AN NCS PREMIERE: BARROWLANDS — “EMPTY HANDS GRASPING”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 052017
 

 

This Portland black metal band’s debut album Thane made an immediate favorable impression when I first began listening to it in 2014. As I described here, only two songs in, and I paused to buy it on Bandcamp. And thus it was a pleasant surprise when I learned that Barrowlands have completed work on a new album, Tynidr, which will be released on October 20 by Vendetta Records.

Guitarist Jay Caruso tells us about the album’s title and how it connects to the music: “Tyndir, a norse word for fallowed ground, speaks of the tension between nature and man and the realization that nature will ultimately reclaim all that man claims sacred.” Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 63: BARROWLANDS, LAUGHTER, KAIJU

 MISCELLANY  6 Responses »
Mar 132014
 

Every time I write one of these MISCELLANY posts I promise myself that I will do them more often. But, as ever, the promises you make to yourself are the ones most easily broken: My last installment in the series came more than three months ago! But hope springs eternal, so I’m promising myself I won’t wait that long to write the next one. Why I would trust a proven liar I don’t know.

Anyway, here’s how this game is played:  I randomly pick bands whose music I’ve never heard, I listen to one or two songs and write my impressions, and then I stream what I heard so you can form your own opinions. This time I decided to just pick the last three bands I heard about with recent Bandcamp releases. They’re all from the U.S.

BARROWLANDS

I learned of this Portland band’s new album via an e-mail alert from Bandcamp that I found yesterday. The name rang a faint bell, and through a search of our site I learned that our guest BreadGod had put their 2012 demo in the “Honorable Mention” category of his “Best of 2012” list for NCS. The new album, released March 11, is entitled Thane and I knew I had to listen simply because of the wonderful cover art by Sam Ford. Continue reading »