NO CLEAN SINGING

FORTRESS FESTIVAL 2026 – MAY 30-31, SCARBOROUGH, NORTH YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND – DAY 2

Jun 122026

(Here is Daniel Barkasi’s extensive report on the second day of Fortress Festival 2026 in England, accompanied by his great own photos. Go here to see his article on Day One of the festival.)

Sunday, Day 2

Intro

Survive the first day, we did. To say that we were raring to go for day two, at least on first waking up, would be an outright fallacy. Four days of Maryland Deathfest, all of the travel, and the long first day had somewhat caught up to me. The initial plan was to grab breakfast from somewhere – there were a few places nearby that looked solid – but that would require me to move more than a couple of feet, so a couple of protein bars and some Tim Tams that I picked up at the local Tesco would have to suffice. Don’t get me started on my adoration for Aussie snack foods, but yes, I indeed did make some tea and did a proper Tim Tam slam. You’re not looking at some novice.

Once our faculties were in order, it was about time to stroll over to the old Spa for a second and final day that was to give very little mercy in terms of downtime. The proof of a killer lineup – we’ll take it, but the feet protest. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUMEN AD MORTEM — “AND WHAT IS YET TO LOSE”

Premieres No Responses »

Jun 122026

(written by Islander)

One week from today Hypnotic Dirge Records will release A Grave Ascent, the second album by South Australia’s Lumen Ad Mortem. The label succinctly brands the music “anthemic black metal”, and you’ll already understand why if you’ve heard the first couple of album tracks already released.

To be clear, the music is often furiously paced and ferocious, the vocals are usually scorching, and the moods can be intensely distraught. But even when the band are in inferno mode the music spreads its fire and its daunting moods on a grand scale, wholly absorbing listeners in experiences that are as wondrous as they are frightening.

This simply isn’t the kind of music you can casually pass by or hear with only part of your attention, because its emotional and sonic power seizes attention so dramatically. As you might guess, some of the impact derives from the use of panoramic orchestration, but every other ingredient, including the hard-hitting rhythms, the blizzard-like riffing, and the possessed vocals is equally vital.

Yet Lumen Ad Mortem’s new music is equally capable of drenching listeners in atmospheres of crushing loss and despair. One of the two songs already out in the world (“Ghost Gums“) proves that – and today we’re premiering another song (a vast one) that further demonstrates the new album’s expansive emotional reach. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEFECT DESIGNER

Interviews No Responses »

Jun 122026

(Anyone who has listened to Defect Designer, and perhaps especially their current album Depressants [released last month by Transcending Obscurity] will expect any discussion with them to be unusually interesting, especially if it includes insights into their creative process — and expectations are fulfilled in the following interview of Dmitry Sukhinin and Martin Storm-Olsen by our Comrade Aleks.)

I bet that you already had a glimpse here on the new metal of Defect Designer, so I’d prefer to avoid revisiting the band’s background. What we have now is Defect Designer’s fourth full-length Depressants, which continues a series of experiments in prog, death metal, and avant-garde music.

Dmitry Sukhinin is responsible for guitar, bass, and main vocals, as well as some of the music and lyrics; Martin Storm-Olsen has added banjo, mandolin, and twelve-string acoustic guitar to his arsenal this time around. Besides relatively new and extraordinary drummer Eugene Ryabchenko, this album also features female vocals (“Body Count of My Cow Tail”), and one of the three guest vocalists is Björn Strid from Soilwork (“Expiration Deferral Request Denied”).

Depressants sounds like an anthem of unbridled chaos, but in reality, it’s a meticulously crafted piece that has undergone a series of modifications at various stages. In fact, the band’s previous album, Chitin, was recorded literally in the middle of working on Depressants! So the songs were written unhurriedly, with all the necessary elements given due attention. Thus, the screaming death metal cacophony of “Butterfly Juice Straw” easily transforms into epic, melodic metal, while the magical, orchestral keyboard lines of “As the Terracotta Dust Settles”, on the contrary, are instantly dispersed by a rabid death metal overtone.

Asynchrony and extreme dissonance go hand in hand with harmony and classical music. Depressants is the carnage of “Daily Dose of Gloom,” the mandolin finale of “Repeated Aversive…,” the hard rock of “Expiration Defreral…,” and the sleepy prog haze of “Body Count…” A lot of everything to listen to, a lot of everything to dig, a lot of everything to discuss with the band’s main authors. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEWARE OF GODS — “SECONDARY DROWNING”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres No Responses »

Jun 112026

(written by Islander)

“BEWARE OF GODS!” With little doubt, someone has been yelling that warning ever since human beings first conceived of divinities, but with little apparent success. The Minneapolis-based project whose music is the subject of this premiere brandishes that warning in its very name, while simultaneously crafting mythic lyrical and musical narratives that seem to teach other lessons as well — often in exceedingly scary terms.

We’ve had occasion to spread the word about Beware of Gods before, but a few reminders are probably worthwhile. It’s the solo project of a creator known as The Archetype, and has been devoted to the unfolding of a mythos centered on a protagonist called I Nomad — a dystopian cosmic mythos too be sure, but one that provides a mirror to quite human experiences of personal collapse, addiction, and rebirth, influenced by The Archetype’s own near-death experience and long recovery.

The latest Beware of Gods record is Behead the Oracle, the third and final installment in a musical arc named Upon Whom The Last Light Descends, and it’s set for release on July 10th by Invoke Records. As the label explains, it “completes a sprawling narrative about false prophets, algorithmic gods, and the collapse of meaning in a hyper-controlled future.” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRIPPLE BASTARDS — “LA TUA FOTO SUL MARMO”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jun 112026

(written by Islander)

It’s not valid to summarize the attractions of extreme metal in a word or two. The experiences are too varied. At one end, it can feel like the oppressive pressure of the ocean in the deepest trenches. It can also be mysterious and mesmerizing, or profoundly spiritual. But perhaps the greatest attraction derives from its explosive intensity, its raging nature, the furious violence it’s capable of channeling. And in those aspects it’s probably true that no sub-genre captures the heat or provides that kind of catharsis better than grindcore.

I have friends for whom grind is their meat and potatoes, the rushing red blood of what they listen to. I have other friends that barely have any use for it. Not enough hooks, not enough changes, not enough atmosphere, not enough groove to propel the banging of heads, the songs not long enough to sink in. I’m still going to urge those friends (and you) to hear what we’re premiering today, for reasons I’m about to explain.

What you have in front of you is La tua foto sul marmo, a new EP from Cripple Bastards that’s set for release on June 12th – tomorrow! – by F.O.A.D. Records. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ECOTAGE / MELTING / RATS WILL FEAST

SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jun 112026

(Andy Synn presents three short-but-savage examples of the Metallic Hardcore arts)

Ok, I’ll admit it, I’ve been neglecting the short-play side of the scene again

So today I’m going to shine a light on three hefty pieces of Hardcore – of the more Metallic variety, naturally – whose brief run-time still packs one hell of a punch.

And then, if you’re lucky, I’ll follow up with a more Death Metal focussed one next week, deal?

ASYLUM TX: “CULTUS INOXIA”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jun 112026

(This is DGR’s review of the latest album from a Fort Worth band who now call themselves Asylum TX.)

Texas-based tech-death group Asylum – now operating under the name Asylum TX – are a band we’ve been following for some time now, iInitially as a group that showed a surprising amount of promise from seemingly out of nowhere in the death metal world, but then afterward because the group’s music kept making strange twists and turns.

Where Asylum TX were looking to take their music was not something we would have expected or guessed. 2021’s Sharpen, for instance, is a lengthy album that treads the line between tech-death and something more amateurishly explorative of various forms of hallucinogens. It was an hour-plus worth of music that felt like a group of stellar musicians who had fallen into a weird Alex Grey by way of Tool rabbit hole and then taking the wildest swing at making a death metal album about it. Prior EPs and their 2017 album Psalms Of Paralysis had been more straightforward in that regard, as Asylum bore the marks of more than one Cattle Decapitation-influenced twist on their sound.

Five years removed from Sharpen, however, and Asylum – again, wearing a new visage as Asylum TX – once again sound as if they’re a completely different band who’ve come up with something far more angular in its approach than a traditional tech-death release for their newest album Cultus Inoxia. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AGONIA BLACK VOMIT — “TENEBRE E SANGUE”

Premieres No Responses »

Jun 102026

(written by Islander)

The last time we premiered music here from the Italian black metal band Agonia Black Vomit, in the run-up toward their second album Cosmosatanic Wisdom in 2017, we focused on how surprising the songs were, and how significantly they varied from each other in their sounds and moods — much more varied (and melodically rich) than one might have expected after seeing the band’s music simply categorized as “raw antichristian black metal” (not to mention their name)

Since then Agonia Black Vomit (which has been the solo work of Agonia) released another album — The Burning Noise of Satanic Annihilation — in 2023, and in July the fourth one will be co-released by Symbol Of Domination and WP Productions. The name of this one is Satanic Rites For The Undead.

Obviously, the band’s antichristian and unholy lyrical bent hasn’t changed at all, but the music is still multi-faceted, as you’ll discover for yourselves through the song we’re premiering today with a video, “Tenebre e Sangue“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERALIA — “BALLATA AVERNALE”

Premieres No Responses »

Jun 102026

(written by Islander)

Some metal albums are essentially collections of singles, songs that don’t have any thematic connection to each other. Others are “concept” albums, in which the songs have their place in some unifying pre-conceived vision by the artist(s), whether lyrical or musical or both. Such concepts might be relatively simple or not terribly distinctive, while others really stand out as the product of careful thought about unfamiliar subjects.

The new album Ultima Requies by the Italian black metal band Feralia falls into the latter category. Press materials circulated by ATMF (the label that will release the record later this month) describe the album as one “drawing from arcane and occult dimensions tied to the archaic Roman world,” in which “each composition unfolds as a passage, evoking forgotten rites, liminal states and the tension between life and death, presence and absence.”

Even the album’s frightening cover art fits into the narrative. To quote again from the press materials:

The artwork of Ultima Requies [depicts] a reinterpretation of the necromantic ritual of Erichto, the Thessalian witch described in De Bello Civili by Lucan. A figure feared even by the gods, Erichto was said to raise fallen soldiers from the battlefield during one of the most turbulent phases of Roman civil war. This imagery embodies the album’s core: a confrontation with death not as an end, but as a threshold to forbidden knowledge. Continue reading »

KHEMMIS – KHEMMIS

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jun 102026

(Andy Synn girds himself to take on the epic new album from Khemmis, set for release this Friday)

Self-titling an album is always a bold move.

After all, what it says to an audience… for better or worse… is “this is the definitive version of who we are“.

It stands to reason, then, that self-titling an album when you’re already more than a decade into your career, with four other incredibly successful records already under your collective belt, is an even bolder move.

Because it doesnt’t just say “this is who we are“, it also says “this is what we’ve been building to all this time“.

So let’s see exactly what Khemmis have been building, shall we?

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