Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GEIST — “DEAR WORLD”

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Aug 092017
 

 

The British band Geist (from Durham and Newcastle) describe their music as “too metal for the punks and too punk for metalheads”. Undaunted, and perhaps even more furiously energized, Geist have nevertheless continued to gouge and scar the landscape of the northeast of England, and their latest concussive assault is a release named Disrepair. It will be discharged on September 22nd by a consortium of labels led by WOOAAARGH, and we have the premiere of teeth-loosening track named “Dear World“, packaged in an official video.

“Dear World” is not too punk for this metalhead, but since I’m an old former punk, maybe my opinion is suspect. It’s definitely heavy enough that it should appeal to metalheads — and it’s grim and murderous enough that it ought to appeal to both camps. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCASVS — “UNDER HUMAN EYES”

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Aug 082017
 

 

The track you’re about to hear from the Chilean black metal band Occasvs proved to be an astonishing surprise to this listener. In part, that’s because I had been conditioned by listening to other Chilean extreme metal bands to expect a heavy dose of raw, scalding ferocity and headlong speed. And while this song is definitely fierce and ferociously destructive, those adjectives barely scratch the surface of what happens during the track.

But the song was surprising for other reasons, which I’ll come to. In fact, while listening I found myself rooted in place as if turned to stone under the gaze of a medusa, except for the smile on my face and the eyes in my head, which grew wider and wider the more I listened.

The song is “Under Human Eyes” and it comes from the new Occasvs album Nocturnal Majestic Mysteria, which will be released by Unspeakable Axe Records on September 29th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROTOSEQUENCE — “SHEPHERD”

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Aug 082017
 

 

Edmonton’s Protosequence perform an agile balancing act on the new song we’re bringing you from their forthcoming EP, Biophagus, a high-wire performance that deftly straddles a stylistic divide without ever losing their path forward.

Biophagus is the band’s second release, following their 2016 debut Schizophrene, and it’s set for release on August 18. The song you’re about to hear is “Shepherd“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH, SUMMONING, INCANTATION, OBITUARY, BOLT THROWER, BLASPHEMY, SXUPERION, SERPENTS LAIR, FIREBREATHER, ORBSEVEN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

This is, obviously, a humongous round-up of things I’ve recently discovered. I’ve organized it in this way:

First up there are two news items that feature imagery and info about eagerly anticipated new releases but no music. Then I’ve got new videos and music streams by (or related to) a quartet of venerable and revered bands, followed by new advance tracks from two younger favorites who are returning with new releases this year. And then I’ll close this out with music from two bands whom I’ve just discovered.

BELL WITCH

On most days I post a piece of usually dark or surreal artwork on our Facebook page. I keep an archive of what I’ve posted over the years, as a way of trying to avoid repeating myself. In that archive I’ve counted 22 paintings by the Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski that I’ve posted over the years since I began doing that, which I think is proof of how strongly I like his creations. But as far as I can recall, he has never created artwork for the cover of a metal album… until now. And his cover for the new Bell Witch album will surely stand as one of the best album covers of the year, if not THE best. Continue reading »

IRRELEVANT LISTENING (VOL. 3)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

(Last year TheMadIsraeli posted the first two installments in this irregular series, and now brings us a third one.)

Another installment of irrelevant listening where I share albums in my rotation lately that aren’t current. Let’s get started.

Killswitch Engage – Alive Or Just Breathing: Top-Shelf Edition

Alive Or Just Breathing is the melodic metalcore album that in my mind has never been topped. Even the band themselves admitted in an interview, I think it was this year, that this is STILL their best album. I’ve written about this album before on the site and stumbled upon the so-called “Top Shelf” expanded edition (released in 2005) some time ago. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENSLAVED, BATTLE DAGORATH, WHEN BITTER SPRING SLEEPS, VANVID, PROFANE ORDER, BÜTCHER, THE DARK RED SEED, NYSS

 Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

You might have noticed that I didn’t post a SHADES OF BLACK article yesterday — or anything else, for that matter. I was in Wyoming with my spouse from Thursday through Saturday attending a wedding, and spent Sunday getting home. On the airplane rides there and back I plowed through the NCS in-box and did some other web surfing. Found a ton of new stuff I wanted to listen to, and managed to find a couple of hours here and there over the weekend when I did do some listening, just enough to find the selections I’ve collected here, though not enough time to write anything.

The music below is a mix of full new releases and advance tracks from forthcoming albums… and I’ve included one song stream that isn’t black metal… or maybe even metal at all… except in its spirit. But I’m beginning with a news item hot off the presses.

ENSLAVED

In early July I gleefully reported the news that Jens Bogren had finished mixing and mastering the new 14th studio album by Enslaved, an album that Grutle Kjellson described as “a little re-boot, a fresh start so to speak”. Today the album art (above, hand-painted by the Norwegian artist Truls Espedal) was unveiled, and we received more details about the album, which I’ll quote here from the press release: Continue reading »

BLACK METAL (PART 6): A COLLECTION CURATED BY NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG, POISON BLOOD)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

(Last year we were fortunate to present five installments in a series by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) recommending black metal releases from years past. Neill now brings us (and you) a further installment collecting music from six more bands. To get a look at previous editions of the series, click this link and scroll down. If we’re lucky, more will come our way in the future.)

For some reason people seem to like talking to me, especially the ones I don’t want to talk to. And inevitably in these conversations I get poked and prodded about current black metal because the vacant look in my eyes isn’t speaking loudly enough. And most of the time I try to shrug it off because I’m terrible in social situations and also I don’t have a lot to say about many modern bands. Like fresh out of the womb modern with a demo in one hand and a fistful of dreams in the other, not new projects with veteran members or anything like that. Jesus this got confusing.

What I’m trying to get at is (1) I’m old and boring, and (2) it’s incredibly difficult for me to constantly keep up with modern shit when there’s still so much to be mined from an earlier age. Which is why I like to dip back into the well that was supposed to be a three-part series that’s now on its sixth iteration with no real ending planned.

Dedicated for those of you who complain about people being stuck mining the past while spending an absurd amount of money to look like you were an extra in one of the original Mad Max films. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR: A LIFE ONCE LOST (AND MIND POWER AND OLDBONES)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, THE REARVIEW MIRROR  10 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

The original idea for The Rearview Mirror (credit to DGR) was to give us a quick and easy way to begin Sundays at our site when we had nothing else ready to go. It was supposed to be quick and easy because all we’d do would be to post a song stream from fondly remembered releases from the past, as opposed to our usual constant focus on new and forthcoming albums, EPs, and splits. Yesterday would have been a good day for that since I was on a mini-vacation and had nothing ready to go. Of course, I forgot.

It didn’t take long for the original idea to morph. “Wordiness” is our middle name, and so our Rearview Mirror posts expanded into essays and took almost as much time to prepare as everything else around here. Which is probably why the series eventually melted away. It might come back on a regular basis since I’m now thinking about it, or it might not. But I am reviving it at least for today… since I don’t have anything else ready to go on this Monday morning (things are in the works, just not finished).

But this post still doesn’t follow the original Rearview Mirror idea. Wordiness still reigns (though in this case I’ve cribbed from some things we’ve written in the past). Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’s TOP 10 SONGS OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  9 Responses »
Aug 052017
 

 

(Andy Synn makes amends for a year-end 2016 oversight — and gives us a good excuse to revisit some of last year’s highlight tracks..)

I recently made a terrifying discovery… I never actually finished my regular series of End of Year lists!

That’s right, somehow, through negligence or indolence on my part, I completely forgot to publish my list of my Top 10 Songs of 2016.

Thankfully it turned out that I’d already made a shortlist – which I’ve now whittled down to the ten items below – so this egregious wrong can finally be made right! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GAEREA — “ENDLESS LAPSE”

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Aug 042017
 

 

Last November Everlasting Spew Records released one of 2016’s best EPs, the self-titled debut release by a Portuguese black metal band named Gaerea. We featured music from that EP repeatedly at our site, both before and after its release (including a post in which we named “Void of Numbness” to our list of the year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs“).

As promised last fall, Everlasting Spew is now releasing Gaerea in a vinyl edition — and the vinyl includes a bonus track that doesn’t appear on the earlier CD and digital versions. That track is “Endless Lapse“, and it’s our privilege to premiere not only the song but also a riveting video through which the music is presented. Continue reading »

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