(written by Islander)
I did enough listening over the last couple of days to make the usual difficult choices for this Saturday roundup, but other activities prevented me from getting a head-start on the writing. Those same activities last night caused me to oversleep this morning, so this is arriving much later in the day than is ideal. And because I’m late, that’s the end of this introduction. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in the details.
What you’re about to hear is a song called “Street General“. Its lyrical protagonist is an evil force, a leader of killers who stalk the streets at night in search of innocent souls to destroy.
The song as a whole is also evil to the core, a generally high-speed death/thrashing attack with murder on its mind, but with the kind of multi-faceted dynamism calculated to keep listeners on the edge of their shaking seats (and to start heads spinning). Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
My spouse and I are going to an early lunch with a friend we’ve known for… ahem… decades. She’s always a ton of fun to be with, but the timing’s not great for this column. I had added dozens of new songs and complete releases arriving over the past week that I intended to check out. And I didn’t get a head-start yesterday because I spend a chunk of the afternoon and early evening watching a Mariners baseball game that was… ahem… dispiriting. Don’t ask me why I did that, because I knew our opponents were very good and the odds were very high that my team would… ahem… suck (again).
Anyway, I had a lot of hard choices to make this morning and a rapidly vanishing amount of time in which to make them and then peck out some thoughts. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with more new music for the usual Sunday collection. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
I have mixed feelings about the Fourth of July, probably a result of living through wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan in which U.S. government officials wrapped themselves in the flag, exalted themselves with military fly-overs, and belched “patriotic” rhetoric while lying to citizens and sending their children overseas to be maimed and die, and using the flag and that same distorted rhetoric in many other contexts to cudgel their political opponents and try to silence dissent.
The feelings are even more mixed on this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as we see the legacy stained by a megalomaniacal old man with the moral compass of a snake who has attempted to co-opt the anniversary and turn it into a celebration of himself. He rages, foments rage, and has prepared for the arrival of this milestone anniversary with a daily dose of hatred, division, and dementia. He maliciously erodes our democracy instead of protecting it, “seeing it as a hindrance to his lust for untrammeled power and cash grabs” [as one writer put it today].
On the other hand, I still revere the revolutionary ideals set forth in the Declaration, respect the best parts of the country’s history in which people sought to make them a reality, and hope for better days ahead. I also enjoy fireworks and parades and eating and drinking to excess with family and friends. If you have such plans today, I hope you have an abundance of fun (and I hope you wake up tomorrow with all 10 fingers still intact).
But I know you didn’t come here to read about my mixed feelings concerning the Fourth. As you’ll easily guess, I don’t have mixed feelings about the new songs and videos I’ve collected for today’s roundup, but recommend them whole-heartedly. (Heyo! How’s that for a transition?) Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Sometimes we lead off these roundups with shiny lures (bands whose names are well known) to attract hungry fish (you), in the hope that the fish will get hooked by something sharp hanging below in darker waters. That’s what I’ve done today, though to be clear, I was also attracted by the lures.
(Note to self: don’t use the fishing analogy again since you haven’t gone fishing in decades and the only lures you used were worms.)
The lures are themselves quite different from each other, and so are the lesser-known hooks, and altogether they provide a lot of listening (and viewing) pleasure. Be forewarned: there’s a bit of singing in the mix until you get to the end — when there’s a lot of it (and extraordinary singing it is). Continue reading »
(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 »
(written by Islander)
I went whole-hog with my listening hours yesterday. Like a pig in a trough, I gobbled up so many good songs that I picked 9 of them for today’s roundup. As gluttonous as that was, I easily could have added a lot more, even after pushing a lot of the black metal to tomorrow’s column. And then this morning DGR alerted me to another one that would make 10. But something has to give, because I didn’t start writing yesterday.
Instead of starting to write, I went to see “Disclosure Day” in its first screening at our local theater. Afterward, my head was disturbed by conflicting thoughts about the movie, so to settle down I went to our local sports bar (by myself, because my spouse is out of town). It was packed with howling soccer fans watching the U.S. team. Not being a soccer fan I only watched bits and pieces of that, but mainly tried to focus on the Seattle Mariners’ drubbing of the Washington Nationals.
My focus was frequently interrupted not only by the explosive howls around me but also by a lot of fun conversations (and one very serious one) with people on either side of me at the bar. I stayed way too long, had one too many cocktails, and am paying the price this morning.
I can’t spend any time agonizing over what to do with these 10 song picks or I’ll never finish this thing, and what a tragedy that would be! So I’m just going to start and see what happens. In an effort to cram as much in here as I can before I give up, I’m resorting to the kind of time-saving shortcuts I’ve used in similar situations before. I hope you’ll find time to check out everything. Continue reading »
(In 2021 Ryan Dyer made his NCS debut touting the insanity of one-man bands in China, followed that by trumpeting the destructiveness of Calgary’s Whorrify, and then returned to the Chinese scene with a review of an EP by Horror of Pestilence. After an extended absence he’s back, and again focused on the Chinese underground.)
The Underground in China: Metal, Punk, Hardcore and Noise (2013-2021) showcases bands across the spectrum of genres in China. I have handpicked ten of the more extreme bands found within the book to showcase here. To learn about 90+ more, pick up The Underground in China, releasing on June 12 via Earth Island Books (see the link at the end of this feature). Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
I am lucky, because every day brings me some new surprise. Most often it’s a musical surprise, because I spend so much of my days listening to music. Even when I’m listening to a song that’s built with familiar ingredients, I sometimes get surprised by how much I like it when it’s essentially no different than something I’ve heard many times before.
Beyond that, I find surprises in conversations with my wife or friends, or in watching our brother cats, or in a movement in my peripheral vision while sitting on our deck outside — a squirrel or a bird or a deer or a raccoon clawing its way up a tree before sunrise.
A couple of mornings ago I found some very small paper-thin objects in a corner of that deck I don’t remember seeing before. Here they are: Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Here we are again, another day of difficult decisions. Even after the modest head-start I got a couple of days ago, I still found myself staring at dozens of links on my list of new songs and videos.
DGR compounded the problem by popping up two days ago with another half-dozen I hadn’t yet noticed. My fellow writers around here don’t often suggest things for this roundup (maybe they take pity on me), so when they do, I try to pay attention. Hence, half the songs in today’s collection were among DGR’s suggestions.
Two of the songs he proposed include (gasp) singing, but I knew from past experience with the bands that it would be good, even if I didn’t foresee that it would vary from what I thought I’d be hearing.
As a counterweight, I’ve filled out the post with sounds from beastly and blowtorch throats. I also made the usual effort to include a genre-variety of songs (though I pushed off a lot of the black metal to tomorrow’s column), because no one but me likes everything, do they? Continue reading »