Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: AD VITAM INFERNAL — “SHEMIHAZAH THE GREAT”

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Oct 142024
 

(written by Islander)

Following up their 2020 debut album Infernal Comedy (released by Lavadome Production), the hellish French death metal band Ad Vitam Infernal have completed a new album named Le Ballet des Anges that’s now set for release on November 8th by Dolorem Records.

On the new album the lyrics focus on the Book of Enoch. As the band explain: “It is in this work that the origin of demons and Nephilim is told, as well as the origin of fallen angels such as Semihazah, who was the angel at the head of the Watchers and the instigator of their descent to earth to teach sciences forbidden to Man.”

And it is “Shemihazah the Great” that is the central figure in the song from the new album that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FROM THE VASTLAND — “99999”

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Oct 142024
 

(written by Islander)

Many of our visitors, probably most, are well aware of From the Vastland. Even just focusing solely on our site, we’ve been avidly following and writing about the band’s music for more than 11 years (witness all these reviews and interviews), beginning with a review of the band’s first live performance at Oslo’s Inferno Festival in 2013.

But for those who might be encountering From the Vastland for the first time, it’s the black metal brainchild (and heart-child) of Sina Winter, a project he began in his homeland of Iran in late 2010 and then carried forward to greater heights after moving to Norway, where he has been accompanied in live performances and recordings by an impressive collective of allies.

Since 2010 From the Vastland‘s discography has grown to seven albums, released by an array of respected labels, and an eighth one is now on the horizon. This new one, Tenebrous Shadow, is set for release on November 1st by the German label The Crawling Chaos, and today we’re hosting the premiere of a song from the new album called “99999“, accompanied by an official lyric video. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SORDIDE, PSYCHONAUT 4, AMYSTERY, ALTA ROSSA, APOTHECARY, CELEPATHY, ANCESTRAL CÂNTICO, SILHOUETTE, PAYSAGE D’HIVER

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Oct 132024
 


Sordide, photo by Jeremy Tiercelin

(written by Islander)

Over the past week I added an even 30 new songs or complete releases to my list of black and blackish metal that I wanted to check out in building today’s column. That was on top of how the list stood a week ago, already wobbly from its ungainly height.

As usual, I didn’t have time to check out all 30. In a handful of instances, I defaulted to previously proven names. For others, I had dependable recommendations. And for others, I went exploring, based on glimpses of one thing or another (artwork, lineup, location, conceptual framework) that I thought were interesting.

Here’s what came out at the end of the sifting, with the choices due in part to how the music fit together in my head, sometimes complementing and sometimes contrasting. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: VIDRES A LA SANG, GOLGOTHAN REMAINS, APOSTASIE, EUCLIDIAN, BOMBUS, [4672], SOLAR WIMP, HEXENBRETT, GLORIOUS WOUNDS, YUNCLAS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 122024
 


Vidres a la Sang

(written by Islander)

Last week I came across the word “Alician” for the first time. Pronounced similarly to “elysian”, it means “Surreal, whimsical, or illogical.” Maybe you can guess by now that it’s based on the character Alice, the heroine of Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

By coincidence the word came back to me as I was sifting through a big pile of music in order to make choices for this Saturday roundup. It came back to me because at some point I began to feel like I was tumbling farther and farther down a rabbit-hole, coming across one thing after another that really did sound “surreal, whimsical, or illogical”.

We’ll get to those songs, because I hung onto them, but not right away. Right away, we’ll get to something much more serious — unsettling in a different way. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LÓSTREGOS — “AUGA – ONDAS SERPEANTES”

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Oct 112024
 

(written by Islander)

On the basis of their debut EP and two following albums, we’ve come to expect great things from the Galician band Lóstregos, but I’ve still been left stunned by their new album Nai, and especially by the song from that album which we’re premiering today. The band’s name is the Galician word for lightning, and they’ve really earned it.

“Melodic Black Metal” and “Pagan Black Metal” are the genre labels most commonly affixed to the band’s music, with the “Pagan” label a recognition of their inspirations in Galician folklore. The Dusktone label, which will release the new album on October 25th, has provided this description for the new album:

“Nai is defined by the band as a singular point of balance between light and darkness. It’s an introspective and conceptual journey across the primordial elements led by the endless coil, without forgetting about the main focus of the band on Galician Folklore.”

And yet those genre labels, while valid as far as they go, just scrape the surface of what’s revealed by Nai, as you’re bout to find out for yourselves through today’s song premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MICHAEL H. ANDERSEN (THORIUM)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Oct 112024
 

(Following up on his review and premiere of a well-received new album by the Danish death metal band Thorium last month, our contributor Zoltar has conducted an in-depth interview with the band’s mainman Michael H. Andersen, which we present below.)

There are several kind of super-groups. These days, anything is possible, thanks to technology. You can be a nobody yet still grab a bunch of veterans who don’t even need to live in the same country, let alone the same continent, and convince them to record their parts on their own before assembling everything on your own, putting a nice attention-catching tag on your album ‘featuring members of blab la bla’ et voilà!

Thorium have never played that game though. Yes, when they first seemingly came out of nowhere, storming the gates in the spring of 2000 with their debut Ocean Of Blasphemy, the line-up felt pretty impressive, with Iniquity’s Jesper Frost Jensen, Withering Surface’s Allan Tvedebrink and Michael H. Andersen, and Taetre’s Jonas Lindblood. Yet while most were expecting this one quite good love-letter to classic death metal to be a one-off, Thorium have proven to be a far more long-term affair with five more albums, including the-just released The Bastard.

And while through the years the line-up has seen various people come and go, ultimately it is Andersen, who initiated the whole project in the first place, who still takes the final decision. Eager to keep the wheel turning, he vowed to try out an unusual method to give birth to The Bastard, first premiered on this very website on September 18th, and agreed to give us the details about the present and the future of Thorium. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MIRACLE BLOOD — “HELLO HELL”

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Oct 102024
 

Fair warning: the song and video we’re about to present includes singing. The music also includes head-butting punch, bone-grinding heft, and explosive screaming. The song, after all, is called “Hello Hell“. And it turns out the singing is one of the strong points of the music instead of something you have to grit your teeth (the ones the song doesn’t bust out) and endure.

“Hello Hell” is the title song to the forthcoming second album from Boston-based “dissonant noise-punks” Miracle Blood, following up their 2022 debut LP Melter. As the band rightly say, they decided to get a lot meaner, heavier, and noisier on the new album, and the title song proves the point. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: POSSESSIVE — “INSTIGATION”

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Oct 102024
 

Res Ipsa Loquitur: the Latin phrase which means “The thing speaks for itself.” The Idaho band Possessive (a collaboration among members of bands such as Hummingbird of Death, Tempestarii, and Lunar Temple) chose that phrase as the name of their new album because they wanted their genre-splicing musical havoc to speak for itself.

In light of that, it’s tempting to simply provide you the stream of the album track we’re premiering today, without comment. But we want to speak for the song, and Possessive have also provided some comments about what they’ve done, fleshing out the significance of the album’s name, and we want to share that too. So let’s begin there: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: INTAGLIO

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Oct 102024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Evgeny Semenov, founder and principal of the Russian funeral doom band Intaglio (whose latest album we premiered and reviewed here) and a founder and owner of Solitude Productions. The interview focuses on both of those subjects, and more.)

Intaglio is one of very first funeral doom bands founded in Russia. They and Comatose Vigil released debut albums in 2005, and only Вой / Voy could challenge their birthright, but its demo recorded in 1991 wasn’t officially published until 2012.

Although Intaglio’s self-titled first album was almost unnoticed in the world underground, it was also one of the releases by Solitude Productions, the Russian doom-oriented label which has gained its reputation with years of fair and selfless work in the name of Doom. By accident, Evgeny Semenov, one of Intaglio’s founders, who performs guitars, bass, and programming, also is one of Solitude’s owners.

As everything about funeral doom is damn slow, here we are to discuss with Evgeny the band’s latest album II, released in 2021. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CREST OF DARKNESS, SLECHTVALK, DOEDSMAGHIRD, [4672], BULLHEAD, GRUZJA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 092024
 

(written by Islander)

I found enough time enough to pull together another mid-week roundup of new songs and videos. I picked all of these on Monday and started scribbling about them then, hoping to post this collection sooner than today. In the meantime, a lot of other new things have caught my attention, but those will have to wait ’til Saturday.

The first two of the songs and videos below are heart-pounders and neck-wreckers of different kinds, and then the music begins to twist and turn in increasingly bizarre directions. By sheer coincidence, none of the bands is from the U.S. By design, I again threw a curveball at you with the final selection. Continue reading »

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