Islander

2018 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP TEN

 LISTMANIA 2018  20 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

(Andy Synn concludes his week-long round-up of metal in 2018 with this list of his ten personal favorites among the year’s great and good albums.)

So, after all the stress and struggle involved in putting together all my various lists which preceded this one, now it’s time to relax and turn my attention to those albums, whether “Great” or “Good”, that make up my personal favourites of 2018.

Once again I decided that I wouldn’t include any “Honourable Mentions” this year, as to do so would essentially mean reproducing a good 60-70% of my previous lists (although, that being said… do try and give Agrypnie, Disassembled, Hundred Year Old Man, The Agony Scene and Void Ritual a listen if you get chance) and instead decided to focus solely on the ten albums which I’ve listened to the most and/or which have made the biggest impact on me this year.

Funnily enough, while the actual process of working out which ten records best represented my listening habits over the last twelve months was as complicated as ever, the write-up was much easier than I expected it to be, as it just so happens that I was responsible for reviewing almost all of them! Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW COLLECTION (PART 8): CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

(Our Sacramento-based colleague DGR concludes a week-long effort to catch up on reviews before immersing himself in year-end LISTMANIA, with one last write-up today.)

Hey, have you heard of this place called Sacramento?

This one won’t be as much a review as previous pieces as it is a simple heads-up and a chance to reminisce a bit. If you had told me that in 2018 I’d be talking about Sacramento “too metal for the core kids, too core for the metal kids” band Conducting From The Grave‘s first album When Legends Become Dust without having to invent some sort of opportunity to do so, I would’ve laughed. But here we are. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CNTMPT — “TOWARDS NEGLECT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 132018
 

 

The German black metal trio CNTMPT made their debut with a self-titled album in 2014, and are now about to return with a new full-length named Towards Neglect, which will be released by Into Endless Chaos Records on December 17th — and today we present a full stream of the record, along with comments about each of its tracks.

The music on Towards Neglect is almost entirely instrumental. Like the music itself, the voices that can be heard, often distantly, seem to be sounds from another world, barely human. And there is indeed a sense in the music that it is crashing into our dimension from a different one where, as the label accurately forecasts, light and fire intersect with darkness and ice. The emotional intensity is devastating — almost overwhelming — and the instrumental performances are equally intense in their explosive athleticism. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IN SHADOWS AND DUST — “REVENGE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 132018
 

 

In 2015 the French one-man band In Shadows and Dust began what has become an annual album-release cycle, each one appearing on the 21st of December, and the cycle will continue this year as Redefining Darkness Records will release the project’s fourth full-length on the winter solstice, the day of least light in the Northern Hemisphere. Its title is Enlightened By Darkness.

The band’s name suggests gloom and decay, and when coupled with the chosen release date and the album’s name itself, you might expect music in which melancholia and doom reign over a sepulchral soundscape of frigid wastelands. What you will find instead, in the lyric video we’re premiering today for the new album track “Revenge“, is an explosively savage shock-and-awe campaign. Continue reading »

2018 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE CRITICAL TOP TEN

 Album Reviews, LISTMANIA 2018  20 Responses »
Dec 132018
 

 

(Andy Synn‘s week-long round-up of metal in 2018 continues with this list of his picks for the year’s ten best albums across a range of metal genres — one of which hasn’t been released yet and is reviewed here.)

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that any attempt to craft a “Top Ten” list that represents the wide variety and near-infinite density of the modern Extreme Metal scene is doomed to failure. There’s simply too much of it, too many different competing styles and sub-genres, for a mere ten albums to cover.

That doesn’t stop me trying every year though, so what you’re about to read is my latest effort to capture a clean snapshot of the very best of the best from the past twelve months.

Interestingly this list seems to differ significantly from the various other sites and zines I’ve been keeping an eye on, though that’s not by conscious design. It also skews in a surprisingly “progressive” direction overall, which is not something I anticipated when I first began trying to piece it together, with a massive 70% of the albums featured here making use of clean vocals in some form or another.

In demographic terms, this year’s list features two entries from the USA, two entries from Germany, one from Portugal, one from Iceland, and three from the UK – which, again, wasn’t by design – as well as one international collective whose members come from all across Europe.

It also runs the gamut of practically the entire twelve-month period, with the “oldest” album on here having been released all the way back in the first week of January, while the “youngest” entry won’t even be out until the 21st of December! Continue reading »

DISPHEXIA: “SMELLY REVERSE NECROMANCY”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 132018
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by Disphexia, which is set for release at the end of this week by Lord of the Sick Recordings.)

This time around I have the opportunity to do a review for the upcoming album of Disphexia (from Ecuador) entitled Smelly Reverse Necromacy, set to be released December 15th via Lord of the Sick Recordings.

I must admit that I was not aware of this band until The Lord signed them (yes, shame on me big time) but after that announcement I decided to check out their 2015 debut album Blast Brain Carnage, which was released by Rotten Cemetery Records. I was really impressed with that first effort and loved the straight-forward songs, which for the most part were between 1:30 and 2:29 (with a few exceptions). The music was to-the-point, with no fillers, calculated to melt your face while headbanging — my type of release. Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW COLLECTION (PART 7): DYSMORPHIC AND CATTLE DECAPITATION

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 132018
 

 

(DGR continues a week-long effort to catch up on reviews before immersing himself in year-end LISTMANIA, with two more write-ups today. Additional installments of this collection will be added throughout what’s left of this week.)

 

Dysmorphic – An Illusive Progress

It honestly looked a little shaky for French tech-death band Dysmorphic. Some may remember way back in ye olden days of 2013 I actually reviewed the group’s first release via Unique Leader, A Notion of Causality, at this here very web site. In the five years since, the band have gone through periods of relative radio silence and some serious lineup changes, with a new drummer and guitarist, and also including the return of a vocalist who had left the band prior to that first release.

Late November would finally see the realization of all that effort, when five years after A Notion Of Causality, Dysmorphic were able to put out their sophomore followup in the form of An Illusive Progress, a more focused, vicious, and blue-and-green-hued album than their previous release and one that sees them bringing themselves very much in-line with many of their fellow tech-death compatriots with ten tracks of head-spinning tech-death…and one intro. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: ROLLING STONE’S LIST OF THE “20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  14 Responses »
Dec 122018
 

 

As usual, let’s just get this out of the way right now:

THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST.

THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST.

If you thought that was already so obvious that only an idiot would need to be told, well, you obviously don’t remember the famous/infamous Comment No. 7 to our re-post of Rolling Stone’s list in 2013. Though you may have seen how that has been transformed into a running joke every fucking year since then. The only uncertainty now is who will be the first person to do it on this post. The line forms to the left. Continue reading »

2018 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT

 LISTMANIA 2018  37 Responses »
Dec 122018
 

 

(Andy Synn‘s week-long round-up of metal in 2018 continues with his personal list of the year’s Great albums.)

What exactly makes an album “great”?

Personally I don’t think it’s any one thing. An album can be great because it’s in possession of a truly unique vision, or because its creators displayed a sense of ambition beyond their station. It can also be great simply because its execution is utterly impeccable, or because it somehow channels the fundamental essence of a particular style like no other. Or maybe it just possesses some sort of indefinable x-factor which makes it shine just that little bit brighter than the albums around it.

The point is there are many ways for an album to be considered “great”, and the various selections I’ve picked out on this list showcase an impressive variety of approaches to achieving this greatness.

Being “great” doesn’t mean being perfect by any means – in fact several of these albums are flawed in their own way(s), yet still rise above these flaws to deliver something truly special – nor does an objectively “great” album always have to be your favourite one (indeed, there are quite a few entries on this list whose quality I fully appreciate, yet which simply don’t connect with me in the way their predecessors did), but each of the albums featured here possesses, in my humble opinion, a certain spark or seed of greatness that means people are likely going to be talking about and comparing other records to them for years to come. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BARSHASKETH — “VACILLATION”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 122018
 

 

Our fascination with Barshasketh began with the discovery of their remarkable 2015 album Ophidian Henosis, which in turn led to the exploration of their two preceding albums, 2013’s Sitra Achra and 2010’s Defying the Bonds of Cosmic Thraldom, and then carried us forward to their 2017 Sein/Zeit split with Poland’s Outre (which we premiered here). It was thus with a mixture of excitement and intrigue that we learned W.T.C. Productions would be releasing a new 54-minute Barshasketh album in January of next year — and that it would be self-titled.

Self-titled albums sometimes have a way of signaling a band’s re-birth, or of reaching a different kind of turning point in their progression. In this case, given the nature of the music on the album, it seems to represent not so much a re-invention of the band as it does a new zenith in what Barshasketh have achieved. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries