SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSIDIAN TONGUE, HATE, OBSTRUKTION, JORDSJUK, APPLE OF BASILISK, SERIAL HAWK, CONTEMPLATION

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Mar 292025
 

(written by Islander)

I didn’t expect I would be able to pull this Saturday column together, or the usual one tomorrow either. I thought my spouse and I would be leaving home very early today for a weekend trip. I even prepared a short notice to post this morning saying there would be no music at our site this weekend. But for reasons there’s no need to go into, we canceled those travel plans late yesterday.

That left me flat-footed this morning. I mean, I’m usually still scrambling on Saturday mornings to get this column figured out and finished, but today was set up to be an even bigger scramble because I’d given no thought to which songs and videos I might include. I had done a pretty good job over the last week of saving links to potential choices as I saw news about them — 30 or 40 links! — but no way could I check out most of those.

So, aside from picking a couple because the band names made me feel I’d be in good hands, sheer impulse ruled the rest. It’s a sign of how healthy metal is these days that making choices by impulse still turned out to be good choices. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AMENRA, NECHOCHWEN, BLOOD CHARIOT, STONE CROWN, BLOOD MONOLITH, THE GREAT SEA, WARFIELD, SLIDHR, JACK QUARTET

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Mar 222025
 

(written by Islander)

As usual, I had an enormous number of things to choose from for today’s collection. As usual, I had no preconceived idea how to do it. I just put one foot in front of the other, stumbling along until I ran out of time.

As I sit here and look at what I chose, I see that I defaulted to some old favorites but also went with debuts from some bands I’d never heard of. (I also siphoned off a few that will make good shades for the usual blackening of the Sabbath tomorrow.) I also added a couple of live-performance videos at the end, one of which is a genuine brain-scrambler. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: RALE, MONDOCANE, JADE, MINUTTI HULLUUTEEN, SLUDGE KEEPER, THAT GODFORSAKEN WRETCH

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Mar 152025
 

(written by Islander)

I had an attack of spring fever this morning. It’s definitely not springtime weather here in the Puget Sound (it’s quite cool and wet, the wind is howling, and if that keeps up our power will inevitably go out). I just didn’t want to do anything that seemed remotely like work, and compiling these roundups is remotely like work.

But the old obsession not to let any days go by at NCS without spreading the word about music eventually won out over laziness, though it may not win out over wind, and so I will attempt to be not too windy in what I write.

I thought about leading with some of the bigger names who have recently released new music in an effort to draw people toward more obscure names in today’s collection (I was thinking about the likes of Cancer, Gaahls Wyrd), Benediction, and Rivers of Nihil) but so many of the more obscure names are so appealing to me that I decided to just get right to them. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MÜTTERLEIN, CARONTE, CAUSTIC WOUND, AUSTERE, KORSAKOV, WAR MAGIC

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Mar 142025
 

(written by Islander)

I had a narrow opening in today’s schedule for a roundup of new songs and videos, and not a lot of time with which to fill it, so I won’t waste the time with further introductory remarks. We’ll get right to it, beginning with:

MÜTTERLEIN (France)

Ever since seeing the recent announcement of a new Mütterlein album a group of metal-loving friends and I have been greedily rubbing our blood-stained hands (contrary to rumor we don’t have talons and the blood is from paper cuts). The rubbing has become more intense since hearing the album’s first single (not that kind of rubbing, get your minds out of the gutter). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NITE, MAGUS LORD, DISPYT, CABINET, CHIAROSCURO, POLISH, BANK MYNA

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Mar 082025
 

(written by Islander)

I can’t think of any reason to criticize Bandcamp for renewing their Bandcamp Fridays in 2025. Unless I’m missing something, it’s good for bands and labels that use the platform, not only because it lets them keep more of their sales revenue but also because it incentivizes fans to spend.

But it does make my life harder, because in weeks ending with one of those days the volume of new music swells significantly. Even in more normal weeks I can’t listen to everything I’m interested in. That’s an even greater impossibility in weeks like this past one.

But of course I did make some picks. Three of the picks are live videos that I’ve included at the end without much commentary, but the bands’ names ought to be inducement enough. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, CYTOTOXIN, FALLUJAH, GHOST

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Mar 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Only five days ago Bandcamp announced that it would continue Bandcamp Fridays in 2025, with the first one happening today. Before that, it wasn’t clear that they would continue, so it caught most of us by surprise. But word obviously spread very fast. What was already unfolding as a packed week for new music became a typhoon over the last few days. I was already agonizing about what the hell to do for tomorrow’s usual SEEN AND HEARD roundup, but now I feel like someone caught on the beach as a towering tidal wave rushes ashore.

Bandcamp Fridays are always an ideal time to spread the word about new music, but because of other duties around here I rarely have enough time to pull something together until the day after. I really don’t have much time for it today either, but felt like I needed to do something to make tomorrow’s task even a bit less overwhelming.

What I decided to do is a bit out of character for myself and the site as a whole: focusing exclusively on some of the bigger names in metal (or in one case, metal-adjacent). We don’t ignore the big names around here, as long as what they’re doing is good, but we often use them as a way of luring people into music from bands whose names are much more obscure. If I’d had more time, that’s what I would have done with this small roundup. It was just easier and faster to stick with these four.

But of course, none of these four new songs and videos would be here if I didn’t think they were worth recommending. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THE WEEK THAT WAS, AND MUSIC FROM NINE BANDS

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Mar 012025
 


Marcus Larson (1825–1864) Ocean at Night with Burning Ship (detail)

(written by Islander)

It has been a week in hell. I don’t mean the stuff you’ve seen every day in the national news reports, including the vile treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House yesterday (I’m addressing the 3 of you who can still bear to read the national news), but hellish events closer to home that impacted our putrid precious site.

Specifically, beginning last Sunday night and carrying into Monday the Puget Sound area of Washington where I live got walloped by lightning storms, heavy rain, and very high winds. Windstorms are fairly common during the winter months here, and the results are predictable: In the heavily forested island where I live, trees fall, limbs break off, and they hammer themselves into the power lines, all of which are strung above ground close to trees. And pop! The power goes out!

Which it did in the early hours of last Monday. And when the power goes out here, so does the internet, because my ISP’s local servers and routing stations apparently don’t have generators or human beings close by to keep them going. And when the internet goes out for everyone in my neighborhood (and this time for nearly all of the 30,000 people who live on the island), the strength of cell phone signals drops to borderline non-existent. I guess because everyone is trying to use their phones in place of the stricken net service. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GRAVE INFESTATION, DARK MEDITATION, SPIRITWORLD, ANCIENT DEATH, TYRANNOSATAN, ARV, EXILIUM NOCTIS, PRIMORDIAL BLACK (AND TWO INTERVIEWS)

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Feb 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Greetings on another Saturday. I have another globe-hopping-and-genre-hopping selection of new songs and videos filtered from what I was able to check out over the past week.

At the end, I’m also recommending a pair of recent interviews published at locations other than NCS, not just because the bands are favorites of mine but also because the discussions are so interesting.

But we’ll start with the music…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PELICAN, VENENOSUM, BÅKÜ, BLASTANUS, LAUDARE

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Feb 202025
 


Pelican – photo credit Mike Boyd

With very rare exceptions, the only times when I’ve managed to put together one of these roundups during the week (instead of waiting for Saturday) is when I’ve unexpectedly had time left over after finishing premieres and the other things I do around here. On this occasion, however, I just forced myself to make the time.

Of course I can’t actually make time – wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were possible! — and so what I mean is that I shoved aside other chores and pleasures because, for varying reasons, I really wanted to spread the word about the following songs without waiting ’til the weekend. Hopefully, when you hear them, you’ll understand the feelings or urgency. (Also, I will have my hands full on Saturday dealing with a ton of other new releases over the past week or two, and this should make that task a bit easier.)

I’ll add that, by coincidence, this collection makes for an extremely varied listening experience. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DORMANT ORDEAL, LABYRINTHINE HEIRS, CHAOS INCEPTION, DECREPISY, BELNEJOUM, HABAK, PIGPEN, ALLEGAEON, BURIED REALM

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Feb 152025
 


Dormant Ordeal – Photo Credit: Piotr Dzik

(written by Islander)

Another week has gone by and I’ve had another session with the roulette wheel of new releases, watching the bouncing ball land in one pocket after another as I mentally spun. It’s a fair analogy, since there are 37 or 38 pockets on a wheel and that’s in the ballpark of new releases from the past week I thought might be worth checking out. Also fair, because of the general randomness of my choices of what to listen to.

But the process is also a little like casino craps, getting an instinct about a shooter and betting on particular outcomes. And so I mentally bet on some of the bands from last week I thought were likely to be winners – and some were and some weren’t.

To be clear, I’ve never played roulette or craps in my life, only watched without much understanding. I’m not much of a gambler with my own money; I care much more about losing than the chance of winning; I prefer to keep what I have; there are other ways of being entertained when the odds aren’t always stacked against you — like listening to the following songs: Continue reading »

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