Oct 302018
 

 

(Despite what the title of this post says, Andy Synn hasn’t managed to review every fine 2018 album and EP we’ve heretofore failed to write about, but he does catch up with more than two dozen of them.)

While lots of blogs/zines are already (or soon will be) switching their focus away from covering new releases and towards consolidating their annual “Best Of…” lists, here on NCS island we’re still doing our very best to bring as many new (and some not so new) albums/artists to your attention as possible.

Of course the truism that “there’s simply too much music out there” remains as painfully accurate as ever, and it pains me to admit that I/we simply can’t cover all the releases we want to, in the depth we want to, no matter how hard we try.

So consider this article a voluntary mea culpa acknowledging our limitations and a (probably futile) attempt to make amends a little bit to all the bands and artists who we may have missed or ignored over the last several months, as well as to shine a light on a couple of upcoming releases you’ll probably want to keep your eyes/ears open for. Continue reading »

Mar 072018
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer’s review of the third album by the Finnish band Totalselfhatred, which will be released on April 27th by Osmose Productions.)

 

Depressive Suicidal Black Metal was never going to be the next big thing in metal. It was however a nice dark and emotive break from a steady diet of blast beats. Chances are, if you are reading this review you don’t need a refresher course in this sub-genre. You also are aware that this band from Finland occupied the top tier of the genre along with Shining and Lifelover.

While not pulling the numbers in terms of record sales that Shining has, they are arguably the keenest of musicians when it comes to making this style of music. There is plenty of evidence on Apocalypse In Your Heart (2011) to support this, making it the album against which their newest release is going to be measured. Continue reading »