AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NON SERVIAM — “DÉESSE MORTE”

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Apr 272026
 

(written by Islander)

Five years after Le Cœur Bat (2021), and more than a decade after Un petit peu d’amour pour la haine, the genre-blurring French collective Non Serviam are returning with a third album named La Lune Dont Mon Âme Est Pleine, now set for release on June 12th.

The new full-length is described as “a symbolist concept album centered on the myth of Diana and Actaeon, exploring themes of the desire for the absolute, the violence it engenders, and the melancholy that follows.” And further:

Beyond the metamorphosed and tormented figure of Actaeon, the album also invokes Émile Henry, the late-19th-century French anarchist, as well as the apocalyptic goddess Kali, voiced by Mirai Kawashima (Sigh) in a powerful homage.

Those excerpts from the album’s press materials should create a sense of intrigue among listeners, even listeners who haven’t already been exposed to the shape-shifting musical nature of Non Serviam’s previous releases. They remain shape-shifters on the new album, and even more so, as you’ll discover from the new song and video we’re now premiering. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECT DESIGNER — “SCORCHING THE RIVAL POGONOMYRMEX BURROWS”

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Apr 272026
 

(written by Islander)

From the standpoint of a listener the idea of a band like Norway-based Defect Designer taking their music to a higher level is a bewildering concept — because their music has been so continuously bewildering. They have used death metal as a laboratory for experimentation, with results that are eccentric, subversive, unpredictable, and dazzling.

For this listener (and I suspect for all their fans), Defect Designer’s music produces big smiles. Maybe they were smiling too when they named their new album Depressants, because it is a powerful anti-depressant, no prescription needed. At least based on early listening, it also comes across as their best work yet.

Yes indeed, they have found ways to take their music to a higher level, though how to linguistically define the unconventional countours of that new plateau is no easier than it has been in the past.

We’ve premiered songs from each of Defect Designer’s last three releases, and fortune has smiled upon us because today we get to do it a fourth time, linguistic challenges and all. Speaking of linguistic challenges, the name of the song you’re about to hear is “Scorching The Rival Pogonomyrmex Burrows“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SOULBURN

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Apr 272026
 

(The Dutch metal extremists Soulburn will release their fifth album on June 12th through Testimony Records, and that created a good opportunity for our Comrade Aleks to check in with Soulburn co-founder Eric Daniels. A great discussuion ensued, and you can check it out below along with the album’s first two singles.)

Dutch extreme metal act Soulburn was born 30 years ago after the first disbanding of legendary death-doom aggressors Asphyx whose core members Eric Daniels (guitars) and Bob Bagchus (drums) taught a new lesson of extremity with the devastating debut Feeding on Angels (1998). Years passed, and Eric is the only original Soulburn member now, although his bandmates Twan van Geel (bass, vocals), Remco Kreft (guitars), and Marc Verhaar (drums) are hardened veterans of the metal underground too.

Honestly, I didn’t expect any surprises from the band’s new album Quantifying Cosmic Doom but more good old blasphemous extreme stuff, yet the album strikes me not only with its high technical quality but also with a much wider concept, both lyrically and music-wise. The album is scheduled for the 12th of June by Testimony Records, so be forewarned! Quantifying Cosmic Doom this way comes.

I was lucky to get this in-depth interview with Eric himself, and there’s no better way to learn more about Soulburn than to read it. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SHAMORGA, MERESIN

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 262026
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday I riffed on how my plans for Saturday-morning NCS roundups can fall apart as a result of Friday-night adventures, even when those adventures don’t include self-immolation. Much the same could be said of Saturday nights and their occasional wreckage of Sunday mornings. This has happened again. I’ll spare you the details.

I also forgot that my spouse planned an outing by the two of us this morning. I tried to beg off, but she’s not having it, and I don’t have the strength to resist (it takes a lot of strength even in the best of circumstances). Coupled with my extensive over-sleeping, I just don’t have time to do very much with today’s column. The only reason I’ve done anything is because nature (even mine) abhors a vacuum (horror vacui!). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FURNACE, RAKINUA, SEA SLEEPER

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Apr 252026
 

(written by Islander)

Friday nights inexorably flow into Saturday mornings. There is also a cause-and-effect relationship between them. For many of us, Friday nights tend to be a time for “blowing off steam” after the work week, though my history of them has often been more like arson, with my own self as the target. Realizing through painful experience that I am not flame-retardant, I don’t ignite myself on Friday nights as much as I used to. But the cause-and-effect relationship persists.

Late yesterday afternoon my spouse and I began crossing the water to Seattle to attend a celebration of a friend and former colleague’s 10th year of recovery from being struck by a Seattle emergency vehicle through no fault of her own, an event that nearly killed her and inflicted a severe traumatic brain injury. Her long, gradual recovery defied all medical prognoses. She still has deficits compared to who she was before the accident, but looking back over the last 10 years, what she has achieved through pure strength of will has been astonishing.

It was a great gathering of herself, her family, and her friends, not just locally but from around the country. But we forgot about the ferry schedule, missed a 10 pm sailing back to where we live, and waited around the ferry terminal with a bunch of other exhaused and/or wasted people ’til the next one left after midnight. By the time I got home and to bed, the clock was not far away from 2 am. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MOLOSSER — “STRYCHNINE HILL”

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Apr 242026
 

(written by Islander)

Brisbane-based Gutter Prince Cabal has established a reputation as a go-to platform for exposing the world to killer underground metal from Australia and New Zealand, and they’ll continue doing that in May when they present the debut of NZ’s Molosser. Here’s the vivid language they use in introducing the record:

Set for release on May 11, the band’s self-titled debut EP Molosser arrives as a full-frontal assault, an uncompromising barrage of aggression that wastes no time in establishing its intent. From the very first moments, the message is clear: rip and tear, kill and maim.

Built on muscular riffs, punishing rhythms, and an atmosphere of pure hostility, Molosser is a record that pulls no punches. Every track surges forward with unyielding force, carving a path through anything in its way. There is no restraint here, only momentum, impact, and the raw satisfaction of destruction.

We’ll have a tough time competing with those words in describing the EP track we’re premiering today, but of course that won’t stop us from trying! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SCORDATURA — “LED INTO OBLIVION”

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Apr 242026
 

(written by Islander)

We heartily welcome the return of the Scottish death metal band Scordatura, whose music we’ve previously described as “a neck-wrecking, gut-churning, bowel-loosening bombardment of jagged riffs, technical twists, and gruesome, glass-gargling gutturals that floats like an atom bomb and stings like a beast,” and as “the kind of brutish and blistering treatment that our pathetic world so richly deserves.”

Six years on from their last album, the ruthlessly punishing Mass Failure, Scordatura have joined forces with Everlasting Spew Records to lead us into oblivion with a new full-length named… Led Into Oblivion… which we’re helping to announce today through the premiere of a video for the record’s brutally bombastic but also razor-sharp title song. Continue reading »

NEURAL GLITCH: “HYPNOTIC IMPAIRMENT”

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Apr 242026
 

(Texas-based Neural Glitch released an album last year that ranked high on the year-end list of our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth, and just last month they released another full-length that has gotten Grover even more excited. He explains why in this review, which includes info and insights drawn from a dialogue with the project’s mastermind.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. With the sheer quantity of music that I’ve listened to in my many years on this earth, it’s become increasingly rare that I find something that really catches me by surprise these days. And yet, as you’ve no doubt surmised, it does still happen on occasion, as was the case with Neural Glitch’s debut from last year, Convinced To Obey. The absurd mix of technical death metal and sample-heavy glitch electronica reminded me in various parts of a number of different bands while still presenting something really unlike anything I’d heard before, and I was enamored enough that the album landed in the top ten on my year-end list here, standing as the only release from a band with which I was previously unfamiliar in that top ten.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that after only a year and a couple months, the band had released another album. The turnaround is especially impressive given the densely layered nature of the music here. HypNOTic ImpAIrment has actually surprised me once again, representing an impressive step forward in songwriting and general production while retaining the gloriously anarchic spirit of its predecessor. As much as I enjoyed Convinced To Obey, this is undoubtedly a better album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VIDE

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Apr 232026
 

(Vide’s unusual new album Aux enfants des ruines was released by the Antiq label in late February of this year, and it may have flown beneath the radar of many listeners who would appreciate it. But Comrade Aleks has done his best to elevate it through the following interview with its French solo creator.)

French multi-instrumentalist Hylgaryss’ solo project, Vide, remained in the shadow of another, slightly more atmospheric black metal duo, Sainte Obyana du Froid. But the balance may change, as Vide has returned after a four-year hiatus, and the project has not only slowed down but also become less extreme and more atmospheric.

One of the key features defining the sound of the new full-length Aux enfants des ruines is the use of actual recordings of a children’s choir, performing parts reminiscent of Gregorian chants. In fact, the opportunity to use a children’s choir recording largely guided Vide, and while some of the release is framed by a flurry of familiar black metal misanthropy with a depressive edge, the main storyline of Aux enfants des ruines is almost a spiritual mass, a call to the outcasts, to the “children of ruins,” as the artist calls them.

An atheist, Hylgaryss sought to give the album an “ultra-religious atmosphere, steeped in Christian mysticism.” The album’s entire atmosphere revolves around children: the visuals, the sound, the lyrics, the sheer purity of the voices brings something unusually tender to the raw and melancholic black metal. So there were more than enough reasons to take a deeper view in Vide’s work with Hylgaryss himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BRINGERS OF DISEASE — “SULPHUR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 232026
 

(written by Islander)

If you heard the Bringers of Disease debut EP Gospel Of Pestilence it’s unlikely you’ve easily forgotten the experience, even though it was released 15 years ago. But maybe you never came across it. In that case, what should quickly seize your attention for the band’s debut album Sulphur are the people who made it.

The lineup includes founding guitarist Jason Phillips (ex-Acheron) and original vocalist Logan Madison alongside Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, ex-Nachtmystium, ex-Wolvhammer), drummer Zack Simmons (Goatwhore, Acid Bath), and bassist Jon Woodring (ex-Usurper, Bones).

On top of that, the album also features guest guitars on “First Born Of The Dead” by Nate Garnett (Skeletonwitch) and on “Flowers Bloom From The Prophet’s Skull” by Sonny Reinhardt (Necrot), and guest vocals on “Sacred Heart Of The Abyss” by Ben Falgoust (Goatwhore, Soilent Green).

Now that we have your attention with that information — which is probably all the inducement any lover of metallic extremity really needs to dive into Sulphur — we’ll present a full stream of the album, on the eve of its release by Disorder Recordings. But in the extremely unlikely event that someone wants to know more before spending time with the album, here’s more. Continue reading »

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