ANDKRISTNI 2018

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 022019
 

 

(On the 21st of December, the Andkristni 2018 festival took place at the Gaukurinn venue in Reykjavik, Iceland, and our Norwegian friend eiterorm made the trip west for it. He was kind enough to share with us the following report, photos, and music streams.)

A few weeks back I saw an online poster for Andkristni 2018, and took notice of the eminent lineup for this one-day festival, with several bands I had never seen live before. A little later, the event came up in a conversation with a friend, and we were both curious about what it would be like to see these bands live. It was then that I thought: “Hey, I have a day of vacation left. I should go to Reykjavík.” And just like that, the decision was made.

Now, I’ve never written a show report before, and I rarely ever read them myself, because they simply don’t interest me. When I mentioned to Islander that I was going to attend Andkristni 2018, however, he asked me if I wanted to write a report for the blog, preferably with some photos from the night. I declined the idea of doing a publishable report, but offered to make a personal summary for him instead. Then several other friends made similar requests, and now look what happened – I ended up writing a full report anyway. (Unfortunately, the photos in the report are mediocre at best, but I didn’t want to experience the concerts through my phone screen and therefore spent little time taking photos.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DROTTNAR, ÖRMAGNA, SEVERE AGONY, LUCIFERA, DEATHFUCKER

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Dec 232018
 

 

In Part 1 of today’s regular black metal column I mentioned I had a plan. Since it’s now two-thirds complete, I’m safer in explaining it: In Part 1 I focused on two remarkable albums that came out last week, which I wanted to be sure I said something about before getting carried away by the rest of my life. The second part of the plan, now finished, was to assemble a collection of attractive advance tracks from albums scheduled for arrival in early 2019.

Part 3, as originally conceived but conceivably could still be left unfinished if life interferes, is intended to present a variety of other late-year full releases that shouldn’t be overlooked before the year ends. If fortune smiles upon me, I’ll have it finished in time to post tomorrow, in time to darken Christmas Eve.

DROTTNAR

The first song in this collection isn’t exactly new, since it previously appeared in the first of this Norwegian band’s three-part sequence of EPs entitled Monolith, which were released between November 2017 and May of this year, but now “Funeral of Funerals” has become the subject of a new video, which accompanied the news that an album collecting the music of the three EPs, and what seem to be three new tracks (which would make a fourth), will be released on February 8th. The album’s name is also Monolith. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ÖRMAGNA, RODENT EPOCH, OCCELENSBRIGG, DISCRVST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jul 312018
 


 

Most of the bands in Part 1 of today’s round-up (here) have become well-known globally. Most of the ones in this Part are newcomers, and all are far deeper underground. And while most of the songs in Part 1 were hard-rocking, I think it’s fair to say that these are more vicious.

ÖRMAGNA

I haven’t yet tried to ferret out who is behind this new Icelandic band, though it’s probably fair odds that whoever’s behind it is also involved in other groups whose names would be familiar to those of us who follow Icelandic metal — because that seems usually to be the case in the small but incredibly fertile circles of extreme metal musicians in Reykjavík, and also because this first single doesn’t sound like anyone’s very first effort. Continue reading »