SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOLGOTHAN REMAINS, LENG TCH’E, MENTOR, DEMIURGO, VĀMĀCĀRA, VERET

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 242026
 

(written by Islander)

I made life difficult for myself this week. Well, don’t we all? I did it by carefully creating an enormous list of new music that I’d spotted in various ways but failing to listen to more than a small fraction of it until this morning — and now time is running out for me to finish this column.

That list turned out to include a lot of surprises — surprise releases from bands I knew and fantastic discoveries from bands I knew nothing about. I’ve included surprises of both kinds in what you’ll find below. But given the time predicament I created for myself, I’ve been forced to resort to a “cheat” to get it finished: Specifically, the last three selections today are complete records (two albums and an EP) that I think are excellent (and surprising), but all I’m going to do is focus mainly on just one song from each of them and hope that will be enough to pull you in. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEYOND GRACE, MISERY INDEX, ARTIFICIAL BRAIN, OPHIS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 232026
 

(written by Islander)

What are the odds? For the second week in a row one of our Friday premieres fell through at the 11th hour, leaving a hole in our schedule and free time I didn’t expect to have.

As usual when these things happen, I have pivoted to pull together a roundup of new songs and videos, getting a bit of a head start on the usual Saturday column. All four of the following choices are from bands who are proven favorites around here (and elsewhere). Tomorrow I’ll focus more on new discoveries. Continue reading »

HEART OF WINTER FESTIVAL 2027 PREVIEW

 Metal News  1 Response »
Oct 232026
 

(We present here Daniel Barkasi’s preview of the next Heart of Winter festival, a three-night event scheduled to take place in Richmond, Virginia on January 14-16, 2027.)

A truly great festival in the United States that features the sort of underground bands that get this scribe to take notice is admittedly hard to come by. We have the always-excellent Maryland Deathfest and of course the NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest as tentpole events, but outside of that, it’s relatively slim pickings, especially compared to what Europe has to offer.

Heart of Winter Festival is here to answer the call.

Beginning as a small upstart event hosted in Richmond, Virginia, it was dormant for 15 revolutions around the sun until this past January, with a statement-making return that included Hulder, One of Nine, Daeva, Evoken, Woe, Inter Arma, Krieg, Demiser, Valdrin, and a bunch of others. We were lucky enough to attend, and what impressed us the most about the event itself beyond the notable lineup was the real DIY attitude and the care in every detail that made that weekend a special occasion.

We won’t have to wait another decade-and-a-half for the next iteration, and with every indication, Heart of Winter is pulling out every stop to make this one hell of a time. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DET AND CRITICAL DEFIANCE — “BLOODSURGE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 222026
 

(written by Islander)

As you gaze upon the torrents of blood cascading down through a cold and desolate landscape on the cover of the record we’re about to premiere, you can begin to get a sense of the musical experience it offers. The artwork (by Julian Mora) matches the record’s name — Bloodsurge.

Bloodsurge is a special split EP that will be released on October 23rd by Dying Victims Productions (who are definitely on a roll this year). It joins together songs from the Finnish band DET (Destructive Elite Terror!) and the Chilean band Critical Defiance, timed to coincide with a joint tour this autumn — and today we give you the chance to hear all of them on the eve of the EP’s release. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KALT VINDUR — “IN SILENCE”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 222026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we gladly reunite with the music of the Polish “Subcarpathian Black Metal” band Kalt Vindur. We’ve been writing about and recommending their music since discovering their second album …And Nothing Is Endless in 2020. They followed that with a quartet of singles in 2023 and then their third album Magna Mater in 2024, which led to our Andy Synn’s laudatory review of that album and our Comrade Aleks’ interview of Kalt Vindur guitarist Artur Szydło.

The occasion for today’s reunion is our premiere of a video of the band performing a song from the band’s forthcoming fourth album, The Void of Time, which is set for a November 27 release by The Circle Music. This is the third single released so far, and its name is “In Silence“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FVNERAL FVKK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 222026
 

(At the beginning of this week we hosted the exclusive premiere of one of the year’s best albums, Indecent Idols, by the German epic doom band Fvneral Fvkk. And now, on the day before its release by Dying Victims Productions, we present our Comrade Aleks’ interview with two of the band’s members.)

The first full-length album from the German epic doom brethren Fvneral Fvkk was released in 2019 via Solitude Productions. On their debut, Carnal Confession, the four-piece — whose members are also largely active in the Hamburg-based death-doom outfit Ophis — tackled the issue of child abuse by representatives of the Catholic Church. Fvneral Fvkk emphasized that they are not an anti-Christian band; they do not critique Christian dogma or faith as a whole, but rather specific manifestations of the Church as an institution.

Given this approach, doom metal — a genre arguably closer to liturgical or ceremonial music than to extreme metal — was chosen as the most fitting vehicle for critiquing the Church’s documented crimes. While the band’s name itself embodies a form of dark satire, their follow-up, Indecent Idols, continues and further develops the melodic richness and solemn emotional depth of the debut.

I approached Fvneral Fvkk for guidance, and Decanus Obscaenus (guitars) alongside Cantor Cinaedicus (vocals) answered my call. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEATEN TO DEATH — “VNTRVE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 212026
 

(written by Islander)

The Norwegian band Beaten To Death don’t play by anyone else’s rules. In the most rudimentary of terms their music is grindcore, but it’s so infiltrated by unorthodox ideas that it rarely sounds quite like the work of any other band in that rebellious genre. This excerpt from recent press materials makes the point very well:

Sixteen years in, Beaten To Death remain allergic to formulas, trends, and sensible decision-making. Since crashing into the grindcore scene in 2011, the Oslo-based outfit have made a career out of twisting the genre into strange, melodic, chaotic, and frequently ridiculous shapes, while somehow earning acclaim for doing everything wrong in exactly the right way.

What we currently have in mind in sharing these words is a new Beaten To Death album, one they named Vntrve, because of course they did. We can’t resist quoting another excerpt from the same clever press release quoted above: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LIMINAL SPIRIT — “SINS OF THE FATHER”

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Oct 212026
 

(written by Islander)

The Milwaukee-based multi-instrumental musician Jerry Hauppa is known for his work with Northless, Ara, Acanthrophis, and Deorbit. He also has a solo project named Liminal Spirit whose music can be described as “Avant-Garde Cinematic Doom”, though that description is incomplete.

Almost exactly one year ago Liminal Spirit released its third studio recording and debut album, Unwell. Its disturbing narrative concept, which was informed by Hauppa’s work in nursing homes, involved the afflictions of aging and his fears about them. As he has explained, the album developed “the idea of building sympathy for a character with dementia [Phillip Hastings], only to find out that he is actually a monster who has done some horrific things despite not remembering them”.

Liminal Spirit has recorded a second album that will be released on November 6th. Titled Forfeiture Hymns, it is described as “a continuation and recontextualizing of the story from the previous album”. As Hauppa explains, “Each song tells the story of an individual character’s demise based on proximity to the main character of that album, told musically in highly unorthodox and extreme ways.”

One song from the new album has been revealed so far (“The Initiate“), and now we premiere an unnerving lyric video for an unnerving second song — “Sins of the Father“. Continue reading »

DREAM UNENDING – CERTAIN UNCERTAINTIES

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 212026
 

(Andy Synn tries to separate the certain from the uncertain once and for all with the new Dream Unending album)

It’s well-documented by this point that I’m not a big fan of the often unnecessary and frequently misleading excesses of the online hype machine.

Not only can it do more harm than good by setting an unreasonably high standard (especially for new bands being presented as “the next big thing” before they’re ready) but it also makes it hard to have a measured and nuanced conversation about the merits, or mis-steps, of a piece of work when people are conditioned to see everything on a binary, black and white scale of either “best thing ever” or “complete and utter garbage fire.”

Case in point, the debut album from Justin DeTore and Derrick Vella, aka Dream Unending, was initially presented as a paradigm-shift in the medium of Death Doom, despite (in my opinion, at least) how obviously and heavily indebted it was to the earliest works of the seminal “Peaceville Three”… but any suggestion that it might not be the genre-defying game-changer it was presented as received a very hostile response.

And, to be clear, it’s not a bad record (even if 2022’s Song of Salvation, which you can read more about here, was significantly stronger) it’s just a prime example of an album where the initial hype represented a clear attempt to set and control the narrative in a way that wasn’t fully reflected by the release itself.

But, for whatever reason – maybe it’s because they’re no longer the hip, new thing, or maybe it’s just because the band’s third album is a more daring, harder to definte piece of work – there doesn’t seem to have been quite as much hype about Certain Uncertainties… which actually leaves a lot more room for me to talk about it.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CAVE MOTH — “CLONE”

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Oct 202026
 

(written by Islander)

(If you think the artwork is bizarre, wait until you hear the music.)

Cave Moth have released six EPs over the last 13 years. They have evolved into a music collective whose members are spread across the U.S. East Coast, and that group is now poised to release yet another EP in November, one named Useless Spawn, Sapient Husk that represents an important next step in the band’s evolution.

The EP includes a re-recording of “Rabbit’s Foot” from their last album, Paralytic Love (which we premiered here), along with two new songs, “Cartman” and “Clone“. What we have for you today is the premiere of “Clone“, as well as an extensive statement from Cave Moth that delves into what this mind-boggling song and the EP as a whole represent. Continue reading »

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