I did listen to all the selections in this round-up on Saturday. I just didn’t get this post finished in time to launch it yesterday.

I listened to a lot of other things yesterday, too. Some of that will find its way into the usual SHADES OF BLACK column later today. Other songs and videos were also interesting, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Drawing lines gives me a headache, especially because I know that Monday will begin another week filled with new songs and videos on top of those from last week that I failed to get to, and another week when my day job (again) probably won’t leave me enough time for round-ups.

Doom plays a role in all of the following songs, which factored into my line-drawing, but the sounds of suffering play quite different roles from song to song.

OCTOBER TIDE

In their 25th year October Tide are releasing a new album, which founding guitarist Fredrik Norrman describes as “a bit more aggressive, a bit more death metal, and with an overall colder feeling than previous records”. His brother, guitarist Mattias, is still in harness, as is vocalist Alexander Högbom, but since the band’s last album they’ve added a new bassist (Johan Jönsegård) and a new drummer (Jonas Sköld), both of whom are also members of Letters From the Colony (who seem to have a lot of Meshuggah in their DNA, at least based on this live video from last summer). Continue reading »

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