OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AZIMUT, ONUS VITAE, HAINTGROVE, FLEHMEN POSITION, APHONIC THRENODY, CABINET, STAIN, MAGEFA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 202026
 

(written by Islander)

Just like this same time last week, I’m feeling overwhelmed by the volume of new music I want to recommend, and just like last week I’m resorting to some shortcuts so as to pack more into this column. It’s usually called SEEN AND HEARD, but you’ll probably understand why I change the title on Saturdays like this one.

I suppose it’s up for debate whether I’m really doing a favor to bands when the collection is this large. Maybe if I just focused on the usual four or six selections, more people would listen to all of it. Maybe most listeners won’t make it to the end or will skip over some of the music. But if I leave out something, it’s guaranteed that no one will find their way to it through their visits here. (Of course, I’m not vain enough to believe that coming here is the only way anyone discovers music.)

There’s probably no right answer, only doing what feels right in the moment. So, off we go…. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DISTORTED REFLECTION

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 192026
 

(In late February the Greek doom metal band Distorted Reflection released their second full-length through Iron Shield Records, and that led our Comrade Aleks to contact the band’s founder and guitarist/vocalist Kostas Salomidis for an interview, which we are happy to share with you today.)

Distorted Reflection was created by Kostas Salomidis, guitarist and co-founder of one of the first Greek doom metal bands, Sorrows Path. Kostas left his first band in 2022 due to creative differences, and the newly formed traditional doom outift, Distorted Reflection, released their debut, Doom Rules Eternally, two years later. The second full-length, Doom Zone, was recorded by Kostas, again with Vangelis Yal (bassist for prog metal band Fragile Vastness) and new drummer Thomas Zen.

Kostas performs not only as a guitarist but also as a vocalist now, and by the second album, he has made progress in his new role. For better or worse, Doom Zone’s eleven tracks fit into 38 minutes, and within this framework, Distorted Reflection offer a slightly revised formula of the first album. This collection of tracks, built on the foundations of doom and heavy metal, is energetic in spirit and filled with melodic themes that, despite their richness, are remarkably compact.

Let’s try to catch a glimpse in Distorted Reflection with Kostas himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEWARE OF GODS — “SECONDARY DROWNING”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 112026
 

(written by Islander)

“BEWARE OF GODS!” With little doubt, someone has been yelling that warning ever since human beings first conceived of divinities, but with little apparent success. The Minneapolis-based project whose music is the subject of this premiere brandishes that warning in its very name, while simultaneously crafting mythic lyrical and musical narratives that seem to teach other lessons as well — often in exceedingly scary terms.

We’ve had occasion to spread the word about Beware of Gods before, but a few reminders are probably worthwhile. It’s the solo project of a creator known as The Archetype, and has been devoted to the unfolding of a mythos centered on a protagonist called I Nomad — a dystopian cosmic mythos too be sure, but one that provides a mirror to quite human experiences of personal collapse, addiction, and rebirth, influenced by The Archetype’s own near-death experience and long recovery.

The latest Beware of Gods record is Behead the Oracle, the third and final installment in a musical arc named Upon Whom The Last Light Descends, and it’s set for release on July 10th by Invoke Records. As the label explains, it “completes a sprawling narrative about false prophets, algorithmic gods, and the collapse of meaning in a hyper-controlled future.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ILLWIND — “LUCIFER’S MULE”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 022026
 

(written by Islander)

Ill winds usually blow no one any good, or so the old saying goes, though in its earliest expression (before the meaning morphed) the writer John Heywood actually suggested that a wind unlucky for one person would bring good fortune to another. In the case of the Peruvian band Illwind, they have brought good fortune indeed through their debut album The Unfolding at the End of Light, which will be released on July 3rd by Personal Records.

Almost anyone who has come across the circulating press materials for the album is bound to be intrigued. For one thing, they disclose that the Illwind quartet includes members of such bands as Reino Ermitaño, Cobra, Arcada, and Argul. For another thing, the music is described as having an “idiosyncratic personality”, one steeped in aspects of traditional doom but also branching out in unexpected directions — such as closing the record with a cover of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”.

And then there’s this: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SLOW GOAT — “LOVE LIKE WATER”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  4 Responses »
May 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Clear your mind and then open it for something that’s a bit off the usual beaten paths around this site, but is still plenty heavy and cloaked in darkness (and frankly, a hell of a lot of neck-wrecking fun to hear and see).

What we’re talking about is the band Slow Goat and the song and video we’re premiering to help spread the word about their debut album Where the Wisest Fear to Tread, which is now set for release on July 10th. To help prepare for the experience, consider these words lifted from a press release we received:

Gamy riffs cut from the flank of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Oregon’s Slow Goat peddles in the heavy and the psychedelic, with fuzzed-out jams thick enough to chew on, all anchored by clear and commanding vocals that drift between ethereal and feral. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INFERNO, SCARAB, A BAND OF ORCS, EX CINERE, IEROFANIA, [4672], BEWARE OF GODS, THE DEVIL AND THE ALMIGHTY BLUES, STYGIAN BOUGH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 022026
 

(written by Islander)

My selections today were guided by strong memories, many of them quite distant and others more recent. And the music below is strong enough to make new memories. I’ll explain as we go along.

P.S. Be forewarned: There’s more than a little singing in this Saturday’s collection, especially in the closing segments, and it’s all very good! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FURNACE, RAKINUA, SEA SLEEPER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 252026
 

(written by Islander)

Friday nights inexorably flow into Saturday mornings. There is also a cause-and-effect relationship between them. For many of us, Friday nights tend to be a time for “blowing off steam” after the work week, though my history of them has often been more like arson, with my own self as the target. Realizing through painful experience that I am not flame-retardant, I don’t ignite myself on Friday nights as much as I used to. But the cause-and-effect relationship persists.

Late yesterday afternoon my spouse and I began crossing the water to Seattle to attend a celebration of a friend and former colleague’s 10th year of recovery from being struck by a Seattle emergency vehicle through no fault of her own, an event that nearly killed her and inflicted a severe traumatic brain injury. Her long, gradual recovery defied all medical prognoses. She still has deficits compared to who she was before the accident, but looking back over the last 10 years, what she has achieved through pure strength of will has been astonishing.

It was a great gathering of herself, her family, and her friends, not just locally but from around the country. But we forgot about the ferry schedule, missed a 10 pm sailing back to where we live, and waited around the ferry terminal with a bunch of other exhaused and/or wasted people ’til the next one left after midnight. By the time I got home and to bed, the clock was not far away from 2 am. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): URLUK — “MEMORIES IN FADE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 092026
 

(written by Islander)

Last month we published an interview by our Comrade Aleks with the two members (U. and M.) of the Italian band Urluk, focusing on their new album Memories In Fade. Aleks introduced it with an explanation that although the band had remained true to their haunted lyrical themes, the music has changed direction significantly as compared to their last album More. Urluk’s U. acknowledged the change, commenting in the interview that “[t]he atmosphere surrounding Urluk today is less about aggression and more about reflection, decay, and memory — things slowly dissolving rather than burning violently.”

In the interview, the band’s members provided further insights into their music’s evolution from the doomed black metal of their last album. As U. described, “Memories In Fade draws from a broad palette: Post Black, Gothic Rock, post-punk atmospheres, touches of Dream Pop, and even hints of 60s folk-blues. Keyboards play a larger role this time, sometimes creating that bittersweet, almost life-affirming melancholy reminiscent of Type O Negative.”

What we have for you today is a full stream of this very interesting new album in advance of its April 10 release by Pest Records. Before we get to our own thoughts about it, let’s share one more excerpt from the interview which compares the new album with the one before it:

Conceptually, the albums are connected, but musically they stand quite far apart. More was still deeply rooted in black metal — dense, abrasive, and very direct in its emotional expression. Memories in Fade feels like the aftermath. If More was about the weight of experience, this new record is about the residue it leaves behind: fading memories, nostalgia, and the strange calm that follows turmoil. The sound has become softer in some ways, yet more vulnerable. Continue reading »

DIE LIKE GENTLEMEN: “DIE LIKE GENTLEMEN”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 092026
 

(This is DGR’s review of the swan-song release by Die Like Gentlemen from Portland, Oregon. The eye-catching cover artwork is a painting circa 1910 called “The Drinker” by German artist Erich Plontke.)

Many, many moons ago, in an era before space and time, when the world was just an idea in the eyes of the gods, we published an interview with Portland, Oregon’s Die Like Gentlemen.

That’s it, just wanted to check in and point people to an interesting interview we did about five years ago as we have some new readers on the site and sometimes it is nice to highlight the fact that we’ve been publishing stuff for a while at this point and there are plenty of rabbit holes to fall down. You can go about your day from here.

Actually, here’s the thing. While diving around the underground world and exploring music I saw the name and cover art for Die LIke Gentlemen’s recent self-titled – and apparently final – album go floating by and it must’ve re-lit some incredibly old neurons in my brain because it is one of the few times where I found myself doing the CSI detective thing of tapping the desk and going “why do I know this, why do I recognize this, why is this familiar?” over and over until I would soon discover that the primary suspect was well… us.

For some reason, be it the name, excellent choice of outfits, or the fact that I do make a valiant attempt to scroll through everything here, that previously mentioned interview for Die Like Gentlemen stuck with me enough that years later I would find myself very interested and intrigued by the group’s newest release, the self-titled Die Like Gentlemen, at four songs and nearly forty-minutes of prog-metal weird and avante-garde doom exploration at its most adventurous. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARIA OF COPPER MOUNTAINS — “КОЛЫБЕЛЬНАЯ (LULLABY)”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 032026
 

(written by Islander)

We have made a startling new discovery through the song we’re about to premiere, a discovery of the Russian atmospheric black metal band Maria Of Copper Mountains. Now we know that the band was founded in the Southern Urals in 2022 by the extraordinary vocalist Maria Azanova, who is accompanied on the band’s debut album by instrumentalist Nikita Sapogov.

The song we’re about to present through a lyric video is one of seven on the duo’s debut album В чёрны омуты (Into The Black Whirlpools), which will be co-released on April 16th by Satanath Records and Afterlight Records. The song’s name is “Колыбельная (Lullaby)“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries