SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MALTHUSIAN, UPON STONE, BEFORE THE DAWN, CASTRATOR, ENTRAILS, A CAT IN THE BRAIN, LOMMI, BOMBUS, GLUED MOUTH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 212025
 

(written by Islander)

This Saturday selection of new songs and videos provides a lot to take in, and lots of twists and turns in the musical path as you move from one to the next (which is what I hope you’ll do).

Fair warning: I’ve included a pair of songs that feature entirely clean singing, and another where singing trades off with harsher expressions. Today’s collection is also a mix of well-known bands (at least well-known to yours truly) and others that have scoured my ears for the first time this week. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ORBIT CULTURE, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM, KONTUSION, CLAIRVOYANCE, KHNVM, HEAD OF CASSANDRA, SUN AFTER DARK, VENUS STAR

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Jun 142025
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday we premiered a video for a song called “Welcome to Hell“. That title sums up the events that have dominated domestic and international news over the last few days. What fresh hell will today bring? It may be hard to foresee all the details this morning, but it’s already easy to smell the sulphur on the wind.

I picked new music and videos from 8 international bands to get our day started and help get us through it. I feel pretty confident this will all be better than tomorrow’s headlines. If you’re in the U.S. and out on the streets today, stay strong and try to stay safe. Hell, I hope you can stay safe wherever you are. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AMORPHIS, ZATOKREV, BARBAROUS, ACCURSED, NECHT, IN THE COMPANY OF SERPENTS, FER DE LANCE

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Jun 072025
 


Amorphis – photo by Sam Jamsen

(written by Islander)

This is another Saturday column in which I decided to lure people with a “big name” at the start and then eventually expose people to names they might not know but should.

I could have included an even bigger collection of prominent names, because the past week also brought new music and/or new videos from Opeth, Paradise Lost, Dark Angel, Car Bomb, and Baest, to name a few. You can find those via the hyperlinks I included. But I wanted to have more time for lesser lights. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PSYCROPTIC, NIGHTBEARER, BEHEADED, AETHERIAN, IN MOURNING, GRAND CADAVER, IMPUREZA, DIABOLOGY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
May 312025
 

(written by Islander)

Well, I’m back here at my usual post on Saturday, having survived Maryland Deathfest after surviving Northwest Terror Fest. I only have one slow-healing knee scab and moderate soreness as detrimental physical signs of the adventures — and, amazingly, no respiratory viruses.

I have a habit of whining about how hard it is to choose music for these weekend roundups because there’s always so much to choose from, but after missing two weekend roundups in the last month the whining would reach ear-bleeding levels if I let loose today. I feel like if I laid all the song and video links I’ve saved up end to end they’d stretch up to where Musk’s latest rocket experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” as it skimmed space last Tuesday night.

So, no whining, and no explanations for why I picked these out of the 100 or so possibilities, though the reasons will probably become evident. I’m very happy with this collection and hope you will be too. More picks, of the more charred variety, coming tomorrow…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION, CRUST, DOMKRAFT, ANGEROT, MORDBEAR, BEAR MACE, OSI AND THE JUPITER

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May 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The last two weeks have been out of the ordinary here, and the next 10 days will be too. In the weeks now past I and a few of my NCS comrades joined forces with a lot of other terrific volunteers to help put on the 3-day Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. (See above, just after we finished last Saturday night.) The fest was fantastic, but it didn’t leave me enough clear-headed time to do the usual weekend posts for NCS.

During the past week I had some good post-fest outings in the Seattle area with DGR and Andy Synn. That put a crimp in my usual new-music listening. And now, beginning on Wednesday of this coming week, we’re all going to venture to Baltimore with other friends to take in Maryland Deathfest. That makes it highly unlikely I will be doing the usual NCS posts next weekend either.

The wall of possibilities for this roundup and the blacker one tomorrow is enormous. I scraped against it, sort of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption digging through the wall of his cell with a tiny rock hammer, except I don’t have 19 years to get the job done. Here’s what I chipped away for today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AZURE EMOTE, CHTHONIC, SKJOLDEN, TENEBRAE IN PERPETUUM, JOLIETTE, CWFEN

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May 032025
 

(written by Islander)

It should be called “Bandcamp Week” instead of “Bandcamp Friday”. Every week ending in one of those Friday’s, including last week, tends to see a greater than usual volume of new-music releases, a reflection of the principle that “recency is primacy” when it comes to spending decisions. This “Bandcamp Week” phenomenon further complicates the preparation of these Saturday columns, but I’m still glad Bandcamp is continuing the tradition this year.

While I have your attention, I want to add a note about changes planned for NCS next week before we get to the new metal I picked for today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BYZANTINE, CRYPTOPSY, GRUESOME, NIHIL KAOS, WEEPING SORES, XIPHOID DEMENTIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 192025
 

(written by Islander)

I began the day, barely awake, by reading an account of how the U.S. Revolutionary War began 250 years ago today. It was delivered in a speech last night, on the 250th anniversary of the famed events that led to war’s commencement. The speaker was a historian, and she told the story at a lantern lighting ceremony at Boston’s Old North Church commemorating the “two if by sea” signal from the church’s steeple.

The narrative of what happened that night and the next day is a remarkable and inspiring story. If you’re so inclined, you can find it here or here. Of course, people now celebrate the events because the cause succeeded. It might just as easily have failed, and all the revolutionaries executed or imprisoned. They certainly didn’t know how things would turn out more than 8 years later, 8 years almost always spent on the brink of failure. They risked their lives anyway, resisting tyranny. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 2): HEAVEN SHALL BURN, OMINOUS RUIN, BALMOG, CHAINSWORD HURSAN, KATATONIA, GHOST

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 122025
 


Heaven Shall Burn – photo by Candy Welz

(written by Islander)

Fanatically determined to get both Parts of this roundup posted today, I took a 10-minute break after launching Part 1 and then dived into this one. I haven’t gone to the bathroom yet, but like Cory Booker I’m depending on Depends.

As discussed in Part 1, today’s already-large roundup mushroomed into an even bigger one after my pals Andy Synn and DGR threw 4 more songs into a mix that already included music from 10 bands.

As also discussed there, for you criminals who didn’t bother to read it, I used those 4 as bookends, 2 at the start and 2 at the finish. The 2 at the end have stressed out my usual NCS site-title boundary lines to the breaking point, but not for the first time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 1): GAAHLS WYRD, IMPERISHABLE, MY DEMENTIA, ORTHODOX, A FLOCK NAMED MURDER, DISPYT, FAMILY GARDEN

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Apr 122025
 


Gaahls WYRD – photo by Jørn Veberg

(written by Islander)

It’s good to have friends. Friends can give you useful advice. Sometimes friends can also give you advice that makes you think, “I wish they hadn’t said that.” Case in point:

Since the middle of last week my wife has been 1,100 miles from where we live visiting her favorite sister. Home alone, I spent way more than the usual amount of time yesterday getting ready for this column. I listened to bits and pieces of 30 new releases, most of them singles and some of them EPs or albums. I picked 10 of them for today that I thought provided a good amount of variety. I even arranged them in a way I thought made sense.

I was so happy that I shared the list with my old friends Andy and DGR. Between the two of them they then pointed out 4 more new songs that I’d missed, all from known culprits we all like. Fuck me, what to do? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MIDNIGHT, ALIGN, FURNACE, STREGA, ARV, FLUISTERAARS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 052025
 

(written by Islander)

I don’t have a “physically active lifestyle” these days, yet some nights my body acts like I just ran a marathon. Last night was one of those. I conked out and woke up more than 9 hours later. Not even the part of my brain that always nags me, even asleep, about the need to get this Saturday column in shape could resist the bear-like compulsion to hibernate.

So, a very late start today, made later by the time needed to overcome grogginess. Still groggy, even after reading godawful global news stories while inhaling a cocktail of caffeine and nicotine, I glanced at the godawful big NCS in-box. Here’s the first message I saw:

Please take a moment out of your day to listen to the new track from Casa Mondo “Same Words.” It is a taste of Afro Reggae Summer Niceness and would give your followers a warm fuzzy feeling 🙂

I nearly wrote back to ask how in the world we got on this person’s list. We must be on many lists that have zero to do with what we do, because I see dozens of e-mails like this every day from musically remote planets (remote from our own ugly little asteroid).

Of course I didn’t write back, but I thought, the only warm fuzzy feeling our followers might want from music at NCS would be a feeling of fungal infection. And “niceness”? I think our definition of “nice” is not what Casa Mondo had in mind. Continue reading »

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