AN NCS PREMIERE: PIECE — “DEMIGOD”

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May 142025
 

(written by Islander)

The Berlin-base sludge band Piece made their recording advent with a self-titled EP in 2017 and then followed that with a 2018 split, a 2021 single, and their 2023 debut album Ancient Greed. Another split (with Arsen) came forward the following year, and now Piece are ready with their second full-length.

The new album is Rambler’s Axe, and it’s set for release by This Charming Man Records on September 5th. To help spread the word, today we’re premiering a very cool video for the album’s neck-wrecking first single, “Demigod“. Continue reading »

THE HAUNTED: “SONGS OF LAST RESORT”

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May 142025
 

(After a very long wait The Haunted are returning with a new album now set for release by Century Media on May 30th, and below you’ll find DGR‘s musings about it.)

We’re not doctors around here. We have crew on the staff of this site that have higher education degrees and have made something of themselves – not yours truly, though – but at last check we don’t maintain anyone with the ability to diagnose anything or write a prescription. That said, if you’ll allow for some folksy wisdom, we can definitely see patterns and recognize solutions that seem to work.

Given that The Haunted experienced a second extended hiatus where it seemed for a while that the future of the band was up in there air, only for them to return with a ferocious new single that makes them seem scrappy again and with some vitality in their step, perhaps an argument is to be made that The Haunted are a band best served with a nice break between albums. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEWICHOR — “BARBED WIRE”

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May 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Two years after the release of their debut EP Ritual, the Siberian band Dewichor are returning with their first full-length album, No Tomorrow, which is set for release in August by Satanath Records. The “elevator pitch” for the album describes it as “the quintessence of black, death and post-metal, seasoned with the atmosphere of the end of the world.”

The label’s further pitch is to recommend it for fans of such bands as: Behemoth, Kriegsmaschine, Mgła, Batushka, Ultar, Grima, Gaerea, Schammasch, Belphegor, and Panzerfaust.

As quick pitches go, those are obviously very enticing, especially since these days it’s fairly easy to imagine living in a post-apocalyptic world before we expire (but hopefully not before this album’s release in August). It’s thus agreeable to have a soundtrack that (as the label promises) will “plunge us into a world of chaos and the absence of any hope for survival.” And of course those comparative band references create agreeable (and lofty) expectations too.

But let’s see how well the music of No Tomorrow lives up to these quick pitches. As a sign of that, we present the album’s fifth track, a stunner named “Barbed Wire“. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE: VEIA — “TUCHULCHA / IL RITORNO DI TUCHULCHA”

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May 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Frequent visitors to our site (and other people equally intelligent and tasteful) will know the names Thecodontion and Clactonian. If you don’t know those names, you can find out why I think you should know them by plowing through the volumes of words we’ve spilled about their music (collected here and here, respectively). Both bands are the brainchildren of Italian musician G.E.F., joined with other very talented friends in each group.

Now we have another name you need to know, another brainchild of G.E.F. This one is Veia. Under the banner of Veia G.E.F. is the vocalist and lyricist, joined here by bassist extraordinaire G.D. (also from Thecodontion) and exceptionally talented people from Svart Vinter and Veil of Conspiracy on drums and guitars.

Unlike Thecodontion and Clactonian, Veia is predominantly a vehicle for black metal. The band’s members have been at work on a debut album to be entitled Vacal, and they expect the recording sessions to be completed later this year. But to help introduce Veia to listeners, G.E.F. decided to release two “raw excerpts” from the album this month through his new-ish label Prehistoric Sounds, and we have premiere streams of both songs for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SIJJIN

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May 132025
 

(Here we present Zoltar‘s interview of Malte Gericke, bassist and vocalist of the pan-national death/thrashing band Sijjin, whose new album Helljjin Combat is out now on Sepulchral Voice Records.)

“I couldn’t be happier man.” Malte Gericke, aka Mors Dalos Ra, is relieved for probably the first time since the band’s split in 2021 not to be asked about Necros Christos, the cult and highly-mystical death/doom beast he led out and back to the abyss for over two decades. And he deserved the right to, as Sijjin, the to-the-point and proudly stuck in the ’80s thrash/death new band he had put together even before NC took their final bow, has proven not to be the expectative derivative but an entity on its own, far less entrenched in occult and cryptic atmospheres and doom-laden circumvolutions, way more straight-forward and unapologetically METAL, as in denim-and-leather-patches-furious-headbanging metal.

If their 2019 demo, later reissued on LP, and their debut album Sumerian Promises were treading on early Morbid Angel territories, as he once again puts it himself, their long-awaited sophomore and very riff-oriented album Helljinn Combat goes even more “back in time”. Old-school to the bone! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEFIANT — “LORD OF THE OPENING”

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May 122025
 

(written by Islander)

This year the Croatian black/death metal band Defiant will commemorate their 20th year of existence with the release of their fifth album Mammon Mantra. It’s set for discharge by Satanath Records (Georgia) and InsArt Records (UK) on May 17th, and to help pave the way we’re premiering a blaspheming lyric video for the album track “Lord of the Opening“.

Mammon Mantra follows the band’s last album Insurrection Icon by about seven years, though the band helped fill that long gap with the Ways ov Damnation split with DVVAD in late 2020 and the Vanguards of Misrule EP in 2022.

The new album is described as “the closest thing that the band ever came to a concept album; it explores man’s darkest desires and corruption ever since this creature stood on its two feet, from the dawn of time to the current events.”

The song you’re about to discover is definitely a dark and devastating creation, well-suited to our current age of damnation, but it’s also a multi-faceted head-spinner of a high order. And, it features guest vocals by Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan from Venom Inc./Atomkraft. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISEMBODIMENT — “STYGIAN OVERTURE”

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May 122025
 

(written by Islander)

WARNING: You are about to be stomped and gouged, bounced off the walls and lacerated, dragged into foul and choking cesspools and made witness to violent charnel-house abominations. Your pulse will pound, your head will move, your guts will churn. And you will smile broadly at every abuse to which you will be subjected!

These are our predictions for how addicts of foul and ferocious death metal will receive the song we’re now presenting from Spiral Crypts, the hotly anticipated debut album of Disembodiment from Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, which will see release in July via Everlasting Spew Records. Continue reading »

…AND OCEANS: “THE REGENERATION ITINERARY”

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May 122025
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album by Finland’s …And Oceans, which will be released on May 23rd by Season of Mist.)
When it comes to Finland’s …And Oceans, sometimes I wonder if there are black metal fans out there who get a thousand-yard stare whenever the band starts up due to being constantly tossed the unexpected on an almost visceral level. …And Oceans have never been shy about a love for industrial and electronics and it has become their calling card within the extreme metal world.

I also often wonder if perhaps people are telling the same stories I am, wherein you’re describing this ambitious and explosive song barreling through guitar part and riff after riff as if they were being given away, a wall of drums behind them, and ear-burning vocals lofted above… only to then get completely sideswiped by some out-of-left-field electronics that barge their way into the song as if every story finds its ending at “and then the keyboards began.”

…And Oceans are stubbornly and wilfully unconventional, burning as many musical bridges as they have built, and just as easily turning to dust every bit of conventional good will they might have bought. Continue reading »

CAUSTIC WOUND: “GRINDING MECHANISM OF TORMENT” (TWO REVIEWS)

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May 092025
 

(Our writers make their own decisions about what to review. Our editor tries to coordinate so that two people don’t review the same album. In this instance his wires got crossed, and so in this feature we have not one but two vivid reviews — by DGR and Chile — of Caustic Wound‘s new album, which is out now on Profound Lore Records.)

GRINDING MECHANISM OF TORMENT — A REVIEW BY DGR

Washington’s Caustic Wound was only ever built to travel this particular path. The sense of inevitability that comes with knowing the musicians involved with this group, and how much further down the path into the dankest corners of the pits of death metal with their grinding side project, is natural. The combination of parts – Motiferum, Fetid, Magrudergrind… – makes perfect sense; there was no way it wasn’t going to sound like this.

When Quill Onkko asks you “was it ever thus?” after seeing all possibilities laid out before him while you’re visiting the backroom of Cetus, it contains similar feelings evoked by all the possibilities that Caustic Wound could have sounded like, given the band members making up the roster here. It was only ever going to narrow down to this. Everything else was a smokescreen. Continue reading »

BENEDICTION (“RAVAGE OF EMPIRES”) AND CANCER (“INVERTED WORLD”)

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May 082025
 

(Todd Manning prepared the following dual reviews of the latest albums by two UK legends, Benediction and Cancer, out now on Nuclear Blast and Peaceville, respectively.)

Resurrecting old school bands can often be a hit or miss affair. At least half, if not more than half, fail to capture anything resembling the magic of their earlier years. However, for those who do pull it off, listeners are beyond thrilled.

For some of us, the early ’90s were one of the greatest eras of metal. The death metal bands from then created such amazing music, full of brutality and a unique atmosphere. While we often hear about Swedish, New York, or Floridian death metal bands, we can’t forget the great British masters as well. Carcass and Bolt Thrower, of course, top that list, but Cancer and Benediction were important as well, and they both have new albums out. Continue reading »

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