Islander

2018 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE EPs

 LISTMANIA 2018  13 Responses »
Dec 072018
 

 

(As we do every year, we’re beginning the roll-out of year-end lists by our own writers with Andy Synn‘s six-day series of selections, which begins today and continues next week.)

Next week, as is traditional, I’ll be deploying my regular barrage of year-end lists, beginning with a round-up of what I thought were the most “Disappointing” albums of the past twelve months, followed by my selections of the “Good” and “Great” records of the year.

Now, the point of these lists, as opposed to a traditional “Top Ten” (which I’ll be finalising for the end of the week) is not to “rank” the albums contained therein (beyond the wider “Disappointing”, “Good”, “Great”, categorising) or to show-off how many albums I’ve listened to (as I’ve been accused of before) but to provide our readers with a sort of “one-stop shop” (including, wherever possible, Bandcamp links) for music which they might not have had chance to check out over the course of the year.

So, to whet your appetites a little bit, I thought I’d kick things off with an alphabetised list of the various EPs (seventeen in total) which have grabbed me by the metaphorical cojones in 2018. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF “THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  7 Responses »
Dec 072018
 

 

Stereogum easily qualifies as one of the “big platform” web sites whose year-end lists of metal we perennially include in our LISTMANIA series. Of course, the site appeals to an audience of music fans much larger than devoted metalheads (they have, for example, a list of the “50 Best Albums of 2018“, across many musical genres), but its staff includes a talented and tasteful group of metal writers who among other things are responsible for the site’s monthly “The Black Market” column, which has been a great source of discovery for extreme music for six years running now.

It follows that Stereogum‘s annual metal list is one I especially look forward to seeing every year, and the 2018 edition appeared yesterday — though it’s a shorter list than I recall from past years. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ENDOLITH — “ICHTHYS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 072018
 

 

(Today our premiere is introduced by Andy Synn, and features a new video for a single from the new album by Endolith. The album will be released on January 18th by Rob Mules Records. The single is available digitally today.)

It’s been well-documented that Voyager, the astonishingly good debut by Norwegian Prog-Metallers Endolith, is one of my favourite albums of the last ten years, and one which I’m constantly trying to get more people to listen to… hint, hint.

However I’m just as hopeful that the band’s upcoming second record, the blood-pumping, brain-teasing, Chicxulub The Fossil Record, is going to become one of your favourites too once it finally hits the streets (and the internet) on the 18thof January.

Having heard the entire album already I can offer a few minor spoilers to help get your juices flowing, such as letting you know that it’s a warmer, more organic sounding affair than its predecessor, and while it’s also more melodic in many ways, it’s still just as groovesomely heavy and, arguably, a few shades darker too.

The band released the first taste of Chicxulub (whose title refers to the impact crater of the same name in Mexico where an asteroid or comet hit the earth precipitating an extinction-level event that wiped out the dinosaurs) back in July with the video/single “Rex”, and now we’re lucky enough to be able to present you a second helping of metallic magic in the shape of the new video by Steffen Normark for “Ichthys”. Continue reading »

MAJESTIC DOWNFALL — “WATERS OF FATE” (A REVIEW AND FULL MUSIC STREAM)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 062018
 

 

Majestic Downfall‘s new album, Waters Of Fate, will be released on December 7th by Solitude Productions and Weird Truth Productions in Europe and Asia, and by Chaos Records in the Americas. It consists of five tracks and 52 minutes of music, and the European/Asian version of the album includes one further bonus track for a total playing time of over an hour.

You can lose yourself in this album very easily. The four long songs of doom/death and one brief interlude that make up the Americas version of the record are staggeringly intense and atmospherically immersive, and the melodies are powerfully alluring, but the music will prove especially appealing to listeners with a taste for crushing heaviness and soul-splintering sorrow.

As you’re about to hear — because the album will become available for streaming in full today — there is tear-stained beauty to be found here, and passages of epic yet bleak grandeur, but this is an album that will dash your fondest hopes and smother your budding joys in their crib. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INNERO — “THE SHAMAN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 062018
 

 

January 27th is the date established by Third I Rex for the release of ChaosWolf, the debut album from the Italian black metal band Innero, which was formed in 2016 by members of Malnatt and Bland Vargar. We are told that in creating the album Innero followed “a shamanic path of inner consciousness and renewal”, and thus it’s fitting that the first excerpt from the album, which we present today, is a song called “The Shaman“.

This is a song that wears the intensity of its emotions on its sleeve. The music is dramatic, and scarring, and seems to reveal the deep scars of its creators’ own suffering and disappointments. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DISCIPLES OF THE VOID — “DISCIPLES OF THE VOID”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Dec 052018
 

 

We’re well past the point when it’s possible to neatly classify black metal by national origin (if there ever was such a point). Yet when I think of Finnish black metal, images of thrusting goats and leering demons still come to mind, spawned by the feral, carnal viciousness deployed by some of the country’s best-known blasphemous deviants.

Those same images sprang to mind more than once in listening to the self-titled debut album by the anonymous Finnish duo Disciples of the Void, but mixed with other mental imagery, because the album is a multi-dimensional affair, one of those gripping surprises that is both atmospheric and rampantly physical in its sensations, successful in its appeal to base instincts and also evocative of less carnal and more august, but more frightening, visions.

After a handful of additional paragraphs by way of introduction, we will have a full stream of the album for your exploration in advance of its release by Primitive Reaction two days from now on December 7th. Continue reading »

IN THE WOODS…: “CEASE THE DAY”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Dec 052018
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by In the Woods…, which was released on November 23rd by Debemur Morti Productions.)

While this will most likely be my last review before I unveil my annual end-of-year onslaught of lists and lurid opinions, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be my last review of the year, as I already have several items earmarked for further coverage during the post-Listmania come-down.

I didn’t want to sit on this article any longer though, as this particular collection of words has been burning a hole in my brain for several weeks now, and I was starting to worry that I was risking permanent damage if I waited much longer.

So here’s a few thoughts, and maybe even a “hot take” or two, about the magical new album from In The Woods… Continue reading »

WHOREDOM RIFE: “NID: HYMNER AV HAT”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Dec 042018
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new album by the Trondheim black metal band Whoredom Rife, which was released by Terratur Possessions on November 30th.)

While the prevailing narrative may be that 2018 has been “a Death Metal year” (and not without good reason), to dismiss the plethora of thrilling, chilling, and blistering Black Metal albums released over the last twelve months would be a huge mistake.

I’ll be saying more about these next week, when I’ll be rounding up the multitude of meaty metallic morsels which I’ve had the chance to sink my teeth into this year (and highlighting some of my favourites) but, in the meantime, I thought I might try and bring a little bit of extra attention to Nid: Hymner av hat, the second album by Norwegian duo Whoredom Rife, which was released last week. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ACHERONTE — “TRASCENDENTAL WILL”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Dec 042018
 

 

It may be wise to hyperventilate before listening to the song we’re premiering today, to enrich your blood with oxygen now rather than be caught gasping before you get to the end, because “Trascedental Will” is a no holds-barred, full-throttle adrenaline rush from start to finish.

The track comes from Son of No God, the second album by the Italian black metal band Acheronte, which will be jointly released on December 11th by GrimmDistribution (Ukraine) and The Triad Rec (Italy). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE BEST METAL OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  19 Responses »
Dec 042018
 

 

As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA extravaganza we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites that appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that “is broadly cast on all things pop culture”, including “music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries