(written by Islander)
As we are prone to do, more often than some literal-minded visitors approve of, we’re about to premiere a song that’s an extravagant exception to the command in our site’s title, and it arrives through the good graces of the mercurial Roman band Night Gaunt.
The name of the song is “The Deer and the Hunter“, and it’s the second track to surface so far from their new album Rupture, which will be released by Aural Music on November 6th. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Untu is an experimental death/thrash band from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, whose music fuses old-school extreme metal with Javanese gamelan — a traditional Javanese instrumental ensemble that includes such percussive instruments as gongs and the bronze saron demung. The group was originally formed in Los Angeles in 2015 as a large ensemble by composer Sean Hayward, and this year they have been working their way toward the December release of a four-song EP named Yet, I Smile.
In June Untu released the first song from the EP, “Batara Kala“, which we reviewed here. Two months later they released the second single, “The Dukun’s Hand“. And today we’re premiering a remarkable video for the third single, “Rampogan“, which will be digitally released tomorrow. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn heads into the slaughterhouse once again with Aussie antagonists To The Grave)
Sweet zombie jesus… this is a heavy fucking album.
And, to be quite honest, I could probably leave this review right there and end with a quick exhortation to “go listen to the damn thing if you don’t believe me” and call it a day.
But, considering the fact that I know the real reason you all come here is to imbibe my unique brand of trenchant insight and critical analysis… I suppose I’d better better drop at least a few more paragraphs about the absolutely monstrous new record from Down-Under Deathcore heavyweights To The Grave.
(The Kentucky-based black metal band Anagnorisis are returning after a long hiatus with their fourth album, Caregriever, which will be released on October 23rd. Below you will find Wil Cifer’s review of the album.)
After a ten-year absence, this project is back with its darkest work yet. Black metal should be the darkest of all genres, but it often gets caught up in blast-beats and obligatory occult posturing and misses the mark. Where this album succeeded lies in where Zachary Kerr drew inspiration from: The title refers to the emotional toll that was taken upon him by acting as the caregiver for his now-deceased father-in-law. This is why the demeaning tug on this album’s snarls plays so effectively, because it is real, much like how Blake Judd of Nachtmystium screamed his agonized guts out about his addiction. Real darkness outweighs appropriating esoteric terms you are not truly studied in, though American black metal does tend to be more street-wise and less LARPing. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
For reasons that are too embarrassing to disclose I’m getting a very late start today. Fortunately, I did my listening in previous days and made my picks yesterday. It’s just the writing that I left for this morning.
With so much time already gone before I started, and honestly not feeling great, I again wondered whether I should bother with the writing since I’m just providing my reactions to music everyone can hear for themselves. Can’t I just say, “You should listen to this,” and leave it at that? It’s a recurring internal debate. And I resolved it as I always seem to do. But to keep this from being ridiculously late, I did shorten it from six selections to four.
By way of introduction, I arranged the music so you’ll start of in the midst of some fireballs, then pull back in a moody kind of interlude, then heat up again, and then drift away in contemplation of the season ahead (or the one slowly ending). Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Yesterday was another Bandcamp Friday, when the platform waives its revenue share so that artists and labels can take in more money from their sales. There will be two more of those this year, on November 6th and December 4th.
In deciding what music to recommend in this column I nearly didn’t pay any attention to our in-box for the last two days, because I knew it would be flooded with messages from people trying to take advantage of the Friday benefit (and to be clear, I don’t blame them a bit). I already had plenty of possibilities from preceding days this week and last week.
But I wound up wading through the flood anyway, and fielding recommendations from assorted other people online. I didn’t listen to everything I listed for myself, because if I had, it would already be Sunday. But I listened enough to make the choices difficult. Here’s where I came down. I hope you’ll enjoy the picks. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
For the sixth time in the last five years we turn to the enigmatic U.S. black metal band Glyph, whose fourth album is being released today by Snow Wolf Records and Fiadh Productions. We gather that the project has had an uncertain future, perhaps drifting toward an end in favor of its sole creator’s other endeavors, and yet (thankfully) that time hasn’t arrived. As the album’s title says it, the pendulum swings yet….
Glyph’s convention-defying music has never been mundane, and for some listeners it might be “challenging”. At peak intensity (which is a frequent occurrence) it’s capable of creating electrifying experiences of overpowering catastrophe, an outlet for apparent pain and rage rendered in dazzling and delirious yet sometimes disorienting terms. In other less extravagant dimensions (a highly relative term in the case of Glyph) the music is capable of becoming spellbinding, but even then it tends to be emotionally harrowing.
It’s only fair that new listeners understand this when venturing into the new album, which we’re now premiering in full. It’s also worth understanding what was running through Glyph’s mind when creating these seven songs: Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Each of us who contributes to NCS has favorite bands (many of them!) that we try to follow over time, and we try to pay special attention to underground groups and projects who lack support from big labels or a PR apparatus, i.e., names that don’t draw as much attention in the music press. Yet despite such efforts we can still overlook releases from artists we follow, though sometimes we discover and rectify the oversight.
In the fall of 2020, which you may remember as a wretched time in the life of the world, I came across music from Conqueror Worm, the debut album of a one-person UK project called Sepulchre by the Sea. I was initially intrigued by the album in part because the project’s creator (Ash) drew his inspiration from the writing of Edgar Allen Poe, and then the music proved to be very, very good. I tried to help spread the word about it here, and then did so again the following year in the lead-up to a new Sepulchre by the Sea EP named Ratiocinations.
Yet I somehow overlooked Sepulchre by the Sea’s second album Seven Chambers, which was released in August 2024. Like the previous releases, it was inspired by Poe. Specifically, it was a concept album inspired by Masque of the Red Death and it incorporated ambient and electronic soundscapes into the band’s genre-blurring configurations of black metal, shoegaze, melodic death metal, doom, and hardcore.
Now Sepulchre by the Sea is returning with a new three-track EP titled Goldseeker, which was inspired by the Poe stories “Some Words with a Mummy”, “The Gold Bug”, and “Ligeia”, all of which reference ancient Egypt. We will not overlook this one, because today we have the privilege of premiering and enthralling video for the EP’s first single, “Goldseeker“. Continue reading »
(Today is the day when the Washington State extreme metal band No Living Witness are releasing a new EP named Aeons of Disintegration, and to help spread the word our contributor Obsolete Mystic is hosting its full streaming premiere, preceded by an enthusiastic review.)
Today’s subject, No Living Witness, caught my attention from the first few seconds of their 2026 single “Dehydrator”. It had elements of Suffocation, Behemoth, Shade Empire, and a good bit of influence from the early work of all those PA-centered death metal bands we were all hyped for, like Rivers Of Nihil and Black Crown Initiate. It caught my attention immediately, and held it, and then I saw the criminally low numbers on their platforms and wanted to both review this EP and also give you readers a chance to hear it yourselves — and so I talked No Living Witness into exclusively streaming Aeons Of Disintegration here on the day of its release. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn has five recently, and one not-so-recently, released recommendations to share with you all today)
People sometimes ask me how I stay on top of all the new releases every month, and the answer is… I don’t.
Case in point, here’s some of the bands I wanted to write about in September… Profeci, Dreadnought, Trenchwar, Sea Sleeper, Quicksand, Vulgar Mephitis, Iskald, Wharflurch, Tombstalker… but simply wasn’t able to.
Still, I suppose that once you’re done reading today’s bumper crop of recommendations (all of which I’m really happy to have been able to include here) I’d recommend trying to find time to give at least some of them a listen, as you never know what you might discover/uncover!