NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY: CH’AHOM, WELLNESS CHECK, DUMAL

Aug 072026

(written by Islander)

We’ve arrived at another Friday when Bandcamp relinquishes its share of sales to artists and labels. The timing is always a bit awkward for me because I usually post roundups of new music on Saturdays, too late to help people take advantage of Bandcamp’s temporary boon to music-makers. Of course, our usual week-long series of premieres and reviews still provide a lot of recommendations, and listeners can always save things for the next Bandcamp Friday (which will happen on September 4th).

I didn’t plan to do a roundup today because I had agreed to premiere and review a new album, but that fell through at the 11th hour. So I have some unexpected time to fill that hole, though not as much as I would have liked. I wish I could do more today, but a little something is better than a lot of nothing, especially because all of the following three songs are stupendous in different ways. If all goes well, I’ll have a lot more music to share tomorrow.

P.S. Although this little roundup doesn’t include releases by Dark Descent Records or Unholy Anarchy Records, both of those labels have pledged to donate 20% of any purchases made today on their Bandcamp pages to the GoFundMe established by Neill Jameson (of Krieg, and a contributor to NCS) to help deal with expenses after the recent passing of his wife Nikki from cancer and his need to become a full-time caregiver for their autistic daughter Vale. Direct donations to the GoFundMe can be made here. Please help if you can. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: LACHRIMA CORPHUS DISSOLVENS

Interviews No Responses »

Aug 072026

(Here we have Comrade Aleks’ interview of Antonio Ortiz from the Bolivian doom metal band Lachrima Corphus Dissolvens, whose latest album was released this past April.)

Lachrima Corphus Dissolvens is the rare (or only?!) representative of death-doom metal in Bolivia. Being founded in La Paz in 2003 by Antonio Ortiz (vocals) and Beyson Gibson (guitars) with a bunch of friends who soon left the band, it remains still active, although there are only two full-length albums in its discography.

Yes, the new piece Where Shadows Speak and Time Weeps is only the second big work of Lachrima Corphus Dissolvens, but a dozen of singles, EPs, splits, and compilations show that the men didn’t waste their time carrying the torch of Ruinous Powers. I interviewed Antonio earlier in July, so you can make an impression of what Lachrima Corphus Dissolvens is from this interview. Continue reading »

HULDER: “VERBOLGEN”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Aug 072026

(Here we have Daniel Barkasi’s review of the new album by Hulder, which is beging co-released today by 20 Buck Spin and Season of Mist.)

As notoriety grows and more ears pique in a band’s direction, it can be especially challenging to determine where they may go when a new album rolls around. This scribe is far from the type who demands all bands whom I have a fondness for to only reach a certain level of visibility – rooting against the success of a band you like is such a strange concept – though it’s safe to say we’ve all been left disappointed by a few bands we hold dear when a change in sound occurs.

I’m not going to get into the great Gaerea debate, but they’re a recent example who has invoked all sorts of discourse from all over the opinion spectrum – covered nicely in these halls – but you could see a shift in their case coming, whether it was welcome to you or not. The point is, evolution is unavoidable, whether it be purposeful or a naturally gradual shift. Standing still often equates to being left behind.

Which is where we come to the traditional black metal force known as Hulder. 2024’s Verses in Oath has thus far been a high-water mark, building from their heralded and raw-to-the-bone demos to that of the debut full-length Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry, which is where the flame started flickering a little brighter. The Eternal Fanfare followed shortly after, aiding the already burgeoning reputation of this black metal traditionalist who wasn’t afraid to carve out a place in the vast history of this genre for themselves. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FLOWERS OF RUST — “CRUDE EXHIBITIONS OF THE SOUL”

Premieres No Responses »

Aug 062026

(written by Islander)

In November of last year Cleveland-based Flowers of Rust – a vehicle for musical outpourings of multi-instrumentalist Jake O’Brien – released their second album, Crude Exhibitions Of The Soul, via the UK’s Centipede Abyss on a very limited run of hand-numbered CDs. But that album also snagged the ardent attention of the Apocalyptic Witchcraft label, which is now set to release the album digitally and on cassette tape tomorrow (August 7th).

We offered some thoughts about some of the music on the album last year, summing it up as “richly filigreed” but sounding “possessed”, “all tethers to sanity having been severed”. Others have summed it up as a hybrid of post-black metal and doom, but it includes other genre ingredients as well. Now we turn back to the album again to help spread the word about tomorrow’s re-release through our premiere of a strange and unsettling video for the album’s title song. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STYGIAN — “HUNT THE DIVINE”

Premieres No Responses »

Aug 062026

(written by Islander)

Last summer we had the pleasure of premiering and reviewing Dreadlands, the debut album from Ravenna-based Stygian. As we wrote then, the music was “an intersection or fusion of two worlds, a hybrid of crust punk and black metal” that proved to be “as fierce, as wounded, and as defiantly resilient as the album’s thematic insights”.

As for those thematic insights, they reflected “serious thought, scorching insight, and honest rage”. To quote the band:

Dreadlands explores the contrast between two spiritual worlds: the harmony-centered pagan traditions and the legacy of Abrahamic religions, which often channel humanity’s most violent instincts. While pagan rites served to express and contain primal forces, maintaining balance between humankind and nature, monotheistic dogmas have frequently justified war and destruction in the name of faith. This work stands as a tribute to life, to the sacred bond between people and the natural world — a bond shattered by centuries of religious conflict.

Now we return to Stygian with our premiere of the title song from a new two-track EP named Hunt the Divine, which the band will release on September 4th. We have received this description of the new EP: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DESPERATE CRY / PRIVATE PRISONS / SILURIAN

SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Aug 062026

(Andy Synn offers up three bite-sized bursts of brutal flavour for you to sink your teeth into)

No matter how big of a music lover you are there are always going to be times when you’re just “not feeling it”.

Case in point, I’ve been circling the idea of doing another edition of the “Best of British”, as well as a Death Metal-centric collection, but just haven’t found the right albums/artists yet to fill up a full article of either (a minimum of three is always preferred, and in both cases I’m struggling to find that third band or record that really inspires me to write about them).

Thankfully all it took was a quick shift in focus – away from considering full-length albums towards a trio of recent short-form releases – to get my proverbial juices flowing, so let’s stop wasting time and dig into today’s hand-picked selection of EP-sized extremity, shally we?

AN NCS PREMIERE: VULGAR MEPHITIS — “TO DUST”

Premieres No Responses »

Aug 052026

(written by Islander)

Willowtip Records has announced yet another addition to their stellar roster of bands — the brutal death metal quartet Vulgar Mephitis from Pittsburgh, PA, whose debut album Willowtip will release on September 11th. The name of that album is From Dust, and it follows the group’s 2022 self-titled debut EP.

As you can see, we’re premiering a song from the album named “To Dust“, which in its name seems to logically follow the title of the album. We’ll begin by sharing guitarist Dan Martin’s thoughts about the album, which point the way to what you’re about to hear:

“The main difference in songwriting from the 2022 EP to now would be the addition of myself and Nick Bentzel (drums) stepping into the band, which expanded upon the way songs are structured in general. Previously, the writing process was solely done by Jay Schweinberg (bass) and Jacob Toy (vocals). At the time, the idea was to be a straight up brutal band with linear song structures.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SWORN — “THE ENTROPIC VOID”

Premieres No Responses »

Aug 052026

(written by Islander)

On September 4th the Bergen-based melodic black metal band Sworn will release their fifth album, Null Crowned the Infinite, which follows their well-received fourth album, A Journey Told Through Fire (2023). The new album is a conceptually ambitious and coherent work, one which traces the cyclical nature of the cosmos from its initial spark in the void to its inevitable dissolution.:

“Lyrically, the album explores the terrifying scale of cosmic darkness and the fragility of existence within a primordial emptiness. Sworn investigates the philosophy of becoming and unmaking, where reality and time emerge from nothingness only to eventually collapse back into the same unfathomable origin.”

To help introduce the new album we’re premiering a song called “The Entropic Void“. Sworn describe how it fits within their cosmic narrative: Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE ISSUE TWO

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Aug 052026

(Our writer DGR has been playing catch-up on records released earlier this year when other distractions interfered with writing about them. In mid-July he delivered Issue One (which you can find here), and now we have Issue Two, encompassing reviews of four records released in March, May, June, and July.)

It is politics season here in California, which means that by living in proximity to the state’s capital (Sacramento) you get battered relentlessly with ads from all neck of the woods. Over thirty-five million people live within the boundaries of California, which means that this metro area consisting of a mere two-to-three million means fuck-all to anyone internationally and is barely important enough to list on a map. You have to zoom in two or three times on Google, for instance, before Sacramento is revealed unto the wider world and long after Los Angeles and San Francisco.

By virtue of growing up in the Bay Area I’ve found my wider allegiances between the two regions fairly split, such that I kind of equally care for both even though my current residence will forever suffer from a generationally-instilled case of short-man’s syndrome. It’s why politics season tends to be annoying, because you get to hear your city’s name with the same sort of thin-mouthed sneer that is usually reserved for the scum of the Earth, such that even when filling up your gas tank you get greeted with banners pointing to the price of fuel and a notice that “Sacramento policies did this”.

Which I guess is nice, because at least the rest of the country is finally acknowledging that California is the real capital of this country, and clearly, we’re the ones who decided to start bombing the Middle East again and start a new forever war. It’s a fucked up way of finding that sort of thing out, but I guess anything to mask your consistent rape of the consumer wherein your prices don’t line up at all with what you claim, and by virtue of this state having more drivers than most anywhere else, is most often used to goose your profit margins so that we end up paying way more than “Sacramento policies” might’ve caused. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LEADBELCHER — “OFFALATED YESHUA”

Premieres No Responses »

Aug 042026

(written by Islander)

Using Juliet as his voice, Shakespeare asked us to ponder “What’s in a name?” But while roses would indeed smell as sweet (or as foul, depending on your tastes) if given some other name, names do matter, especially when a band chooses one that tells you what they’re up to like a hammer landing on your forehead.

The Irish members and former members of Sermon Of Flames, Mortichnia, and Coscradh chose Leadbelcher as the name of the new band they formed in 2024. Now that’s a name! A no-bullshit name that seems to promise unpretentious ugliness and might also make you smile at its cleverness. But Leadbelcher aren’t pandering for smiles with the music on their debut album Heaven’s Bloated Corpse. They’re using it as an outlet for their fury and disgust.

Here’s how Leadbelcher vocalist Matthew Simpson describes what fueled the record’s music and words: Continue reading »

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