NO CLEAN SINGING

YOU’RE NOT HARDCORE UNLESS YOU LIVE HARDCORE: CHICO / DEAD TIRED / R.O.S.A.

Aug 202026

(Andy Synn is a punk rocker… yes he is… for today, at least)

There’s been some interesting discourse – and for once I do actually mean “interesting” and not “irritating” – about the difference, if there is one, between the terms “Hardcore” and “Hardcore Punk”, and what the use of either (or both) of these terms says about the person using them.

You see, even as someone who prefers their Hardcore on the more “Metallic” side (including a lot of the current wave of Death Metal/Hardcore crossover) it feels like the “Punk” side of the scene is getting a little boxed-out (with one or two large exceptions, of course) in favour of breakdowns, beatdowns, and chunky-chuggery.

Purely by coincidence, however, I recently stumbled across a trio of albums that definitely err more towards the punkier end of the spectrum, and it’s these I want to talk about today.

AN NCS PREMIERE: BOÖTES VOID — “PANTA RHEI”

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Aug 202026

(written by Islander)

On September 4th Vendetta Records will release a new album named Panta Rhei by the German black metal band Boötes Void. It follows a demo (The Alder’s Sleep), an EP (Alders Heresy) and two previous albums (C.O.L.D. and Singularity).

As disclosed on Metal-Archives (and probably elsewhere), the band took their name from “a region of space hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter and containing very few galaxies, also known as a supervoid”. And yet their new album is based upon the surviving writings of the vastly influential pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

It is a very interesting concept, and an unusual one as the inspirational basis for black metal, and so we want to share Boötes Void’s statement about it before we get to the main focus of this feature — our premiere of the new album’s title song, which includes guest vocals by Lukas Gosch (Ellende). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXITIUM SUI — “UNTIL THE END HATH FOUND US”

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Aug 202026

(written by Islander)

We have been closely following the works of Exitium Sui since its inception, but for those who might be newcomers, it is a one-man band created in 2020 by E.S. (vocalist of the black metal band Deadspace) from Perth, Australia, and at a high level the music could be branded as a fusion of atmospheric black metal and funeral doom.

Breaking a two-year silence, Exitium Sui will be releasing a new album named Unravelling in cooperation with Meuse Music Records on September 4th. It is described as an album that confronts “the dark chasms of the human psyche” and “negotiates liminal space between utter chaos, complete seclusion, and fathomless depravity”.

Two of the songs have been revealed so far, and today we premiere a third one — “Until the End Hath Found Us” — which arrives as the subject of a shattering video. Continue reading »

BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK: BJES / GROUSE / PETRICOR

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Aug 192026

(Andy Synn has three more albums for the more Black Metal inclined among you)

I’m a busy, busy man at the moment, both in my personal life (it turns out selling a house is hard), and my musical one (did I mention we’ve got a new EP out?).

But I’m still making sure to find time to listen to – and, just as importantly, to write about – new music that I think our readers might appreciate.

And with my recent focus being mostly on various forms of Death Metal and/or Hardcore I felt this week it was about time to get back to our more “blackened” roots with a collection of three relatively recent records dedicated to the glory of Black Metal.

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TERATUM — “ORDNANCE OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE”

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Aug 192026

(written by Islander)

The Swedish group Teratum rose up from the ashes of the band Beastiality in 2024, and the next year they viciously announced themselves with a two-song promo tape made available in extremely small quantities. They are now following that with a debut EP named Ordnance of Spiritual Warfare, which will be widely released by Dying Victims Productions on August 21st.

The EP includes re-recorded versions of both songs from the demo, and two more. For those who weren’t exposed to the demo tape, Teratum’s music does draw upon the violent black/thrashing antecedents of Beastiality, but it has other dimensions as well — and we’re revealing all of them in our premiere of the EP in its entirety. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SEV LEZU — “MAN’S EVIL GIFT”

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Aug 182026

(written by Islander)

Sev Lezu is a relatively new bi-coastal U.S. black metal band whose three members are drummer, vocalist, lyricist, and producer Sasha Stroud (Belexum, Onw), guitarist Melissa Moore (Crossspitter, Sonja), and bassist FW (Manat). Their debut album Blood Conscript also includes a guitarist/songwriter guest appearance by Mia Priest (ex-Impiety) on the track “Corpse Step”.

Some or all of those names should grab the attention of listeners based on the music of their other bands. But if there’s any justice in the world (and of course that’s as rare as hen’s teeth), the “Grinding, Melodic Black Death” of Seb Lezu should grab just as much attention.

Here’s how the press materials describe the band’s musical intersections: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROCENE — “SCUMOCRACY”

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Aug 182026

(written by Islander)

Our suspicion is that anyone would have great difficulty finding any adult anywhere in the world who thinks things are just swell. Even billionaires who blare their opinions always seem to find something about modern life that offends them. Less well-heeled people feel genuine anxiety, anger, or despair, though depending on where they are on the political spectrum and the information they consume (or choose to ignore), the causes and solutions vary dramatically.

Here is what drives the Italian death metal band Necrocene, as described in materials distributed to people like us on behalf of their label Personal Records:

There is a crushing weight bearing down on the globe presently, an unbridled destruction that breeds indifference. It is from this bleak reality that NECROCENE draw their breath, subverting geological terminology into a grim political statement on the unstoppable, death-driven momentum of modern capitalism. This overarching thematic rot directly shapes the band’s sonic architecture. Rejecting modern hyper-technical virtuosity, NECROCENE deliver a style of death metal that is deliberately pedantic, abrasive, and deeply rooted in the genre’s foundational essence.

That description concerns Necrocene’s debut album Scumocracy, which follows their Detrimental Paratomy EP and which Personal Records has set for release on September 18th. Those themes resonate here, and so does the music, which (again to quote the press materials) “translate[s] their shared counter-cultural roots into severe musical weight” and “transforms concepts of social decay and technological obsolescence into a perfect, clear-sighted manifestation of a world careening toward its final, self-inflicted epoch.”

We have an example of this today in our premiere of the album’s title song. Continue reading »

SEPULTURA: “THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING”

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Aug 182026

(What follows is TheMadIsraeli’s review of an EP announced as the final release by Sepultura. It came out in April of this year via Nuclear Blast.)

Some of us here at NCS are believers in modern Sepultura. I’ve always come to bat for them because the thing that spoke to me of a band who shamelessly and uncompromisingly followed their creative instincts was how, even by the sub-genres of metal they are considered part of, they have chosen to take progressive off-kilter approaches to all of it.

Ever since Max’s departure, and especially from Roorback onward, Sepultura have chosen the hard path. I’m not saying that to imply that Against and Nation aren’t good in and of themselves, by the way, but there is a definitive locking-in that occurs at Roorback. I’d chalk this up to those two records being the warm-up, adapting to Derrick’s inclusion and trying to find who they wanted to be. Some people may not fully appreciate what Sepultura was faced with when Max left and Andreas Kisser had to overcome the perception which had taken over that Max WAS Sepultura.

Andreas Kisser will forever be one of my favorite songwriters and guitarists in metal purely because his answer to that challenge was to not play the fame game at all. He essentially ditched the band’s previous legacy for a new one. I think this decision obviously paid off, but they’ve had to deal with a never-ending barrage of people crying about how this wasn’t the old thing anymore. Continue reading »

WARFORGED – THE GROVE | ALMANAC

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Aug 172026

(Andy Synn courts controversy yet again with his review of the new Warforged album, out now)

We should probably start things out today by laying all our cards on the table, yes?

While many people were impressed by Warforged‘s debut album, I: The Voice, I’m afraid I wasn’t one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still an impressive number of ideas, and a lot of technical talent, on display across the album’s unwieldy, almost 73 minute run-time (this is definitely not a band who ascribe to the theory of “less is more”, that’s for sure) but I ultimately found the execution to be disjointed and uneven, with too much of it just haphazardy thrown at the wall in the hope that something would stick.

Their second album, however, showcased a darker, more atmosphere-heavy, sound (as well as a new vocalist) that felt – with a few slightly janky exceptions – more focussed and intentional, harnessing the band’s more experimental and unpredictable impulses with a greater sense of direction that made all the various parts, even the ones which didn’t quite work, feel like they were actually contributing to a greater whole, rather than pulling the record in a thousand different directions at once.

And, luckily for me – though this may end up disappointing a certain section of Warforged‘s fanbase – Almanac is very clearly both a spiritual and sonic successor to Sundial, continuing the ongoing story by adding a fresh new chapter to the band’s career.

SHORT BUT SWEET ON A SATURDAY: HELL IS REAL / MOUTHBREATHER / RACETRAITOR

SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Aug 152026

(Andy Synn picks up the slack today while the boss is away)

Our beloved leader, he whose eyes are all-seeing and whose arms encircle the sun, is currently off on a scenic break, leaving myself and DGR in charge of the site over the weekend.

And, as consumnate professionals… we have nothing prepared.

Or, at least, I should say that we had nothing prepared, since – as luck would have it – a surprise release yesterday has allowed me to complete another tripartite “Short But Sweet” article (which, thankfully, I already had half written) so as to ensure we don’t go another day without feeding the internet’s constant craving for new content to consume.

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