SHORT BUT SWEET: BACKSTABBED, CEASE, CULTURE VOID, THE FAULT OF MAN

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Oct 112026
 

(Andy Synn is still large and in charge this weekend, so here’s four more recommendations from him)

Islander is still AWOL I’m afraid (and, yes, there will be a court-martial when he gets back) so you’re stuck with me again for another day.

But don’t despair, as I’ve got four seriously tasty morsels of Hardcore/Metalcore/Deathcore to share with you today, running the gamut from unpredictably punky, anthemically metallic, to blisteringly nasty… so you might just say there’s something for (almost) everyone here today!

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SHORT BUT SWEET: 1917, CISZA, HEXER, RANĂ

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Oct 102026
 

(Andy Synn is in charge today… woe unto us all)

These are dark days, my friends.

Our beloved overlord has abandoned us to go off and… checks notes… have something called “a social life”?

Which means it’s all up to little ol’ me to keep the site running this weekend while he’s off gallavanting around.

Thankfully I had not one but two “short but sweet” collections already in the works, which means we will still have some stuff to post this weekend… but you can be damn sure I’ll be having some stern words with Islander about his behaviour as soon as he gets back.

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AN NCS PREMIERE: DISEMBODY — “DWELLER OF ABYSSAL WATERS”

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Oct 092026
 

(written by Islander)

“Raw, vicious and uncanny….” That’s the succinct summing-up offered by Helldprod Records for a new album named Awakening of Ancient Evil by the Finnish black/thrash duo Disembody. It’s their second full-length, following the aptly named Reigniting Hellfire from 2021, and that quick take on the music is accurate. Here’s the label’s more elaborate description of the music:

Following their own path, A.H. and J.J. prove once again that they know exactly how to write compelling songs. This time, get ready for eight tracks packed with hellish aggression, piercing riffs, and relentless pounding evilness. Haunting melodies will lull you into a dark slumber, only to have you scorched moments later by Disembody’s blazing tongue of fire….

There is also, somehow, an eerie Beyond the Gates aura lurking throughout the album, adding another layer of infernal crudeness to the darkness already embedded in these tracks.

That description is also accurate, and we have some of the proof today in our premiere of a song from the new album ominously named “Dweller of Abyssal Waters“. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, SEPTEMBER 2026

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Oct 092026
 

(Our Denver-based writer Gonzo has returned to reviewing and recommending albums for us on a monthly basis, and here he recommends five of them released in September.)

These days, I’m trying to look past the infinite well of bullshit that we’re all constantly forced to stare into. Music has a way of distracting me from staring too long into that well, lest it stare back.

As we start wrapping up 2026, I’m constantly impressed at the level of sheer creativity that’s being harnessed in heavy music. It’s cathartic, and right now, that catharsis is nothing short of therapeutic. Bands are taking more risks, expanding their sounds, and exploring uncharted territory with fearless impunity. I had a feeling this timeline would produce some of the most powerful sounds I’ve heard in a while, and I wasn’t wrong.

Here are five albums that made the past month a lot easier for me.

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AN NCS PREMIERE: RITUAAL — “SOULLESS MACHINE”

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Oct 082026
 

(written by Islander)

“Demiricous died (again) after the release of Chaotic Lethal – and out of those ashes arose RITUAAL. A festering, scumfuckin, riff driven, nightmare of a death metal band from the dregs of Indianapolis IN.”

Their words, not ours, but they do get your attention, don’t they? This band, whose lineup also includes current or former members of Acid Coffin, Redivider, Flesher, Tombstalker, and Skeletonwitch, also got a lot of people’s attention with their 2024 debut EP, Elimination, Extermination, Eradication. (For example, it made our Todd Manning’s year-end list of his favorite EPs from 2024.)

And now we’re happy to help announce that Rituaal will be releasing a debut album named Nightmares Of A Damaged Mind, and today we’re premiering one of its new songs as a teaser of what the album holds for all of us. Its name is “Soulless Machine“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PENNY COFFIN — “BIOLOGICAL SENTIENT HORROR”

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Oct 082026
 

(written by Islander)

Those of us who dwell in the moldering and morbid halls of NCS were first attracted to the Scottish death metal band Penny Coffin through their Conscripted Morality EP in 2023 (they had released two others before that). Our sewage-loving DGR penned some paragraphs about it at that time, including these:

“Playing a style of grossly-heavy death metal with an emphasis on brutalizing and equally brain-rotting guitar chug, it’s shocking that the band haven’t fought their way onto this here site before, because Conscripted Morality‘s brand of bleak-and-grey mud is perfectly suited to find some listeners around here….

“Penny Coffin collect a handful of differing styles into their own brand of filth — absorbing the braindead chug that is constantly worming its way into and out of the death metal scene, the ever-present sewage-dwelling with just enough murk that things consistently feel suffocating, and a sort of crawling anger that is ever-boiling in the background.”

Penny Coffin released a pair of singles in 2024, and now they’re back with a 10-song debut album named Transitory Fragmentation that’s due for release on November 6th. To help spread the word, today we’re premiering a song from the album whose title is “Biological Sentient Horror“. Continue reading »

WEREWOLVES: “YOU’RE WEAK AND YOU KNOW YOU’RE WEAK”

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Oct 082026
 

(Australia’s Werewolves are still on track to release 10 albums in 10 years or kill themselves, and our guy DGR continues running right along with them. This time he has managed to write up their newest album (the 7th in the sequence) before its release — which arrives tomorrow via Back on Black.)

Early on within the bounds of the new Werewolves album You’re Weak and You Know You’re Weak, there is a moment in which vocalist Sam Bean declares, “I thought I told you to fuck off on the last album,” and I honestly had to check.

I understand that time gets the best of us all, and truthfully, none of us is getting any younger – though I don’t seem to be speed-running the baldness race at least – but I will admit my memory isn’t what it used to be. The sectors of my brain originally meant for family members’ birthdays that I have since overwritten with things like bands and its constituent members’ side-projects are slowly failing as well, and I know this. So when the philosophical maestros behind Werewolves are asking me if I was in fact told to fuck off somewhere in the liner notes of last year’s album The Ugliest Of All, perhaps they did.

But truthfully, at this point in our tacitly agreed upon “an album every year” suicide pact, perhaps the crew and I are at the “old men at the retirement home yelling at each other across the room” stage of our lives. Am I weak enough to know that I’m weak if I can’t remember that I’m weak in the first place? Continue reading »

GODFLESH: “DECAY”

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Oct 072026
 

(With pride, we present Todd Manning’s review of the the tenth and penultimate album from Godflesh, which is out now on Relapse Records.)

If nothing else, 2026 has provided the metal world with “return-to-form” albums from two of its most endearing and long-lived acts. Neurosis is probably the first to come to many people’s minds, but the new Godflesh album, Decay, should not be overlooked. For me personally, as a fan, a musician, and a writer, these two groups have easily been the most influential in shaping how I see underground music.

Godflesh has never made a bad album. How one parses out their discography probably depends more on personal taste than anything approaching objective considerations. I tend to rank their more abstract work as their best. Albums such as Streetcleaner, Pure, Slavestate, and Selfless do not sound like they were made by humans, while Songs of Love and Hate and Hymns contain at least a sliver of humanity. Decay returns to the former sound. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ELITIST — “TO UNSEE, TO UNTETHER”

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Oct 072026
 

(written by Islander)

Transcending Obscurity Records doesn’t often release splits, but on November 20th they’re dropping one that’s likely to leave a smoking crater in the midst of the coming winter.

Aptly titled Indomitable Hostility, the split joins together new songs from two death metal ravagers whose forward-thinking music you should already know — Replicant from New Jersey and Elitist from Denmark. And if somehow you haven’t yet discovered these bands, this album-length split provides a great jumping-on point for both of them.

Today we’re premiering one of Elitist’s new songs — a creatively chaotic mind-boggler and skull-buster called “To Unsee, To Untether” — and early next week we’ll do the same for one of Replicant’s new tracks. Continue reading »

BLACK ROYAL: “EXTREMOPHILES” (A NEW SONG, A NEW VIDEO, AND AN INTERVIEW)

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Oct 072026
 

(written by Islander)

We have been fervent fans of Finland’s Black Royal for a lot of years — not all of their years, but at least since singles began surfacing in the lead-up to their debut album Lightbringer in 2018. Ever since then we’ve been hooked by their stupefyingly heavy, massively grooved, frighteningly ferocious, and irresistibly addictive blend of sludge and death metal. And so we were most happy to discover that 2026 would bring us a new Black Royal album. Its daunting name is Abyssian.

In April of this year Black Royal and their label M-Theory Audio released a video for the album’s first single, the savage “Water of the Crow” (discussed here), and then in August they released the second one, “Drown the Seaweed” (discussed here). It too arrived with a striking video, and while it is (of course) an enormous head-mover, it also creates a mythic atmosphere that’s unsettling.

And now, as of today, we have the album’s third single and yet another attention-seizing video (a chilling one). The name of this song is “Extremophiles“, and like the first two singles it also has a water-focused theme — a fascinating and quite unusual one. While we can’t claim our sharing of it is a premiere, we do have an interview focused on the song (but also spilling over to the album as a whole) with Black Royal’s powerhouse vocalist and lyricist Riku. Continue reading »

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