Islander

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONAN — “REVENGEANCE”

 Premieres  10 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

Conan-band-2

 

They look so friendly, don’t they? Sitting there in front of that wall of green as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But once they put their game faces on, crank the power, and begin dropping riffs and drum beats as big as meteor strikes, it’s a different story.

I’m a relative latecomer to Conan. What really sold me was their performance at last May’s Maryland Deathfest. It may have been the heaviest set I saw at the whole festival. I certainly can’t remember any other band that delivered a more pulverizing performance. By the time they finished, I think I had something like the concert-goer’s version of PTSD. My teeth vibrate just thinking about it again.

They’ve called their music “Caveman Battle Doom”, and they’re right in this sense — Conan’s music exerts a primal appeal, as if they’ve figured out how to wake up elements of our DNA that have been dormant since the last ice age. Their new album is named Revengeance, and it’s set for release on January 29 by Napalm Records. Today we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MONOLITHE — “EPSILON AURIGAE”

 Premieres, Reviews  5 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

Monolithe-Epsilon Aurigae

 

Today is the release date of Epsilon Aurigae, the fifth album by the remarkable Parisian doom band Monolithe, and in cooperation with Debemur Morti Productions we have for you a full stream of the album.

Epsilon Aurigae is divided into three tracks — “Synoecist”, “TMA-0”, and “Everlasting Sentry” — each of them exactly 15 minutes in length. All three are massively heavy, atmospherically chilling, and ultimately spellbinding in their effect. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF THE 50 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

 LISTMANIA 2015  42 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

STEREOGUM 50 BEST METAL ALBUMS

 

Of all the year-end lists we re-post from “big platform” web sites as part of our LISTMANIA extravaganza, this is the one I most look forward to seeing. It’s Stereogum’s list of “The 50 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which was published today. I look forward to it because it’s assembled by a team of people whose opinions I respect a lot — the five guys responsible for Stereogum’s excellent Black Market column this year: Michael Nelson, Doug Moore, Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, and Wyatt Marshall.

This year’s Stereogum list is preceded by a long opinion piece — prompted in part by Disma’s removal from some metal festival line-ups — that raises the thorny and always-controversial issue of whether there are lines crossed by musicians that warrant “excommunication” of their music from our lives. Regardless of what you think about that issue, this is a good and interesting list. It includes some of whom we can safely anoint as “the usual suspects” this year, but some deep cuts as well. And I’m especially happy to see the pick at the top of the list. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

 LISTMANIA 2015  31 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Rolling Stone-20 Best Metal Albums-2015

 

As part of our continuing effort to bring you year-end “best of” lists published by selected print zines and “big platform” web sites, today we’re re-posting Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which has just appeared.

You may remember that not long ago we identified the lone metal album that appeared in Rolling Stone’s overall list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. But this list is a metal-only list, and it’s obviously a much bigger collection of names. Here’s the list: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ROTTING CHRIST, RAGNAROK, CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST, DECAPITATED, CHARM DESIGNER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Rotting Christ-Rituals

 

The end of the year is fast approaching, but the freight train of metal isn’t slowing down. Here are just a few of the things that caught my eyes and ears over the last 24 hours, sifted from my scanning of the NCS in-box and my daily dive into the interhole.

ROTTING CHRIST

I’ve probably mentioned somewhere in the dim mists of the past that Rotting Christ were the band whose music first convinced me that I needed to learn more about black metal — my first step along a musical left hand path from which I’ve never turned back. The following announcement, received yesterday, was thus an especially exciting piece of news:

On February 12, Season of Mist will release Rotting Christ’s twelfth studio album, Rituals. In addition, Stereokiller premiered the album’s first advance track, “Elthes Kyrie“, in the U.S. (it also appeared at many other sites around the world). Continue reading »

UN: “THE TOMB OF ALL THINGS”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

 

Un-The Tomb Of all Things

 

(We present Grant Skelton’s review of the debut album by Seattle-based Un.)

“All is vanity. What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun…All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it…”

  • Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, 8

Do you remember the last time you listened to an album, metal or otherwise, that you connected with? I don’t mean an album of good, or even great, music. Not something you put on as background noise. I mean music that sounds like it was written expressly for you. Have you ever heard a metal song, perhaps even without knowing the lyrics, and felt like the music was telling the story of your own life? Something so personal that you’d swear the songwriters were watching your very life and innermost thoughts? For me, Un’s debut The Tomb Of All Things is one such album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ATLANTIS CHRONICLES — “BACK TO HADATOPIA”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Atlantis Chronicles-Bartons Odyssey

 

Atlantis Chronicles may come from France, or they may come from deep beneath the waves, where they learned the stories of a lost civilization and now communicate them to us through the medium of their music. I grant you that it’s most likely they come from France, but it’s nice to imagine that the question is still an open one.

This band’s second album, Barton’s Odyssey, is still deep in the depths, surfacing slowly, projected for emergence on March 25, 2016, via Apathia Records. But we do have a glimmer of the album for you today, a song called “Back To Hadatopia” presented in the form of a lyric video. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MAMMOTH STORM (DANIEL ARVIDSSON)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Dec 092015
 
Mammoth Storm

Mammoth Storm

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us another interview, this time with Daniel Arvidsson of Sweden’s Mammoth Storm.)

Mammoth Storm is a sharp description in itself of the music this Swedish band perform. This bloody power trio from Sweden has a tight, massive sound and a solid strong line-up. Daniel Arvidsson (bass, vocals) of Draconian rides this beast with his comrades at arms Emil Ahlman (drums, organ) and Christer Ström (guitars).

The bulky creature of Mammoth Storm released its first big work Fornjot through Napalm Records one month ago and just returned from a pilgrimage they did with Ahab and High Fighter, spreading thunderous riffs and primordial rumble in chosen cities of Europe. Welcome to the antediluvian era of earthquakes, giant beasts, immense glaciers, and fires falling from the skies performed in heavy doom music. Daniel will be our guide. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLADE OF HORUS — “DESCENT INTO THE COSMIC REALM OF EVERLASTING MADNESS”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Dec 092015
 

Blade of Horus-Monumental Massacre

 

Blade of Horus have emerged from Australia with a debut album entitled Monumental Massacre that’s scheduled for release on January 29 by Lacerated Enemy Records. They enlisted the masterful Kevin Talley to record drums for the album, and as you can see, it’s also introduced by some eye-catching cover art. Today we’re helping premiere the album’s first advance track, “Descent Into the Cosmic Realm of Everlasting Madness”.

With Talley’s able assistance, Blade of Horus inflict plenty of head trauma in this new song, both the physically bludgeoning kind inflicted by pile-driving riffs and booming bass work and the kind that disrupts neural connections with deranged lead guitar excretions. And speaking of excretions, the vocal tag-team deliver an amalgam of deep growls, incinerating shrieks, and vomitous gurgles — all the better to complete the job of dismantling whatever was working normally inside your skull. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CANNIBAL CORPSE, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, DESTRÖYER 666, EXCOMMUNION, MAGRUDERGRIND, POMEGRANATE TIGER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 092015
 

Cannibal Corpse tour

 

Here’s a round-up of news, new album artwork, and a couple of new songs I spotted over the last 24 hours.

CANNIBAL CORPSE

We’ll start with some tourism news: Yesterday it was announced that Cannibal Corpse will be headlining a big North American tour that begins on February 12 and runs through March 20. And the direct support for the tour is pretty eye-popping: Obituary, Cryptopsy, and Abysmal Dawn will be along for the ride.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 11, at local and national ticket outlets. Here’s the schedule, which I copied and pasted from Blabbermouth: Continue reading »

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