Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: MYLINGAR — “ÚT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Recently we have been reminded by photos from the vicinity of the Moon that in many respects the Earth is a verdant, beautiful, and serene place. Closer to ground level, however, it still often remains ugly, violent, saturated with suffering, and shrouded by death. Of that we don’t need reminding, because the evidence is all around us, every day.

The music of the anonymous four-person entity known as Mylingar has always drawn its fuel from the worst that humanity has to offer and the perspective that the world is a killing machine, or so it seems when you listen to their ruinous black/death assaults. And now, nearly seven years after their last album, we’re reminded of that by a new one named Út, which will be released in cooperation with Amor Fati Productions on April 17th.

But as we’ll explain, and as you can now discover for yourselves, there’s even more going on in the album than you might expect based on Mylingar’s previous works. Continue reading »

CLAD IN SHADOWS: “MONUMENTS IN RUIN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 152026
 

(The Texas-based melodic death metal band Clad In Shadows released their debut album in late February, DGR managed to come across it, and now he’s turned in the following appreciative review.)

You can use your band name for many things in heavy metal, such as head-turning shock value or as a mission statement. You can even make it dual-purpose, as is the case of New York’s Clad In Shadows. They took their name from an early In Flames song that was a live staple of theirs for a bit, thereby not only making their mission statement clear but also laying out their influences and providing a good basis point for anyone with bare knowledge of metal music’s subgenres as to what they might sound like without hearing a note.

Let’s play a game then, because many of you will have guessed both by the band’s name and who is writing this here writeup what exactly Clad In Shadows sound like on their first album Monuments In Ruin. You have twenty seconds to think, and then come check back in and tell us how closely you landed with the rest of this introduction.

Did you guess that this was going to be blindingly faithful melodeath worship with enthusiasm that shines so brightly it could scour your shadow into the wall? Yes? Perfect. Because that is what Clad In Shadows are doing, and although the album isn’t breaking down any boundaries, it is doing a fantastic job in adding to the overall genre’s collective archive and blueprint. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RIKET

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 152026
 


photos by Ekaterina Yakyamseva

(Comrade Aleks has brought us many good interviews for many years, all of them worth some attention, but some stand well forward of others, and this discussion with Johan from Rikets is one of them. Read it and you’ll see why.) 

The debut album by Swedish death metallers Riket was released to mark the band’s tenth anniversary. And it’s not just another melodic death metal band, as, foremost, all lyrics are written in the native language and it’s inspired by historical events in Sweden. And as you may imagine, the album’s title 2026 isn’t just a number. At the same time, there’s no room for the usual metal cliches like Vikings’ conquests or war in Riket’s lyrics, and every song is named after the year when this event took place. The band focuses on more specific authentic topics, which you will learn from the interview below.

Meanwhile Riket has created an organic, well-produced, and honest album in the key of sophisticated yet straightforward melodic death metal. And 2026 has every chance of being remembered by listeners for more than just the lyrics. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AGELESS GATEWAY — “CORRUPTOR OF STARS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 142026
 

(written by Islander)

Lovers of science fiction, and especially renderings of cosmic horror, will find a lot to love in the conception of Ageless Gateway’s debut album Corruptor of Stars. It narrates a tale of massive parasitic alien infection of our solar system, and its warping of existence on a breathtaking scale.

In portraying these terrors, this Polish project’s sole creator Apparition interweaves atmospheric black metal with death, doom, and ambient influences to create a chilling and thrilling five-song experience with a compact run-time of 32 minutes, and we’re providing listeners the chance to become immersed in it today in advance of the album’s April 17 release by Godz Ov War Productions. Continue reading »

FOETOREM: “INCONGRUOUS FORMS OF EVERGROWING ROT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 142026
 

(Here is Daniel Barkasi’s review of the debut album by the Danish band Foetorem, which came out at the end of March through Everlasting Spew.)

Demos tend to be raw glimpses of a band in their yet-to-be fully realized form. Once in a blue moon, you come across a legitimate head-turner that’s further along in their spawning phase than it has any right to be. Such is the case for yours truly and Danish death/doomsters Foetorem. Their three-song introduction in early 2025 was robust, intricate, and absolutely nasty in the most putrid way (that’s good), whetting the appetite for what they might be capable of within an LP.

That time came not too long afterward, with the band being picked up by denizens of all things grotesque Everlasting Spew Records – a home that feels perfectly suited for the wares we’ve heard from the foursome thus far. Incongruous Forms of Evergrowing Rot is the most fitting name of that first full-length effort, and the question of whether they can fulfill their massive potential or sink into the murky swamp is the curiosity of the day.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SCALAR PROCESS — “FAR FROM THE FLESH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 132026
 

(written by Islander)

“Seductive”, “surreal”, “spellbinding” and “sublime” aren’t words usually deployed in describing the music of a band whose principle genre partition is technical death metal, even for an alliteration-addicted writer such as me. But those aspects of the song we’re about to premiere are precisely what make it stand out so memorably.

Those are also among the aspects of The Scalar Process’s new album Agnomysticism that led their label Transcending Obscurity Records to describe it as reflecting “simply staggering” progress beyond the band’s debut full-length Coagulative Matter five years ago.

To be clear, progressive tendencies and a penchant for creating mysterious and meditative moods were already evident on the band’s debut, and to be further clear, the new album still often includes instrumental performances of fast-paced, eye-popping dexterity, but the new one is far away from a non-stop thundering waterfall of notes and beats, and you need look no further than “Far From the Flesh” to find convincing proof of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOROTH — “REMNANTS OF A FORMER FORM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 132026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re at the start of a new week here at NCS and it’s usually a good idea to get a running start unless you’re running into a throng of heavy traffic, so let’s rush right into the Voroth song we’re about to premiere and fill in the details once we’re on the other side, assuming we get to the other side unscathed.

Getting to the other side of “Остатки прежней формы” (Remnants of a Former Form) unscathed isn’t a foregone conclusion, because it’s as vibrantly wild as the cover art on the album that includes it. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SZNUR, ACOLYTHUS, SCYTHE OF MEPHISTO, NON SERVIAM

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Apr 122026
 

(written by Islander)

You could make a nearly endless list of traumas experienced by human beings that are more severe than having a sick pet. But having a sick pet can still be traumatic. I speak from experience — uncomfortably recent experience.

My wife and I live with two brother cats to whom we’re intensely attached. They have the run of our house but they’re never more than a few feet away from us. They’re very affectionate, very smart (for cats), very beautiful. We’re careful not to let them outside because they’re small, they’ve never been in the wild since birth, and we live in a forest full of predators of different species.

Last night after my wife and I had returned home from dinner and watching a ballgame, one of the cats began foaming at the mouth and manically racing around the room. We keep anything that might be an ingestive danger to them out of their reach, so it was perplexing. We scurried around trying to help him and trying to discover what might have caused this.

After about 15 minutes passed with no change, we managed to catch him and put him in a cat carrier, got in the car, and started driving to a 24-hour emergency animal-care clinic. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AT THE GATES, EINHERJER, BLACK ROYAL, LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR, DISORIENTATION, LONESHORE, HEIDEN, CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 112026
 


photo credit: Artemis II crew and NASA

(written by Islander)

As you can see from the post title, I decided to pack a lot of new songs and videos into this week’s SEEN AND HEARD column. To make that possible (because I got another late start and my free time this morning is limited), I’ve had to skimp on the verbiage and truncate this introduction — which ends now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUICIDE FOREST — “CRUSHING WAVES OF GRIEF”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 102026
 

(written by Islander)

The Arizona atmospheric/depressive black metal band Suicide Forest began life in 2016 as the solo project of A. Kruger. Following a sequence of demos and a live recording, the band released its self-titled debut album in 2018 and a second album (Reluctantly) in 2021, as well as splits and an EP.

The third album, 2025’s IX of Swords, marked Suicide Forest’s studio debut as a more complete lineup. It included a revisiting of demo-era material as well as a new instrumental piece and a cover of Ceremonial Castings’ “Sweet Misery I Foresee”.

With their creatives fires still blazing, the band have now completed work on a fourth album. Titled World of Decay, it’s set for release on June 5th. The band tell us: “World of Decay is a bit of a new beginning for Suicide Forest as it is the first full-length recorded as a three-piece. Though still building on the sound and themes explored in the ‘solo era’ material.”

Today we’re bringing you the premiere of the album’s monumental opening song, a stunner called “Crushing Waves of Grief“. Continue reading »

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