Islander, Author at NO CLEAN SINGING

Islander

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RETURN FROM THE GRAVE (JACOPO SEMENZATO)

Oct 202015

(Comrade Aleks presents this interview with Jacopo Semenzato, vocalist of the Venician band Return From the Grave. All photos are by Maria Doglioni.)

Return From The Grave is a good name for a band performing any heavy music, and doom isn’t an exception. Darkness, raw soil beneath the tombstone, chill air, and the moan of the dead walking through graveyard… This name gives enough freedom for your imagination.

Same with this band from the amazing Italian city of Venice, one of the most bloody romantic places in the world. Return From The Grave play damned heavy stuff. They call it rock, I see there powerful doom rock. What will you see? The only thing that matters – if you dig it or do not.

You can check the second album Gates of Nowhere of this remarkable band, and it could be enough for you. But if you’d like to look deeper into the chemistry of Return From The Grave chemistry, then you’re welcome to dose — because here’s an interview with Jacopo Semenzato (vocals). Continue reading »

ENSHINE: “SINGULARITY”

Album Reviews 8 Responses »

Oct 202015

(DGR reviews the new album by Enshine.)

Jari Lindholm is one of those musicians who surrounds himself with incredible talent, having been involved now in a handful of projects over the years and beginning to find himself having multiple releases within one year. Two of the projects that he is a part of are two-man melo-doom groups. Though they lie on different sides of a very finite spectrum, both are still playing a brand of ethereal doom that has always felt decidedly European, even as more groups in North America seem to be mastering it recently.

The first release of these two-man collaborations hit earlier this year, with Exgenesis releasing its first EP in the form of the soul-crushing bleakness of Aphotic Veil. Exgenesis sees Lindholm paired with musician Alejandro Lotero for a project that spans a pretty good chunk of the globe. Continue reading »

THE INFERNAL SEA: “THE GREAT MORTALITY”

Album Reviews 11 Responses »

Oct 192015

(Andy Synn reviews the second album by UK band The Infernal Sea.)

To say I’ve been champing at the bit to get hold of a copy of this album would be a severe understatement. To my mind The Infernal Sea are, without a doubt, one of the finest, filthiest, most utterly ferocious bands currently prowling this green and pleasant land of mine, having spent the last six years spreading their virulent strain of grim ‘n’ gritty Black Metal like a veritable Biblical plague.

However, as good as their previous releases (one full-length album, one EP, and two splits) were, it still always felt to me like the band’s full potential had yet to be realised, and multiple exposures to the band’s contagious brand of blackened intensity in the live arena only served to solidify this feeling.

Praise Satan then that the band’s second album, The Great Mortality, is exactly the sort of near-perfect realisation of their sound and vision that we’ve all been waiting for, fulfilling all the band’s nascent promise… and then some! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NACHTLIEDER — “LONELY MORTAL” AND “EVE”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Oct 192015

Photo by Åsa Hagström

The Female of the Species is the second album by the Swedish one-woman black metal band Nachtlieder, due for release on December 7 via the always interesting I, Voidhanger label. What we have for you today is a somewhat unusual premiere of music from the album — featuring two songs instead of one.

These two songs — “Lonely Mortal” and “Eve” — appear back-to-back as the fourth and fifth tracks on the album. And they will give you a sense of how the music flows within the album, and of the contrasts that Nachtlieder has created. After you hear them, you may conclude that the peaceful, self-reflective quality of the photo on the album cover is a misdirection. Continue reading »

WITCH MOUNTAIN — SHOW REVIEW AND INTERVIEW (KAYLA DIXON)

Concert Reviews, Interviews 8 Responses »

Oct 192015

(Grant Skelton provides both an audio stream of his recent interview with Witch Mountain vocalist Kayla Dixon and a review of their show in Memphis on October 7.)

Witch Mountain are currently on the Blackest Of The Black Tour with Veil Of Maya, Prong, Superjoint, and Danzig. Prior to the band’s set at Minglewood Hall in Memphis on October 7, I had an opportunity to sit down with the band’s new vocalist, Kayla Dixon. We discussed vocal training, the band’s cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sleeping Village”, and progress on the band’s next album. Stream the interview here on Soundcloud, courtesy of Local X Radio (localxradio.com): Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NYX — “GOING ON”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Oct 192015

October 30 is the date set by Agonia Records for the release of Home, the debut album by a German duo (Blitz and Vinterbarn) who call themselves NYX. We’re helping introduce you to NYX through our North American premiere of a song from the album called “Going On”.

The backbone of this creative, multifaceted song is made from black metal, but it reveals other musical ingredients as well — and the overall effect of the music is dark, unsettling, and very engrossing. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (EDGE OF SANITY)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 12 Responses »

Oct 182015

I didn’t get into metal until much later in life than most of the people who are reading these words. My education came as a result of my own exploration, but equally as a result of getting schooled by commenters at this site. And I hate to tell you this, but comments never go away — my web host has a searchable database of all of them for the last 6 years. And so I can tell you precisely the date when I first saw the name Edge of Sanity: It was July 30, 2010, and it came via a comment from one of our earliest and most frequent commenters, an old friend who called himself ElvisShotJFK.

I had posted a review of Wolvhammer’s debut album Black Marketeers of World War III in which I named a few bands as reference points for the music on the album, including Entombed. After ElvisShotJFK commented that Entombed had been a gateway band into heavier music when he was younger, I replied that Entombed “must have been particularly stunning to hear when they were fresh and so different from most metal that surrounded them.” And he then wrote: Continue reading »

NEPAL DEATHFEST!

Metal News 1 Response »

Oct 172015

The small Himalayan nation of Nepal has experienced a staggering onslaught of natural disasters this year, with devastating earthquakes last spring that took more than 9,000 lives and injured many others. Yet the Nepalese are clearly a resilient people — including those in the community of metal. I’ve been fortunate to get to know some of those people via the internet, including Aabeg Gautam of Dying Out Flame, and through him I’ve learned of a metal festival in Nepal that I wanted to do my own small part to help publicize.

The festival is called Nepal Deathfest, and the third edition of the event is now scheduled to take place on January 22-23, 2016, in the capital city of Kathmandu. The second day of the festival will feature the long-running German death metal band Fleshcrawl as the headliner, and the Japanese noise/grind band Sete Star Sept will headline Day 1. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FOREFATHER, CHRIST AGONY, VELDES, THIRD REICH SATAN’S THRONE, MORODH

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 11 Responses »

Oct 172015

Here, once again, is a collection of recent musical discoveries in a blackened vein that I’ve been enjoying — and I hope you’ll enjoy them, too. As is often the case, I’ve filtered what I’ve found to provide a diverse playlist, and I’ve found so much that I’ve divided this Shades of Black installment into two parts. Part Two will arrive tomorrow. Or possibly the day after (I’m going to a late show tonight, and that tends to play havoc with the morning after.)

I’ve had to make some compromises in this two-part post. In some cases, I’m featuring full-album or full-EP streams despite the fact that in some cases I haven’t had a chance to listen carefully to every song. Ideally, I would wait and do that and then write a thorough review. But I’m able to write so few reviews while doing everything else I need to do for the site that it’s safer to feature the music this way rather than risk omitting it altogether. I’m just facing reality.

So here we go… and don’t expect this is all going to sound the same. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PANOPTICON, DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT AND GNAW THEIR TONGUES, BLOOD FOLKE, REGNVM ANIMALE, SECOND TO SUN, BLOODHUNTER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Oct 162015

As I explained in a previous round-up today, I managed to find some time to catch up on new things yesterday. The previous round-up focused on album announcements with artwork (and one very good new song), and in this one I’ve collected some new music streams plus one older one that has really gotten under my skin. Lots of music in here, but I hope you’ll give all of it at least a test drive.

PANOPTICON

I was one of the fortunate few who got an advance listen to Panopticon’s new album Autumn Eternal, and therefore I had my say about it in July (here). I won’t repeat or attempt to summarize that review, except to say that this is one of my favorite albums of the year. And today, everyone else gets to hear it, too — because it’s now available for streaming (and purchase) on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

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