Islander

REVOCATION / ARCHSPIRE / SOREPTION / RIVERS OF NIHIL: LIVE IN BIRMINGHAM 17/12/18

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 192018
 

 

(Andy Synn continues his campaign to make many of us jealous over the shows he’s getting to see in the UK, this time witnessing a duo of American tech stalwarts, a Canadian one, and a Swedish one, and documenting the event with video.)

Looking back over the last twelve months I can see that I’ve been lucky enough to attend a number of awesome shows, festivals, etc, this year, with the last couple of months in particular being an incredibly busy (not to mention fun) period, especially where frantic, fret-melting technicality is concerned.

Just in the last few weeks I’ve got the chance to catch Beyond Creation/Gorod prog out and Aborted/Cryptopsy blast faces, and two nights ago saw things get kicked up yet another notch with the fatal four-way of Revocation, Archspire, Soreption, and Rivers of Nihil at Mama Roux’s in Birmingham. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DER ROTE MILAN, NUSQUAMA, ONDFØDT, BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT, OMEGAVORTEX

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

I wasn’t able to write a SHADES OF BLACK column for last Sunday due to feeling like hell. I felt somewhat better than hell yesterday, and decided to pull this together now rather than wait until next Sunday. I have more new music from the black realms that I’d like to recommend, and will try to fold them into a different kind of round-up later this week. What you’ll find below are songs from four albums slated for release early next year and a mid-2018 promo EP that I’ve just discovered.

DER ROTE MILAN

Der Rote Milan‘s 2016 debut album Aus der Asche was an intense blending of grim ferocity and melancholy beauty, a powerfully affecting sequence of songs that makes their new album also worth close attention. Entitled Moritat, it will be released by Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork on February 1st. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEATEN TO DEATH — “HAVREGUBBENS DOLK”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

When last we checked in with Norway’s Beaten To Death the year was 2015 and the band were on the brink of releasing their third album, Unplugged, which our reviewer Austin Weber called “the rarest kind of grind release” — “a record that’s memorable from start to finish”, with unusual vocals and melodic components that floated above the thrashing chaos and groovesome chugs in a way that made the music unusually atmospheric and gave it staying power.

Now these Oslo-based grind innovators are returning to the field of battle beatings with a new album named Agronomicon, which will be digitally released by Mas-Kina Recordings on Christmas Eve and on CD and LP come January 4th. The band have begun releasing something new on a daily basis leading up to the release, and today we bring you the latest offering, a track called “Havregubbens Dolk“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WAN — “GAMMAL ÄR ÄLDST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

If you are new to the sound of the Swedish black metal band WAN, you could make some good inferences about the nature of their music from the titles of their first three albums — Wolves of the North (2010), Enjoy the Filth (2013), and Wan Way To Hell (2017) — not to mention their 2015 split, Necroholic. And if those clues aren’t convincing enough, a list of influences that includes Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Darkthrone, Aura Noir, Nifelheim, Old, and Bestial Mockery should provide further guidance.

But there’s no need to engage in guessing games today, because we have new music from WAN to share with you that emblazons their brand like hot iron on the flesh, in a way that will appeal to the lust of their existing fans and provide a compelling introduction to new ones. What you’re about to hear is WAN’s new EP, Gammal är äldst (“Old is the oldest” in English), which is set for release by Carnal Records on December 21st. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: A TOP 10 LIST FROM JACOBO CÓRDOVA (MAJESTIC DOWNFALL, ZOMBIEFICATION)

 LISTMANIA 2018  3 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

(Mexican maestro Jacobo Córdova has had a busy year, with great new albums released in 2018 by both of his bands Zombiefication and Majestic Downfall — both of which we reviewed, HERE and HERE — but he found time to once again share with us his lists of the year’s best metal releases (and a couple of disappointments)).

Another year, another list, and I want to thank once again No Clean Singing for giving me the opportunity to share my top albums of the year. 2018, for me, was once again a stellar year in Metal releases (will it ever stop!!!). Many highlights and great comebacks took place, but unfortunately I will just pick 10 not to bore you to death (well maybe 15). So with no further introduction, let’s get down to it. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STRANGULIATORIUS — “ROPE, SOAP, TABOURET”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

What, you may ask, is a tabouret? And what does it have to do with rope and soap, or for that matter with death metal? A partial answer can be found at the end of this writing, but much of this fine new album’s title might still remain a mystery. There is, however, no mystery about why the music is so damned good. One listen will prove that, which is what we’re giving you the chance to experience today.

Unlike the words in the album title, Stranguliatorius isn’t one you’ll find in the dictionary, though in its own mouth-mutilating way it’s just as clever and intriguing as the album’s name. The Lithuanian barbarians who chose it as their appellation are damned clever songwriters, too, though it must be said (as their label reports) that they are thirsty for blood and hungry for flesh. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: BANDCAMP DAILY’S “BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  4 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

Our year-end LISTMANIA series usually consists of a mix of lists compiled by cross-genre sites and zines much larger than our own, and year-end favorites assembled by our own staff and guests. This next list, however, doesn’t really fall into either category, but I thought it was well worth including.

Bandcamp, of course, has become a vital platform for the digital release of music of all stripes (and eventually physical merchandise as well) since its founding in 2008. Bandcamp hasn’t yet released its annual compilation of performance statistics for 2018, but their 2017 “Year In Review” reported that 3,500 independent labels were participating on the platform, that more than 600,000 artists had then sold something through the site, and that all-time payments to artists through Bandcamp had reached $270 million. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 HEAVY ALBUMS OF 2018

 LISTMANIA 2018  10 Responses »
Dec 172018
 

 

(Our year-end LISTMANIA series continues this week, beginning with NCS contributor Wil Cifer‘s Top 20 list.)

Yes, you can re-read the title: It says the top 20 “heavy” albums, not the top 20 “Metal” albums. I prefer for music to be heavy sonically and emotionally, more than I demand that they be metal. I think the more open-minded metal head can certainly appreciate heaviness in many forms, though those represented here are more often metal than not, since I have other platforms on which to rant about post-punk or shoegaze, and albums by Nothing or Marissa Nadler don’t belong in a conversation about heavy music even as good as those albums might be.

In 13 out 20 of these albums, screamed, growled, or otherwise tortured vocalizations are the primary method of delivery. Melody comes in many forms, for me the darker the better. No one sub-genre stole the show here; I think doom and black metal are neck-and-neck; there are also a couple of more hardcore albums, and some with a progressive leaning. The one unifying point is the dark and emotive current that runs through the bulk of these albums, which reflects the fact that I grew up a poor goth child, who was too metal for the clove smokers and too goth for the denim and PBR crowd (however, selling weed in the early ’90s made the most die-hard Cannibal Corpse fans tolerate my Type O Negative). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KALEIKR, 0N0, VITRIOL, EYRTH, MOURNING SIGN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 152018
 

 

Having been immersed in year-end LISTMANIA and other diversions since completing a recent vacation, I have a large backlog of newly released music that I’ve only just begin working my way through over the last couple of days. From what I’ve heard so far, I assembled the following collection — almost all of them advance tracks from forthcoming releases, plus one new bonus track that arrived late last month.

KALEIKR

In extreme metal circles these days, when one thinks of Iceland one thinks of black metal. Draugsól was one of many Icelandic black metal bands who proved their worth, with a fine 2017 debut album named Volaða land (we learned more about the band and that album in a 2017 NCS interview of guitarist M.K. and vocalist A.J.). Now, two of Draugsól’s three members (guitarist/bassist/vocalist Maximilian Klimkoare and drummer Kjartan Harðarson) are forging ahead under a new name — Kaleikr — and their new album Heart of Lead will be released on February 15th by Debemur Morti Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (VICIOUS HEADBANGERS EDITION): LEGION OF THE DAMNED, MISERY INDEX, DESERTED FEAR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

Our focus on LISTMANIA at this time of the year tends to diminish the frequency of round-up posts such as this one; even when I’m not doing the writing myself, the behind-the-scenes work that I do to get year-end features ready for publication (such as Andy Synn‘s impressive week-long series of lists, and DGR’s week-long series of catch-up reviews, both of which concluded today) takes some time. My ability to listen to new music and select songs and videos to recommend has been further restricted by the two-week vacation I took, which ended last weekend, and by way too much holiday-season partying this week.

Our 2018 LISTMANIA orgy isn’t nearly finished, by the way. Next week we’ll begin rolling our year-end lists from other NCS writers and guests, and at some point I’ll start revealing my own contribution to LISTMANIA — a list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. But I still do hope to throw in a new-music round-up every now and then.

The three new songs you’ll find below, all of which come with music videos, barely make a dent in my backlog, but I hope to do a bit more catching up with another SEEN AND HEARD post tomorrow and the usual SHADES OF BLACK column on Sunday. Continue reading »

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