Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: AMBROTOS — “THE AGE OF TORTURE”

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Jun 032026
 

(written by Islander)

The Greek black metal band Ambrotos have had interesting and unusual lyrical themes from the beginning, having released a pair of EPs and a debut album (2022’s Transcendental Mastery) dedicated to pre-Socratic philosophy and ancient cosmology. With their forthcoming second album, Atrocious Chants, the band have shifted their lyrical themes, but they remain interesting — and the album’s cover art by contemporary Athenian painter Fanis Goulis points the way.

The album will be co-released on July 13th by Satanath Records and WP Productions. They offer this description of the new themes:

This new album delves into the fall of Constantinople and the decline of the Byzantine Empire, presenting a unique perspective that intertwines historical narrative with the religious beliefs and perceptions of the medieval era. At its core, the album explores the epic battle between Satan and Christ, offering a profound commentary on faith and conflict.

What we have for you today is the premiere of the album’s second advance track, “The Age of Torture“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INTO DARKNESS — “URANUS”

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Jun 032026
 

(written by Islander)

We’ve been following the Italian death metal band Into Darkness for a long time — nearly 14 years, to be more precise. Beginning with a demo they released in 2012, we’ve written about their records eight times, most recently praising their 2023 EP, Cassini-Huygens. Those releases all took the shape of EPs and splits, but now Into Darkness finally have a debut album set for release on July 24th by Dying Victims Productions.

The name of the album is Route to the Other Side. Like previous releases, it was inspired by divulgative (popular) astronomy. In this case it is a concept record about the outer solar system.

The album’s song titles map a journey through those far reaches, beginning with “Jupiter“, moving on to “Saturn” and “Uranus” (the song we’re about to premiere), and eventually passing through the “Kuiper Belt” and onward to “Pluto“, and ending with the title song “Route to the Other Side“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NOTHINGNESS — “SKULL EVULSION”

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Jun 022026
 

(written by Islander)

Once again we find ourselves in the fortunate position of helping Everlasting Spew Records announce their release of a jaw-dropping new album. This time it’s the third full-length from the Minnesota-based purveyors of “Digressive Death”, Nothingness.

The name of the new album is Godslaughter, and it follows Hollow Gaze of Death (2019, Independent) and Supraliminal (2023, Everlasting Spew Records). Our friend Gonzo reviewed that second album for us, summing it up as “a dizzying, uncomfortable, and overall suffocating experience in interdimensional sonic terror.”

You could guess from the name of the new album (and the cover art) that Nothingness haven’t backed away from the nightmarish hostility of their musical conceptions. If anything, they have doubled-down. Here’s how Everlasting Spew previews the experience: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ILLWIND — “LUCIFER’S MULE”

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Jun 022026
 

(written by Islander)

Ill winds usually blow no one any good, or so the old saying goes, though in its earliest expression (before the meaning morphed) the writer John Heywood actually suggested that a wind unlucky for one person would bring good fortune to another. In the case of the Peruvian band Illwind, they have brought good fortune indeed through their debut album The Unfolding at the End of Light, which will be released on July 3rd by Personal Records.

Almost anyone who has come across the circulating press materials for the album is bound to be intrigued. For one thing, they disclose that the Illwind quartet includes members of such bands as Reino Ermitaño, Cobra, Arcada, and Argul. For another thing, the music is described as having an “idiosyncratic personality”, one steeped in aspects of traditional doom but also branching out in unexpected directions — such as closing the record with a cover of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”.

And then there’s this: Continue reading »

ABSURDEITY: “WE CAME, WE SAWED, WE CONQUERED”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 022026
 

(Once more we dig into DGR’s pre-festival archive of writings and today bring forth his review of a new album by the Sweden death metal band Absurdeity, which was released in February.)

This part of the year is one of our great opportunities to play catch-up with all the releases that we had absorbed into our collections over the years. The rivers are always overflowing on that front so it can seem a bit random, but the grab bag and shotgun approach has led to some wild weeks in terms of what we post around here. This one in particular is likely no different, and thus we take advantage of the time afforded to us to catch up with Sweden’s Absurdeity and their new album We Came, We Sawed, We Conquered.

Absurdeity is the project of Project Hate mainman Lord K. Philipson and long-running conspirator Jörgen Sandström, an exercise in creating straightforward and brutally focused death metal – in stark comparison to the expansive and humongous works that’ve taken place within the bounds of The Project Hate.

It is a wonder that K. Philipson has anything left in the tank after the multitude of year-over-year releases and ten-plus-minute songs that’ve been the hallmarks of his other project. But, there is something to be said to setting boundaries for yourself, and in the case of Absurdeity the goal was to create something raw and violent, and that is how we approach the aforementioned new album — as a collection of nine raw and violent songs that thankfully keep things concise and impactful, never straying anywhere over the four-minute mark. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASTRIFEROUS — “DISSOLUTION OF ETERNITY”

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Jun 012026
 

(written by Islander)

No one in their right mind would leap headfirst into a broad pool of water without knowing whether the landing spot is shallow or deep, toxic or pure, devoid of swimming creatures or loaded with toothsome things that would attack out of sheer vicious reflex.

But that’s what we invite you to do now, without a moment’s careful reflection — to leap headfirst into a song off Atavistic Unraveling, the second album by Costa Rica’s Astriferous that’s now set for co-release by Me Saco Un Ojo and Pulverised Records on June 26th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE CONFLUX COLLECTIVE — “DEVOURING LIGHT”

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Jun 012026
 

(written by Islander)

You might see the band whose music is the subject of this premiere identified as Conflux. But the complete name is The Conflux Collective, so-named mainly because the two musicians who initiated the project wanted to bring in a diverse group of extreme vocalists to accompany their compositions.

Those two musicians — drummer, composer, and producer Tommy McKinnon (Derelict, Akurion, ex‑Neuraxis, ex‑Augury) and guitarist Chase Fraser (Continuum, ex‑Decrepit Birth, ex‑Animosity) — conceived the band after a chance reunion in a Montreal fast‑food joint following a King Diamond show on 2016. In fairly short order they wrote and recorded a debut EP named The Inception, which included a different well-known Canadian death metal vocalist on each song, utilizing the talents of Cryptopsy vocalist Matt McGachy, Beneath The Massacre vocalist Elliot Desgagnés, and Mike Disalvo of Coma Cluster Void, Akurion, and ex-Cryptopsy.

The Inception received an enthusiastic response around various corners of the web (including here at NCS), but various life circumstances led to a long period of dormancy for the project. However, Tommy McKinnon made the wise decision to revive it, the results now encompassed on a debut album titled In the Wake of Saturn that’s set for release on June 19th.

As press materials describe it: “Armed with unreleased material from Fraser and a determination to finish what they started, [McKinnon] rebuilt the album from the ground up, writing new songs, reconstructing arrangements, recording all bass tracks by ear, and crafting lyrics drawn from deeply personal turmoil, transformation, and catharsis.”

And of course McKinnon also revived the idea of including different vocalists on the songs. It’s a hell of a collective: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FYRNASK, MAERUND, CON, ARS MORIENDI, NIVEOUS, SNORLAX

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
May 312026
 

(written by Islander)

This is the final edition of SHADES OF BLACK.

The final edition of May 2026! (Sorry if I made you gasp – but I hope I did.)

The last day of May marks the end of Spring in the northern hemisphere, at least if you use the common meteorological definition of the season. In astronomical terms, it won’t until June 20th this year, the day before the summer solstice.

Today is also the 151st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, which means that 41.37% of this year is over. Not exactly a memorable percentage, and not really far enough along for us to be taking stock of anything. We won’t reach the halfway point until noon on July 2nd.

And that’s nearly all I have to say by way of introducing this column today, other than this: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THE OCEAN COLLECTIVE, RIPPER, HIPPOTRAKTOR, ABSOLUTISM, DEAD SLEEP, PYLAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 302026
 

(written by Islander)

Here we are again, another day of difficult decisions. Even after the modest head-start I got a couple of days ago, I still found myself staring at dozens of links on my list of new songs and videos.

DGR compounded the problem by popping up two days ago with another half-dozen I hadn’t yet noticed. My fellow writers around here don’t often suggest things for this roundup (maybe they take pity on me), so when they do, I try to pay attention. Hence, half the songs in today’s collection were among DGR’s suggestions.

Two of the songs he proposed include (gasp) singing, but I knew from past experience with the bands that it would be good, even if I didn’t foresee that it would vary from what I thought I’d be hearing.

As a counterweight, I’ve filled out the post with sounds from beastly and blowtorch throats. I also made the usual effort to include a genre-variety of songs (though I pushed off a lot of the black metal to tomorrow’s column), because no one but me likes everything, do they? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TEMPLE OV AHRIMAN — “WHITE DEATH”

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May 292026
 

(written by Islander)

The worst years of the covid pandemic were in many ways a truly terrible time, although it often seems like for many people it has already become a distant memory. But that’s often the way memory works, when forgetting bad times becomes a survival mechanism, or at least eases the way forward.

But it’s equally true that the pandemic years yielded unexpected opportunities for creative activity that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, or would have existed in very different forms. The band we’re focused on in this article is one such example of that.

Temple ov Ahriman is a one-man black metal band hailing from Austin, Texas that was conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its mastermind Thornicator explains what happened: Continue reading »

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