Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: HANGING GARDEN — “TEARS OF LUSTFUL, SECRET DESIRE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 202026
 


(written by Islander)

As you can see, we’re about to premiere a song by Hanging Garden. This is not the Finnish collective that has been releasing music for the last 20 years under that name but is instead a vehicle for the solo work of Dylan Cruz from Yonkers, New York, whose resume includes current or former membership in Noxis, Scumbag, and Dissonance.

Though the name may cause some confusion, no one would confuse the music of the two Hanging Gardens. The one whose song we’re premiering today traffics in a form of technically impressive and richly nuanced progressive death metal.

This Hanging Garden released a debut album (The God That Made Them Bow) in 2024, and on September 18th Transcending Obscurity Records will release the project’s second full-length — Dream Death. The song we’re now premiering is “Tears of Lustful, Secret Desire“. Continue reading »

THERE WERE WIRES: “VESSEL”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 202026
 

(This is NCS writer Gonzo’s review of a comeback album from Boston-based There Were Wires that was released in late June by Iodine Recordings.)

When you think “heavy music,” the small slab of New England known as Martha’s Vineyard almost certainly won’t be what comes to mind first. And if it is, I want to know where the hell you’ve been hanging out lately. But never mind that.

Way back in 1999, the band There Were Wires formed in that quiet suburb, and they proceeded to play every sweaty New England club and basement venue they could crawl into. At the time, their sound was rooted in hardcore punk’s raw aggression, and they quickly found a home on Deathwish Records soon after. But after the release of their 2004 album Somnambulists, the band played what they presumed to be their final show, and the members went on to form other acts such as Doomriders, among others.

Now, over 25 years later, There Were Wires have made a return that’s just as ambitious as it is unlikely. Vessel is probably a record that nobody saw coming, but despite that, it deserves your full attention. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CALLOUS MASTER, VAITARANA , SKJOLDEN, DEATHISTHEMASTEROFTHEWORLD

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jul 192026
 

(written by Islander)

I had to hurry to finish yesterday’s roundup due to excessive partying the night before and excessive sleeping through the next morning. Not having learned anything, I repeated myself last night and this morning, and am paying for it by having to truncate this Sunday roundup.

I mean, it wasn’t wild partying. There was no rowdiness, no fights. No one went to jail. It was just me and my wife and a bunch of other gray-hairs enjoying each other’s company over a grilled salmon dinner and maybe a few more drinks than was strictly advisable.

In figuring out what to include today, and what to leave behind for now, I decided to give you a charred-black roller-coaster ride. It’s only three songs and an EP, but none of them sound anything alike. I also decided to root this collection deep in the underground — these aren’t “big name” bands, but their music makes big impressions, at least on me and I hope on you too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BEYOND GRACE, ENTHEOS, HÄMND, SEV LEZU, BOÖTES VOID, HAIL CONJURER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 182026
 

(written by Islander)

I did enough listening over the last couple of days to make the usual difficult choices for this Saturday roundup, but other activities prevented me from getting a head-start on the writing. Those same activities last night caused me to oversleep this morning, so this is arriving much later in the day than is ideal. And because I’m late, that’s the end of this introduction. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FEARTHROPOD — “LESSER CARNIVORA”

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Jul 172026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we’re announcing that on November 11th Satanath Records (Georgia) and Bajo Tierra Records (Mexico) will co-release the third album from the Mexican death metal band Feathropod, which is a solo project founded in Querétaro by Armando Ríos. The name of the new album is Oathkeeper.

For those who might be unfamiliar with Feathropod, its music has evolved in a steady stream of releases that have elaborately embellished a death metal framework with ingredients of black metal, doom, and especially orchestral music.

Yet while “symphonic death metal” might be a decent genre label for Feathropod’s music, it might be a bit misleading for some listeners, because it might not adequately prepare them for the spectacles of sheer madness that Fearthropod is capable of creating. We have one such spectacle to share today in our premiere of a lyric video for the first single off the new album — “Lesser Carnivora“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ETHEREAL ROT — “FESTUM TERRAE”

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Jul 172026
 

(written by Islander)

Today is the day when the New England blackened technical death metal band Ethereal Rot will release their self-titled debut album, and to help spread the word we’re premiering a video for a song off the new album called “Festum Terrae“.

The album narrates an elaborate cosmic horror story conceived by the band, which we’ll soon attempt to summarize. As for the band itself, it’s a quintet from Maine and New Hampshire that includes members of such groups as The Last King, Sonic Pulse, and Sawtopsy, and they recommend their music for fans of Cattle Decapitation, Suffocation, and The Zenith Passage.

Those are appealing references, but they’re still probably not adequate preparation for the mind-bending spectacle of madness and devastation that you’ll experience in the song we’re about to premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ETERNAL MOURN — “WINDS OF SORROW”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 162026
 

(written by Islander)

The Italian metal band Eternal Mourn is a new name, but their lineup is a group of experienced musicians whose resumes include participation in Black Oath, The Rite, Extirpation, Funest, Araphel, and Demonomancy. In this new formation (as their name suggests) they’ve paid homage to the great death-doom traditions of the ’90s as expressed through the music of Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Anathema, and Cemetary.

Of course, many other bands have drawn upon those august influences over the past decades, with widely varying degrees of emotional power and memorability. Eternal Mourn’s debut EP Winds of Sorrow stands out from the pack. These first three songs don’t sound like a debut release. They are so well-crafted and so expertly executed that they sound like the work of people who’ve been delving into this kind of music for a long time, and the results are unmistakably desolate but still head-hooking, spine-shaking, and even mystically beautiful. They are also immediately memorable.

Those are among the reasons we quite enthusiastically agreed to premiere the EP today in advance of its July 21 release by Terror From Hell Records. More reasons follow…. Continue reading »

KILL BY MOUTH: “NECESSARY EVIL”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 162026
 

(Wil Cifer has caught up to a debut EP by the British band Kill By Mouth, and enthusiasticaly recommends it in the following review.)

The biggest hindrance to the thrash revival has been how tied to ’80s nostalgia it is, while the bands that defined the genre got the memo and progressed. This plays into why a band like Power Trip made such an impact, because they were not trying to dial in the sound, but took the sound of modern hardcore and made great thrash albums with it. This British band, Kill By Mouth, wisely do not try to turn back time, but find their own place in the genre. They do this by blending some of the darker corners the genre had evolved into by the time the ’90s rolled around.

This EP was released back in March, so went under the radar, but is a worthy entry in today’s thrash scene and deserves more recognition. Pre-nu-metal-leaning Prong can be heard in the thunderous syncopation they kick into at this album’s powerful onset.The vocals are howled in a baritone bark to accent the commanding grooves they deal in. They also keep things at a deliberate headbanging tempo rather than getting lost in breakneck punk frenzies. This can be heard in the chug of “228“. They use admirable restraint and never give into the urge for speed that might forsake the purpose of the songs. This makes for catchier songs, though you can still hear the influence of both S.O.D and Sepultura here, but without the devotion that solely pays homage to an era. Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE ISSUE ONE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 162026
 

(DGR is playing the game of review catch-up. Is today’s four-album installment the first inning of nine, or the first half of two? We shall see.)

I say this every time I’ve done it in its twice-yearly fashion, but smaller review collections like this are not ones that I feel good about doing. It doesn’t feel fair to the bands not paying the imagined debt I have with them, that I’ve done something so criminal as enjoy their music and yet not find the time within myself to dedicate toward the usual essay-long dissection and exploration of their newest release.

Yet, it is festival season now in Europe which means that metal’s biological clock is seeing fit to give birth to a ton of new releases. You may have noticed during the last month or so there has been a steady drip of reviews coming from my corner of the world, but truth be told, all of those were done just prior to our unwitting heavy metal May that we’ve created. The assumption being that they would run once a day so the site would always have something to post while we were out and about witnessing music or drinking ourselves into apocalyptic stupor.

You’ll note, that’s not how it happened, and instead the collective of releases that I had fished up from the world’s murky musical depths ran well into June. That doesn’t mean the exploration and listening stopped, either. Just as many were caught up in the nets or came out while we were on that aforementioned vacation, and we now find ourselves at the doorstep of a collection of music spanning months that needs to be caught up on.

You, dedicated reader of the site that you are, know next what is coming. It has traveled by many names: review roundup, things you may have missed, clearing the slate, material befitting the ethereal, music by swedes for long-haired plebes, a million other names that all translate to one basic idea – we need to catch up on stuff so we can maintain some semblance of being current yet refuse to leave these albums sitting in the dust. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECEPTOR — “STREET GENERAL”

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Jul 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in the details.

What you’re about to hear is a song called “Street General“. Its lyrical protagonist is an evil force, a leader of killers who stalk the streets at night in search of innocent souls to destroy.

The song as a whole is also evil to the core, a generally high-speed death/thrashing attack with murder on its mind, but with the kind of multi-faceted dynamism calculated to keep listeners on the edge of their shaking seats (and to start heads spinning). Continue reading »

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