Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: DORMANT ORDEAL — “SOLVENT”

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Mar 182025
 

(written by Islander)

No one tells anyone at our humble site what to write about. Everyone makes their own choices based on what appeals to them. Serendipitously, this produces a fairly wide span of musical coverage because the tastes of our writers don’t completely overlap, and sometimes diverge dramatically.

This divergence holds true among the three most senior NCS writers (Andy Synn, DGR, and myself), but there are some bands whose music all three of us whole-heartedly and enthusiastically endorse, and the Polish band Dormant Ordeal is one of those. All three of us have been loudly banging the drum for this band in our writing, going back to 2016 when they released their second album, We Had It Coming.

This year we get to renew our drum-banging because Dormant Ordeal are now set to release Tooth and Nail, their fourth album overall and their first for Willowtip Records, on April 18th. Our raucous hammering began as soon as the first single from the album was revealed, and continues today as we present a second one. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XIV: DARK CHASMS OF BLACK METAL AND STUPIDITY

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Mar 182025
 

(Once again, we welcome Daniel Barkasi and his latest monthly roundup of recommended albums. These were released in February.)

We’re back! Yup, the ole’ brain hasn’t completely capitulated upon itself yet, but the year is young! The country is a fucking laughing stock, but the punchline is to the level of a petulant toddler throwing their toys about. If you didn’t know what a tariff is, you probably do now. Check out this feature from Last Week Tonight from six years ago. I’m no economist, but broad tariffs are stupid, and it’s not hard to figure out. Even worse, trade wars are even stupider. We pay the cost increases, nobody else. But screw Canada, eh? I never thought that Canadian Bacon would become some sort of reality. David Dunning and Justin Kruger were really onto something, am I right?

While we try to survive the insanity, my beloved Liverpool Football Club have sorrowfully exited the exalted Champions League in the cruelest of fashions – the dreaded penalty shootout. Even worse – it was against PSG, a team whose ownership group is exceedingly morally bankrupt, to put it kindly. They also lost the Carabao Cup as I’m writing this, to another face of sportswashing in Newcastle. However, the Premier League title is a realistic possibility, which would be an incredible achievement, in the first year of who has thus far been a brilliant new manager after the departure of an absolute club legend in Jürgen Klopp – now starring in a Trivago ad. Life is weird. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INSINERATEHYMN — “SEMPITERNAL SUICIDE”

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Mar 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The last time we got a chance to premiere a song from L.A.-based Insineratehymn, we began the introduction this way: “All is fire in the premiere we’re now presenting, from the very name of the band — Insineratehymn — to the conflagration consuming the demonic figures in the album’s fantastic cover art, and the blood-boiling heat of the song we’re premiering.”

The occasion that time was to help spread the word about this raging, rotten, and reaping death metal band’s second album Disembodied. The occasion today is to draw attention to their forthcoming third album Irreverence of the Divine in advance of its April co-release by Memento Mori and Rotted Life. To do that, we present the fifth track in the running order, “Sempiternal Suicide“. Continue reading »

TENTACULT: “UNTAMED REVULSION”

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Mar 172025
 

(On March 11th Transylvanian Recordings released a disgusting new album by Sacramento-based Tentacult. It’s fitting, therefore, that Sacramento-based NCS slave DGR is reviewing it today.)

Like any good proper umbrella genre that has absolutely exploded you can take the phrase “death metal” and draw ever finer concentric triangles from it into a pyramidic tower of subgenres with each sprouting two to three more lines from it until eventually you reach descriptors long enough that you run out of breath before you finish defining the sounds that make up a group.

By the end of it, you can construct a very pretty geometric structure of lines that’ll entrance your local social media “spiritual” influencer. At times it can be like trying to speed-read aloud a complicated dinner recipe in a single breath, your very last utterance of “blank-death metal” usually followed by the sound of you collapsing to the floor due to lack of oxygen and blood flow to the brain.

In layman’s terms though, you can often break down the view of death metal into four categories: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DROUTH, DÉMONOS, SVARTA HAVET, LUX INTERNA, AASH, MRAKOMOR

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Mar 162025
 

(written by Islander)

I’m afraid I have a self-imposed deadline to finish this weekly collection of music from the blacker arts so I can turn to other obligations, and so I’ll dispense with an introduction and dive right into all the quite varied music I’ve picked for your entertainment and edification.

DROUTH (U.S.)

To begin, here’s “False Grail“, a startling new song from a new album named The Teeth of Time by Portland’s Drouth. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: RALE, MONDOCANE, JADE, MINUTTI HULLUUTEEN, SLUDGE KEEPER, THAT GODFORSAKEN WRETCH

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Mar 152025
 

(written by Islander)

I had an attack of spring fever this morning. It’s definitely not springtime weather here in the Puget Sound (it’s quite cool and wet, the wind is howling, and if that keeps up our power will inevitably go out). I just didn’t want to do anything that seemed remotely like work, and compiling these roundups is remotely like work.

But the old obsession not to let any days go by at NCS without spreading the word about music eventually won out over laziness, though it may not win out over wind, and so I will attempt to be not too windy in what I write.

I thought about leading with some of the bigger names who have recently released new music in an effort to draw people toward more obscure names in today’s collection (I was thinking about the likes of Cancer, Gaahls Wyrd), Benediction, and Rivers of Nihil) but so many of the more obscure names are so appealing to me that I decided to just get right to them. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MOONFALL — “ODE TO THE RITUAL HILLS”

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Mar 142025
 

(Written by Islander)

The Finnish black metal band Moonfall trace their origins back to 2008, and their first demo to 2010. But there things ended for a decade until the duo reunited, releasing a new demo in 2020 and a split with Regere Sinister the following year. Now, at last, they’ve made a debut album named Odes to the Ritual Hills that’s set for an April 11 release by Iron Bonehead Productions.

Much could be said about the activities of the two performers (Goatprayer and Black Moon Necromancer) because both have been active over many years in a multitude of other bands, including Witchcraft, Ceremonial Torture, and Beherit. But rather than detail those histories and find linkages between them and what’s about to be available on the new album, let’s instead turn immediately to the music. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CLACTONIAN — “EVERLASTING PALEOLITHIC”

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Mar 142025
 

(written by Islander)

We have written frequently over the last seven years about the music of the Italian band Thecodontion, whose primeval and prehistoric thematic interests have been as interesting and erudite as their guitar-less but ever-evolving formulations of death metal. And so we were highly intrigued to learn last year that Thecodontion vocalist G.E.F. had started a new band named Clactonian, joined by Thecodontion drummer V.P. (also in SVNTH), Finnish bassist K.H.P.K. (from Ashen Tomb), and Italian guitarist B.Z. (Spell of Decay).

Like Thecodontion, the thematic interests of Clactonian are rooted in prehistory, and particularly the Paleolithic Age. The name itself is a term given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tools made by an extinct species of archaic humans who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. (You can find more about here.)

Last summer we premiered Clactonian‘s debut demo, Dea Madre, whose cover art you won’t have forgotten if you saw it. The music followed a path of early bestial black/death metal that drew strong influence from Beherit but also should appeal to fans of Archgoat, early Bathory, and some bass-driven bands like Barathrum or early Necromantia for the slower sections.

And now we’re bringing you Clactonian‘s second demo, Everlasting Paleolithic, in advance of its official release on March 28th. Prepare for… PALEOLITHIC BLACK METAL OF DEATH! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MÜTTERLEIN, CARONTE, CAUSTIC WOUND, AUSTERE, KORSAKOV, WAR MAGIC

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Mar 142025
 

(written by Islander)

I had a narrow opening in today’s schedule for a roundup of new songs and videos, and not a lot of time with which to fill it, so I won’t waste the time with further introductory remarks. We’ll get right to it, beginning with:

MÜTTERLEIN (France)

Ever since seeing the recent announcement of a new Mütterlein album a group of metal-loving friends and I have been greedily rubbing our blood-stained hands (contrary to rumor we don’t have talons and the blood is from paper cuts). The rubbing has become more intense since hearing the album’s first single (not that kind of rubbing, get your minds out of the gutter). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ALZHAGOTH — “AD FINEM”

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Mar 132025
 

(written by Islander)

What is “pagan death metal”? It might be death metal that lyrically honors and celebrates old pre-Christian mystical belief systems, or current non-theistic ones, without much other connection between the music and what inspires the lyrics. Or the connection might be deeper than the words. Or the words might open doors to an imaginary cosmos of recent origin but ancient trappings, accompanied by music designed to reveal what lies beyond the door.

Which brings us to the Italian “pagan death metal” band Alzhagoth. Thematically, they have created their own cosmogony, a vast cosmogony of chaos and even monstrosity, and a cult devoted to the dark god whose name is the name of the band. As for the music, they’ve explained in a recent interview:

“For us, chaos isn’t merely random, but filled with potential. Each element can become part of a subtle order, crystallizing into a track that reflects the darkness of Alzhagoth. In this way, the music becomes an attempt to capture eternity in a single moment, transforming turmoil into something sublime, in the romantic sense of the word.”

What this means in more concrete terms is revealed in Alzhagoth‘s debut album Ad Finem, which will be released tomorrow through Inertial Music, and which we’re now revealing in its entirety. Continue reading »

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