Islander

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AZURE EMOTE, CHTHONIC, SKJOLDEN, TENEBRAE IN PERPETUUM, JOLIETTE, CWFEN

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 032025
 

(written by Islander)

It should be called “Bandcamp Week” instead of “Bandcamp Friday”. Every week ending in one of those Friday’s, including last week, tends to see a greater than usual volume of new-music releases, a reflection of the principle that “recency is primacy” when it comes to spending decisions. This “Bandcamp Week” phenomenon further complicates the preparation of these Saturday columns, but I’m still glad Bandcamp is continuing the tradition this year.

While I have your attention, I want to add a note about changes planned for NCS next week before we get to the new metal I picked for today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PUTRESCENT — “SPECTRAL SANCTUM”

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May 022025
 

(written by Islander)

The name chosen by Los Angeles based Putrescent is like a code word for aficionados of underground death metal. It sends morbid signals of ugly death and stinking decay, a foul vision of the rot that lies beyond life, and it leads us to expect music that manifests that malodorous decomposition.

But though the music of Putrescent is certainly capable of fulfilling all those expectations, it turns out to embrace darkness in savagely explosive ways as well, as you’re about to discover through our premiere of a song from their debut album — Darkness Embraced — in advance of its release on June 6th by Rotted Life Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HIBERNUM — “BELIAL (THE LORD OF THE EARTH)”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 022025
 

(written by Islander)

Hibernum arises again from the darkest depths of Croatia with its debut album Djavo set to see the shadowed light of day on May 15th in a co-release by Satanath Records (Georgia) and InsArt Records (UK).

The solo work of one Insanus, Hibernum first emerged in the early 2000s with a debut EP (Cold and Worse) divulged in 2003. Decades passed, and Hibernum surfaced again with a 2020 single that featured Knjaz (Zvijer, Sahrana) on vocals.

Now comes the Djavo album, and to help introduce it we’re premiering its second advance song, “Belial (The Lord Of The Earth)“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NIGHTFALL

 Interviews  No Responses »
May 022025
 

(Today Season of Mist is releasing the monumental 11th album by the Greek metal band Nightfall, with cover art by Eliran Kantor, and in anticipation of that Comrade Aleks conducted an extensive interview with founder and frontman Efthimis Karadimas. It is an excellent read, and we have it for you below.)

Nightfall was always one of those charismatic Greek bands that had its own identity despite all the changes in style. Once they were neck-deep into a rebellious seething stream of death and black metal, then they entered territories of doom and gothic metal. Always on the move, always searching. It’s not a surprise that Efthimis Karadimas (vocals, bass) is the only original hand of Nightfall who has stayed with his creature since the day it was born back in 1991.

However, the band returns with its eleventh album – Children of Eve – full of power and boiling artistic intention. This epic album carries on traditions of ancient Greek metal and keeps its grim identity untouched. However, I find it stupid to tell a lot of pompous words about the band, as we have Efthimis here, and this interview turned out to be a pretty in-depth one. So enjoy Nightfall. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHAMBER OF MIRRORS — “SOUL OF SORROW”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 012025
 

(written by Islander)

For this premiere it’s probably best to cut to the chase and then come back and fill in necessary details.

What you’re about to hear is a non-stop storm of wholly engulfing sound, so typhonic in its power and intensity, and so fiery and furious, that it’s guaranteed to get listeners’ blood racing and lungs pumping hard.

Though it flies fast in its combination of gale-force and incendiary intensity, it is also more elaborate than you might be expecting from that preceding paragraph, and so it’s a head-spinner as well as a breath-taker — and it proves to be spellbinding too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DÉTRESSE — “DIE RUHE TRÄGT”

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May 012025
 

(written by Islander)

The names of the people in Détresse should draw attention among ardent listeners of black metal whose appreciation for the art goes much deeper than merely skimming the big names at the surface:

Guitars + vocals: S.P. (Lebenssucht, Einst)
Bass: C.S. (Gevurah – live)
Drums: L.S. (Anomalie)

Well, initials rather than names, but with a bit of searching you can learn who they are. What these three have done together from their locations in Austria and Québec is manifested in a debut Détresse album named Pessimismes that will be released by Vendetta Records on May 17th. The words offered in preview on behalf of the label are worth sharing: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROPHETIC SUFFERING — “FOUL”

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Apr 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Here’s part of how the Sentient Ruin label attempts to prepare its victims listeners for Rivalry of Thy Self, the debut album of Prophetic Suffering:

We’re extremely proud to announce the sanguinary return of Edmonton-based bestial death metal sadists Prophetic Suffering. In under a half hour the Canadian horde bring forth a violent and dark monstrosity forged by an abysmal convergence between Blasphemy’s war-torn black metal terror with the gruesome and gore-infested death metal of Cannibal Corpse albums like The Bleeding and Tomb of the Mutilated.

But wait, there’s more: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELLCRASH — “MARK OF THE BEAST”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 302025
 

(written by Islander)

We had an album review earlier today that compared the band’s music to a dish prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. What’s coming next is like a horde of exultant demons blasting through those restaurant doors on full-throttle Harleys and blow-torching all the diners for the greater glory of Satan.

Sedate and sophisticated or inventively avant-garde, this is is not. It’s hell-raising heavy metal, evil and electrifying to the core, pure-grade adrenaline served through the ears. But that doesn’t mean this sulfurous song is slap-dash or sloppy — far from it. It deserves its own chef’s kiss (along with a fuckload of horns thrown to the sky).

What we’re talking about, as you can see, is a song named “Mark of the Beast” from the devil-spawned Italian rampagers in Hellcrash. It’s off their third album Inferno Crematörio, which is set for release on May 23rd by Dying Victims Productions, and we’re presenting it through a lyric video. Continue reading »

HATE: “BELLUM REGIIS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 302025
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the newest album from the Polish titans Hate, which is set for release this coming Friday, May 2nd, by
Metal Blade Records.)

Poland’s Hate have been a musical monolith for blackened death metal for over two decades now. They’ve become a lighthouse by which you can orient yourself, ever fixed upon land and as steady as the world could allow it to be. With thirteen albums in their arsenal, Adam and the crew of the machine named Hate have been one of, if not the most reliable sources of extreme metal around for a long time. While erecting an unscalable wall of imperial riffs and relentless double-bass drumming, they have also become a gateway into the wider expanse of the dark arts.

Hate have stayed rigidly true to their formula, such that you could pull any album post-Anaclasis from their discography and use it as a guide into blackened death metal for anyone willing to take the plunge. Few have ever attempted the sort of fiery riff work that Hate build their music out of, and because of that there’s been little reason for the group to ever shift. Hate don’t do massive artistic evolution: the Hate you see now was a Hate set in stone a while ago, already concrete and recognizable. What Hate do now is to iterate on their sound, such that there’ve been a few distinct three-to-four album arcs over the course of their career. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WALD KRYPTA — “OF DISENCHANTMENT”

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Apr 292025
 

(written by Islander)

On May 30th the Eternal Death label will release a new album by the Canadian/American duo Wald Krypta. Entitled Disenchantment, it’s the band’s fourth full-length.

Around here, this has been an eagerly anticipated album, because in their previous releases Wald Krypta have found for themselves an intriguing musical intersection. They are rightly known for the “raw” lo-fi aesthetics of their sound, but their songwriting really doesn’t fit the current template of “raw black metal”.

Whereas that songwriting template often seems calculated to be willfully abusive of listeners… and therefore often dull and uninspiring… Wald Krypta electrify the imagination, even when what their songs might cause us to imagine are very dark and dangerous visions. Their music has compelling emotional power, which the organic rawness of their sound just makes more authentic.

They show this again within Disenchantment, and we have two vivid signs of that so far, one song that has already been revealed and another we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

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