Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: FEBRUUS — “SUICIDE BY PROXY”

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Jul 152026
 

(written by Islander)

The Swedish musician Andreas Karlsson has been on a creative hot streak since 2021. Beginning in that year his solo project Februus has pumped out a demo, three EPs, and a debut album named Surveillance Orgy. These releases caught the attention of Transcending Obscurity Records, which will enthusiastically release the second Februus album on September 4th of this year. Its name is Construction of Conflict.

“Fascinating and eccentric”, “packed with plenty of deviations and surprises”, “while maintaining a deceptively rough, clamorous demeanour”. These are among the descriptions of the new album proffered by Transcending Obscurity, along with FFO references that include the likes of Edge of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium, Demilich, Disharmonic Orchestra, and Defect Designer.

“Progressive Death Metal” is a logical label for what goes on within Construction of Conflict, though the breadth of that classification leaves a lot un-said. The songwriting displayed within Construction of Conflict has its own logic, though the music is so spectacularly head-spinning and exhilarating that it might not be immediately obvious.

You’ll understand when you listen to the song we’re gleefully premiering today — “Suicide By Proxy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOOTHSAYER — “SOONER ACCEPTANCE”

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Jul 142026
 

(written by Islander)

The Irish blackened doom band Soothsayer released their debut album Echoes of the Earth in 2021. In the context of premiering a song from it, we described the music as “harrowing in the extreme, and also transportive”, the kind of experience that “makes such a transfixing and mind-bending impact that it’s very hard to forget, no matter how unreal and disturbing it can become”.

Soothsayer didn’t hurry in creating their next album, but we would have been surprised if they had. The first album was so carefully crafted and so accomplished in its rendering of changing visions that any follow-up was likely to involve unhurried effort if it was to successfully build upon the debut’s formidable foundations.

But now their second album, The Unbinding, has at last been released (just 10 days ago) by Soothsayer’s new label Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings. It includes five songs of substantial length and tremendous emotional force. To help draw deserved attention to it, today we’re premiering a video for the song “Sooner Acceptance“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TERATUM — “TOTAL VOID”

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Jul 142026
 

(written by Islander)

The Swedish group Teratum rose up from the ashes of the band Beastiality in 2024, and the next year they viciously announced themselves with a two-song promo tape made available in extremely small quantities. They are now following that with a debut EP named Ordnance of Spiritual Warfare, which will be widely released by Dying Victims Productions on August 21st.

The EP includes re-recorded versions of both songs from the demo, and two more. For those who weren’t exposed to the demo tape, Teratum’s music does draw upon the violent black/thrashing antecedents of Beastiality, but it has other dimensions as well, which become evident in the song we’re premiering today, “Total Void“, which Teratum present with a frightfully occult video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZHIROCK — “EROTIC PANIC”

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Jul 132026
 

(written by Islander)

As we occasionally do, we’re about to step off our usual well-beaten musical paths and premiere a song whose changing facets include a lot of singing, a lot of industrial-strength groove, darting keyboards, and other features that might brand it as hard rock or maybe nu metal. But don’t worry, the song gets much more extreme too.

The name of the song, which is presented through a lyric video, is “Erotic Panic“. It’s from a conceptual album named The Killer I See In Me by the band AzhiRock, who originated in Tehran, Iran. The album is projected for release in 2027 by Satanath Records, and it will follow the band’s 2025 full-length, Echoes of Drifting Stones. Its concept is described in these words:

This album is about a person who has grown up in Terror, Pain, and sadistic family and society, Trauma which pushed him/ her to be a antisocial one…

He/She feels a killer is living inside….

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVOCATION RITUAL — “THREAT BY EXAMPLE”

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Jul 132026
 

(written by Islander)

Last summer the Seattle-based death metal band Invocation Ritual self-released a two-song debut demo, and now they’re following that with a debut album named Altered Reality which Iron Fortress Records will release on August 14th.

Even if you missed out on that demo, Invocation Ritual should command attention based on the fact that their lineup includes current and former members of Oxygen Destroyer, Kontusion, and Reburied (among others).

The name of their new album expresses an overarching theme. As summarized on behalf of Iron Fortress, its ten tracks “chart a harrowing descent through psychological collapse, where mounting paranoia, violence, and personal turmoil steadily erode the boundary between reality and delusion”.

We’re presenting one of those tracks today, a furious and stunningly vicious song called “Threat By Example“. We have this comment about it from Invocation Ritual guitarist Paul Richards: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LABOR OF THE NEGATIVE, AURI, TEARS OF NEMAN & СХИЗМА, MIASMES, HAMMERFILOSOFI, DRAPE, ORANSSI PAZUZU

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 122026
 

(written by Islander)

As you can see, I have a lot of new music to recommend today. I hope the volume won’t deter you from investigating each entry. I will say that I’ve arranged the selections in a way that my cause your head to whirl around as you move through them. At least I hope that will happen!

Because there’s so much to discuss, I’ll dispense with further introductory comments and get right to it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NORILLAG, POACHER, LITOST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 112026
 

(written by Islander)

My spouse and I are going to an early lunch with a friend we’ve known for… ahem… decades. She’s always a ton of fun to be with, but the timing’s not great for this column. I had added dozens of new songs and complete releases arriving over the past week that I intended to check out. And I didn’t get a head-start yesterday because I spend a chunk of the afternoon and early evening watching a Mariners baseball game that was… ahem… dispiriting. Don’t ask me why I did that, because I knew our opponents were very good and the odds were very high that my team would… ahem… suck (again).

Anyway, I had a lot of hard choices to make this morning and a rapidly vanishing amount of time in which to make them and then peck out some thoughts. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with more new music for the usual Sunday collection. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARTILAGE — “THE OPERATING ALTAR”

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Jul 102026
 

(written by Islander)

Any chance we have to expose more people to the music of San Francisco’s Cartilage is a chance we will seize, even if it means having to spend hours washing the blood off our gore-drenched bodies after reveling in the band’s musical horrors.

Their newest death-grinding horrors are barely contained in a new album named Operating Altar that’s set for release on September 11th by Everlasting Spew Records. Unlike the previous abominations of Cartilage, this album narrates a single nightmarish tale, which they describe as follows: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASPEN SANCTUM — “PILLARS”

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Jul 102026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re all about to roll into the weekend, and we hope it will be a good one for everybody. To help pave the way into it, and to make the weekend a better one for you, we’re premiering a song from Aspen Sanctum’s forthcoming debut album To Withhold the Need to Conquer.

Because this is a fairly new band, an introduction is in order. They are based in Kalamazoo, a town in southwestern Michigan that shares the Algonquian name for the river that runs by it. The band’s four members are Jared Koons, Jeremy Cronk, Tim Wicklund, and Bryan Neterer. Here’s their explanation for the band’s name, and for the title of their album:

Aspen forests are common to the upper Midwest. Known for their colorful autumn leaves and pale bark, the word “Aspen” serves as a reference to the region’s distinct seasons. “Sanctum” suggests a sacred, secluded space. Aspen Sanctum is meant to evoke a vision of the natural world prevailing in the face of time.

Embodying the beauty of the Northwoods, coastal Great Lakes, and rolling hills of the Midwest, while simultaneously resisting the innate human urge to dominate and conquer all that lies in view. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RAVAGED BY THE YETI

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Jul 102026
 

(“Fun” is a recurring word in Zoltar’s interview of Mike Borders, and “fun” is the operative word for what the interview will bring you, too. The focus is on Ravaged by the Yeti (Borders‘ band with Rogga Johansson and Jon Rudin), whose new album is being released today by Testimony Records, but it goes in other directions too. Enjoy!)

Few people do take a thirty-plus years leave of absence in death metal before going back at it in full swing. But Mike Borders ain’t no regular death metal musician either as he was part of one of MASSACRE’s earliest line-ups back in 1985. Yep, he played along Kam Lee, Bill Andrews, and future OBITUARY axeman Allen West before the latter was replaced by Rick Rozz, recording with them their first two proper demos before hanging up his bass to lead a ‘normal’ life.

That is until 2019 when Lee called him back, eventually becoming part of the team that would record and release the Resurgence album and a few subsequent EPs, including Mythos. Said team included Rogga Johansson from PAGANIZER and a zillion other bands with whom Borders would soon have a very special bond, leading to formation of RAVAGED BY THE YETI in 2023, right after his second and final exit from MASSACRE.

After a cool but nowhere-to-be-found debut on a rip-off label (Apex Predator) and a slight reshuffling of the line-up – gone are both WOMBBATH’s Jonny Pettersson and drummer Jon Skäre – RAVAGED BY THE YETI’s brand-new album Snowbound Horror on the far more reliable imprint Testimony Records is as dumb and fun as its title suggests and Borders doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Continue reading »

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