Islander

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST BY PROFESSOR D. GROVER THE XIIITH

 LISTMANIA 2015  9 Responses »
Jan 062016
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(For yet another year, our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth brings us his year-end list of favorite releases, both metal and not — plus some things that aren’t even music.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. I return from the endless void of adult living once more to unleash upon you all my list of my favorite albums from the past year. The list is, mayhap, not quite so extensive as it was in years past, and this is due in no small part to the ever-decreasing amount of listening time that I have. Couple this with the expanding number of albums that draw my interest, and the end result is many albums that I only heard once or twice and then moved on to something that better captured my attention.

Before we move on to the list, here are a few other things from the past year that I greatly enjoyed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MANIPULATE — “MANIPULATE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 062016
 

Manipulate-Becoming Madness

 

February 12, 2016, is the date set for release of a new EP by NYC’s Manipulate. Entitled Becoming Madness, it’s a six-track beatdown coming from Flatspot Records, and today we’re bringing you a track that shares the band’s name and closes the EP.

Manipulate’s members have paid their dues in a lot of other bands, and what they’ve brought to this EP is a knack for blending grim and heavy metal riffs and bone-crunching, skin-flaying hardcore intensity. “Manipulate” is a good example — it’s full of fire and fury, and it will leave you black and blue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FALL — “EVER HOLLOW”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 062016
 

Fall-Insatiable Weakness

 

(TheMadIsraeli introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by Texas-based Fall.)

So Fall is a band that should definitely have your attention. It’s progressive melodic death metal that’s compelling, technical, intensely brutal and jarring, yet also emotive. We’ll be streaming the band’s debut album The Insatiable Weakness come the 19th, a week before the record’s release, but I couldn’t go until then without some kind of a tease, in addition to the band’s other two other singles, which speak for themselves. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST FROM GRANT SKELTON

 LISTMANIA 2015  12 Responses »
Jan 062016
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(Here’s NCS contributor Grant Skelton’s year-end list of 2015 favorites. It includes still more releases that haven’t appeared on our many previous lists.)

Since I’m likely the most verbose writer on this site, I’ve decided to keep my descriptions of my favorites of 2015 brief. In the interest of fairness, I also chose to omit any albums I previously reviewed. I don’t review albums I don’t love. But in the interest of not repeating myself, I left reviewed albums out.

For my money, doom consistently delivered the best albums of 2015. Certainly my tastes seem to be changing as I get older. Thrash and death will always be pet genres for me. But this year was (mostly) about 3 things: Slow. Loud. Heavy.

Without further delay, here are my favorite albums of 2015. My standard for what makes an album a contender for “best” is simple — I want to listen to the entire album in its entirety without skipping a single track. The albums in this list did just that. Continue reading »

BORKNAGAR: “WINTER THRICE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  21 Responses »
Jan 062016
 

Borknagar-Winter Thrice

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new tenth studio album by Borknagar.)

Show of hands, how many of you have heard of Theseus’ paradox? A few of you? Good to know.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it refers to questions of identity and continuity, and whether an object can be considered to be the same entity even after all its component parts have been steadily replaced over time, piece by piece.

Now, obviously, there are some parallels here with how bands work. I can tick off a number of names in my head of some of my favourite bands who no longer have any original members left and yet are still, in some ephemeral fashion, the same band.

Prog-Metal overlords Borknagar, of course, have something of an advantage in this area in that their existence has always been anchored (to stretch the nautical metaphor a little further) by the presence of mastermind Øystein G. Brun, but it only takes a quick glance at the Membership Timeline on the band’s Wikipedia page to see how many different members and line-ups the group have gone through over the years, while somehow still retaining the same creative drive and overarching musical identity that first brought the band together.

So perhaps it’s fitting that the line-up featured on Winter Thrice represents perhaps more distinct incarnations of the band at one time than ever before… reaching right back to their earliest days, while still forging boldly, progressively forward. Continue reading »

A FEAST BEYOND ART 2015 (A YEAR-END LIST BY SEMJAZA OF THY DARKENED SHADE)

 LISTMANIA 2015  9 Responses »
Jan 052016
 

Thy Darkened Shade art

 

(Once again we invited Semjaza, the main man behind the superb Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade, to share with us his lists of favorite releases from 2015, and we thank him for doing so.)

No need for a truly lengthy introduction since this is my second list at No Clean Singing, but here is the music that I enjoyed most during 2015.

There is much great music and too little time, therefore, lock yourselves in your home, listen, buy, and play music (read and meditate as well). Then, go outside in the wilderness for more inspiration, away from the vermin and towards the black earth.

I will hereby present my eleven most important albums of 2015, along with some other ones that I cherished this year. Apart from my ultimate best album, which is “The Book of Souls” by Iron Maiden, there is no particular order in the following list. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9)

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015  7 Responses »
Jan 052016
 

Abigail Williams-The Accuser

 

Welcome to the 9th Part of our evolving list of 2015’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. To listen to the other songs that have preceded the two I’m adding today, go here.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

As we forge brazenly ahead into the first month of the new year, we still have two year-end 2015 series in progress. Earlier today I posted one of our year-end lists, actually a combination of lists, prepared by the members of Amiensus.

I’ve been posting those lists in the order received, and it happens that today, in that order, was the day for the ones from Amiensus. And in that list, the band’s vocalist James Benson named “Will Wish and Desire” as his top metal song of the year. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: YEAR-END LISTS FROM MEMBERS OF AMIENSUS

 LISTMANIA 2015  7 Responses »
Jan 052016
 

Amiensus-2

 

We have been steadfast fans of Minnesota’s Amiensus for years, and so we are very pleased to bring you year-end lists from four of the band’s members.

These lists include metal, of course, but also albums from other genres as well , and two of the members have also listed some favorite individual songs.

If you haven’t heard the music of Amiensus before, go HERE and get acquainted (they’re on Facebook at this location). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SACROCURSE, NORTHLESS, LAMBS, AND COLD COLOURS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 042016
 

Sacrocurse-Destroying ChapelsNorthless-Cold Migration
 

Lambs-Betrayed From BirthCold Colours-The Pale Heart
 

Before we get to the new music, now that the holidays are over I thought I’d check in and give you a forecast of what lies ahead at our site in the first full week of the new year.

As you may have noticed already today, we’re still in LISTMANIA 2015 mode. I haven’t counted how many year-end lists we’ve posted already, but it’s a big number. However, we have more coming, and since I’ve seen them, I can tell you that we still haven’t exhausted all the great releases that 2015 brought our way. My plan is to post two new lists every day this week, and here are some of the authors whose lists will be in that group, including musicians, members of our own staff, and other invited guests:

Amiensus (the band)
Semjaza Shade (Thy Darkened Shade)
Spectral Lore (the band)
Professor D. Grover the XIIIth
Grant Skelton
DGR
TheMadIsraeli Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOUNDED GIANT (BOBBY JAMES)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 042016
 

Wounded Giant - 1

 

(Comrade Aleks somehow snuck into our own backyard and interviewed Bobby James, vocalist/guitarist of Seattle’s Wounded Giant.)

As it seems that I’ve managed to escape from the Italian doom mafia, I had some time to reveal something new for our loyal readers who have enough patience for slow and heavy stuff. Wounded Giant came from Seattle (Hey! Islander! Is it true?!), and they are about slow, dark, heavy, and a bit psychedelic horror doom metal.

Drums are played by Alex Bytnar, bass is played by Dylan A. Rogers, and Bobby James displays fantastic skill singing and playing the guitar at the same time. What does he sing about? About Clive Barker sadistic nightmares, Lovecraftian horrors, and other things that mostly lie between those two mentioned above. So Bobby is here, and he has something to say. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries