SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: LAUDARE, SHEVILS, DEATH PARADE, AETHERIAN, VANISHING EARTH, BRED FOR SLAUGHTER, MERIDIAN VEIL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 142026
 

(written by Islander)

Weeks that end on Friday the 13th include just as much metal hub-bub as weeks ending on a Bandcamp Friday. Most superstitious people view those days as unlucky (an example of triskaidekaphobia!), but metalheads tend to be contrary by nature and so Fridays the 13th are to be celebrated. It’s not so much a rejection of superstition as a turning of it on its head.

I guess it’s a good thing that the next Friday the 13th won’t happen until August 13, 2027, and that will be the only one next year (we had three of them this year!), because the flood of new metal that happens in such weeks makes it hard for people like me to keep up. It has certainly complicated my choices for this usual Saturday column, especially because it followed an immediately preceding Bandcamp Friday, which always produces its own flood of new music.

I had so many things I wanted to recommend last weekend that I had to leave some of them by the wayside. Usually when that happens I don’t pick them up at a later point and instead just move on. But for today’s roundup I decided to start off with three songs I didn’t have time enough to write about last weekend and then move on to four that I discovered this past week, for a lucky total of seven, which is also a happy number. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THE GREAT SEA, RAT KING, OREAMNOS , PROFANE ALTAR, VORLUST, HAGEL

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Nov 072026
 

(written by Islander)

I’ve been seeing the word “tsunami” a lot this week. I assume it’s because yesterday was a Bandcamp Friday, which always provokes a flood of new music and a typhoon of traffic in our in-box from bands and labels trying to take advantage of Bandcamp’s relinquishment of their revenue share. I dunno, maybe there was another reason. I’ll have to investigate.

I kept pretty good track of all the new music I wanted to check out in preparation for this regular weekend roundup. My spouse has been away from home visiting her favorite sister and so I spent a lot of time yesterday making my way through that big list of possibilities.

After much mental backing-and-forthing I came up with six picks for today, including a pair of EPs, while still leaving a lot of candidates for the usual Sunday column tomorrow. Continue reading »

HALLOWEEN ’26: A PLAYLIST OF SCARY AND HAUNTING EXTREME METAL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 042026
 

(Our Italian friend Tito Vespasiani has brought us a Halloween-themed playist of extreme metal songs, both very new and somewhat older, from nine bands, which he introduces one-by-one in the following column. He’s got the collection up on Spotify too.)

Hello folks! It’s external contributor Tito V. here again. Long time no see. It’s been a while since my last playlist for No Clean Singing and I decided to come swinging with a new one suitable for this time of the year… haunting and eerie tunes only!

I know, there may be TONS more deserving to be added here. From zombies to monsters of all sorts, passing through ghastly guitar tones and more scary tunes, but we wanna keep this “fairly” short in order to be able to check it out properly and revisit it, alright. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: BAEST, SERPENT, GORMA, FORTRIU, DAWN OF SOLACE, HOLY DEATH, GEISTERFAUST, BELTEZ

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 012026
 

(written by Islander)

We all know that expectations can be disappointed even when the expected person is dependable. You probably expected a roundup of new songs and videos here yesterday, especially because it was Halloween, maybe even a grab-bag of horror videos. What you got instead was the premiere of an album whose themes had nothing remotely to do with Halloween.

What you’ll get today is the roundup you were probably expecting yesterday instead of the usual SHADES OF BLACK column, which I suppose is another dashed expectation. Rest assured that this collection does include some black metal, but overall it will be more cross-genre in its scope.

As usual, the choices were difficult because there was so much to choose from. With Friday being devil’s night and Saturday being Halloween, metal bands and labels really loaded up the week with new stuff. Hope you enjoy the picks I struggled to make. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOLGOTHAN REMAINS, LENG TCH’E, MENTOR, DEMIURGO, VĀMĀCĀRA, VERET

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 242026
 

(written by Islander)

I made life difficult for myself this week. Well, don’t we all? I did it by carefully creating an enormous list of new music that I’d spotted in various ways but failing to listen to more than a small fraction of it until this morning — and now time is running out for me to finish this column.

That list turned out to include a lot of surprises — surprise releases from bands I knew and fantastic discoveries from bands I knew nothing about. I’ve included surprises of both kinds in what you’ll find below. But given the time predicament I created for myself, I’ve been forced to resort to a “cheat” to get it finished: Specifically, the last three selections today are complete records (two albums and an EP) that I think are excellent (and surprising), but all I’m going to do is focus mainly on just one song from each of them and hope that will be enough to pull you in. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEYOND GRACE, MISERY INDEX, ARTIFICIAL BRAIN, OPHIS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 232026
 

(written by Islander)

What are the odds? For the second week in a row one of our Friday premieres fell through at the 11th hour, leaving a hole in our schedule and free time I didn’t expect to have.

As usual when these things happen, I have pivoted to pull together a roundup of new songs and videos, getting a bit of a head start on the usual Saturday column. All four of the following choices are from bands who are proven favorites around here (and elsewhere). Tomorrow I’ll focus more on new discoveries. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM, DÄMMERUNG, KORPSESOTURI, SONIC MOON, HVRT, FAKE DUST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 172026
 

(written by Islander)

I slept for a very long time last night. This is becoming more common on Friday nights. One key factor is that I’m convincing my restless mind that I don’t have to roll out these Saturday roundups as soon as I used to. I can sleep late instead, having realized that the world won’t end if this column arrives near mid-day in my time zone. Our weekend visitors will catch up when they can, or so I tell myself.

I did succeed in making almost all of today’s choices yesterday. The one exception, which comes last in the order, arrived via a recommendation I saw this morning that I couldn’t ignore. I’ll explain when we get there. The five bands that lead up to it are significantly different from each other in the music they make. Which is to say, I’m again satisfied that this collection will keep your head on a swivel as you move from one to the next, and maybe it will spin all the way off! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EXTOL, AETHERIAN, ARONIOUS, NIDARE

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Oct 162026
 

(written by Islander)

On almost all weekdays for many years I have committed to make either two track premieres or an EP premiere or an album premiere. Sometimes there is a day off because of some late-stage mishap (never my own, of course), as there was on Tuesday of this week, and sometimes we either receive only one invitation for a track premiere or only one that we’re happy to accept (believe it or not, I do turn down invitations when I can’t enthusiastically recommend a song).

Today was one of those rare days when I only calendared a single song premiere. And so, as on Tuesday, I had a bit of time to use for catching up with new songs and picking a few to recommend in another rare weekday roundup. Barring some kind of unexpected interference I will have more to recommend, as usual, on Saturday and Sunday. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: RADIANT KNIFE, NIHILO, ANCESTROS, GNULL, SUNDOWNER, GHÂSIQIN

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Oct 132026
 

(written by Islander)

We’ve had a couple of reviews today that are well worth reading — DGR’s take on Behemoth’s new compilation and Andy Synn’s writing about the fantastic new album from Great Falls. I was supposed to prepare the premiere of a full album stream for today as well, but that fell through because the band jumped the gun without warning to the label or me. So, I decided to use the unexpected free time to pull together this roundup.

As you may know, I didn’t write the usual weekend columns last weekend due to being on a short vacation in Eastern Washington with my spouse and some good friends. Fortunately, Andy filled the void with two review collections on Saturday and Sunday (here and here, in case you missed them).

Because I didn’t plan to do anything myself, I have a ton of possible roundup selections that had accumulated before last weekend, and even more now. With not enough time to attempt any kind of comprehensive survey, I resorted to impulse in making the choices. Fortunately, impulse control isn’t one of my strong suits. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSCVRE SER, ASSUMPTION, RISE ABOVE DEAD, VOID SECTOR ZERO, ACÉDIA, DISFEAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 032026
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday was another Bandcamp Friday, when the platform waives its revenue share so that artists and labels can take in more money from their sales. There will be two more of those this year, on November 6th and December 4th.

In deciding what music to recommend in this column I nearly didn’t pay any attention to our in-box for the last two days, because I knew it would be flooded with messages from people trying to take advantage of the Friday benefit (and to be clear, I don’t blame them a bit). I already had plenty of possibilities from preceding days this week and last week.

But I wound up wading through the flood anyway, and fielding recommendations from assorted other people online. I didn’t listen to everything I listed for myself, because if I had, it would already be Sunday. But I listened enough to make the choices difficult. Here’s where I came down. I hope you’ll enjoy the picks. Continue reading »

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