AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZHIROCK — “EROTIC PANIC”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 132026
 

(written by Islander)

As we occasionally do, we’re about to step off our usual well-beaten musical paths and premiere a song whose changing facets include a lot of singing, a lot of industrial-strength groove, darting keyboards, and other features that might brand it as hard rock or maybe nu metal. But don’t worry, the song gets much more extreme too.

The name of the song, which is presented through a lyric video, is “Erotic Panic“. It’s from a conceptual album named The Killer I See In Me by the band AzhiRock, who originated in Tehran, Iran. The album is projected for release in 2027 by Satanath Records, and it will follow the band’s 2025 full-length, Echoes of Drifting Stones. Its concept is described in these words:

This album is about a person who has grown up in Terror, Pain, and sadistic family and society, Trauma which pushed him/ her to be a antisocial one…

He/She feels a killer is living inside….

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVOCATION RITUAL — “THREAT BY EXAMPLE”

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Jul 132026
 

(written by Islander)

Last summer the Seattle-based death metal band Invocation Ritual self-released a two-song debut demo, and now they’re following that with a debut album named Altered Reality which Iron Fortress Records will release on August 14th.

Even if you missed out on that demo, Invocation Ritual should command attention based on the fact that their lineup includes current and former members of Oxygen Destroyer, Kontusion, and Reburied (among others).

The name of their new album expresses an overarching theme. As summarized on behalf of Iron Fortress, its ten tracks “chart a harrowing descent through psychological collapse, where mounting paranoia, violence, and personal turmoil steadily erode the boundary between reality and delusion”.

We’re presenting one of those tracks today, a furious and stunningly vicious song called “Threat By Example“. We have this comment about it from Invocation Ritual guitarist Paul Richards: Continue reading »

FUMING MOUTH – THE RINGING BELL

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 132026
 

(Andy Synn asks for whom the bell tolls… and it turns out it’s for him)

There are lots of different ways we could begin a review of the new Fuming Mouth (which comes out Friday).

We could, of course, talk about frontman Mark Whelan’s diagnosis with, and subsequent recovery from, Acute Myeloid Leukemia and how this has – unsurprisingly – influenced the band’s musical and lyrical approach.

We could also just as easily talk about how divisive the band’s second album, Last Day of Sun was, due to its more Punk/Hardcore influenced approach – though I still think that tracks like “Out of Time”, “The Silence Beyond Life”, and “I’ll Find You” are absolute bangers – and occasional (if not always successful) dash of moody melodic crooning.

But instead I’d like to start off by mentioning the one and only disappointing aspect of the record… which is the underwhelming cover art (which, to be fair, I’m sure must have some deeper significance to the group, but which really doesn’t live up to the high bar set by the eye-catching artwork of Lewandowski and Todorovic that adorned their first two albums, respectively).

Thankfully, however, this is one occasion where you definitely can’t judge the proverbial book by its literal cover.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LABOR OF THE NEGATIVE, AURI, TEARS OF NEMAN & СХИЗМА, MIASMES, HAMMERFILOSOFI, DRAPE, ORANSSI PAZUZU

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 122026
 

(written by Islander)

As you can see, I have a lot of new music to recommend today. I hope the volume won’t deter you from investigating each entry. I will say that I’ve arranged the selections in a way that my cause your head to whirl around as you move through them. At least I hope that will happen!

Because there’s so much to discuss, I’ll dispense with further introductory comments and get right to it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NORILLAG, POACHER, LITOST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 112026
 

(written by Islander)

My spouse and I are going to an early lunch with a friend we’ve known for… ahem… decades. She’s always a ton of fun to be with, but the timing’s not great for this column. I had added dozens of new songs and complete releases arriving over the past week that I intended to check out. And I didn’t get a head-start yesterday because I spend a chunk of the afternoon and early evening watching a Mariners baseball game that was… ahem… dispiriting. Don’t ask me why I did that, because I knew our opponents were very good and the odds were very high that my team would… ahem… suck (again).

Anyway, I had a lot of hard choices to make this morning and a rapidly vanishing amount of time in which to make them and then peck out some thoughts. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with more new music for the usual Sunday collection. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARTILAGE — “THE OPERATING ALTAR”

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Jul 102026
 

(written by Islander)

Any chance we have to expose more people to the music of San Francisco’s Cartilage is a chance we will seize, even if it means having to spend hours washing the blood off our gore-drenched bodies after reveling in the band’s musical horrors.

Their newest death-grinding horrors are barely contained in a new album named Operating Altar that’s set for release on September 11th by Everlasting Spew Records. Unlike the previous abominations of Cartilage, this album narrates a single nightmarish tale, which they describe as follows: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASPEN SANCTUM — “PILLARS”

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Jul 102026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re all about to roll into the weekend, and we hope it will be a good one for everybody. To help pave the way into it, and to make the weekend a better one for you, we’re premiering a song from Aspen Sanctum’s forthcoming debut album To Withhold the Need to Conquer.

Because this is a fairly new band, an introduction is in order. They are based in Kalamazoo, a town in southwestern Michigan that shares the Algonquian name for the river that runs by it. The band’s four members are Jared Koons, Jeremy Cronk, Tim Wicklund, and Bryan Neterer. Here’s their explanation for the band’s name, and for the title of their album:

Aspen forests are common to the upper Midwest. Known for their colorful autumn leaves and pale bark, the word “Aspen” serves as a reference to the region’s distinct seasons. “Sanctum” suggests a sacred, secluded space. Aspen Sanctum is meant to evoke a vision of the natural world prevailing in the face of time.

Embodying the beauty of the Northwoods, coastal Great Lakes, and rolling hills of the Midwest, while simultaneously resisting the innate human urge to dominate and conquer all that lies in view. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RAVAGED BY THE YETI

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jul 102026
 

(“Fun” is a recurring word in Zoltar’s interview of Mike Borders, and “fun” is the operative word for what the interview will bring you, too. The focus is on Ravaged by the Yeti (Borders‘ band with Rogga Johansson and Jon Rudin), whose new album is being released today by Testimony Records, but it goes in other directions too. Enjoy!)

Few people do take a thirty-plus years leave of absence in death metal before going back at it in full swing. But Mike Borders ain’t no regular death metal musician either as he was part of one of MASSACRE’s earliest line-ups back in 1985. Yep, he played along Kam Lee, Bill Andrews, and future OBITUARY axeman Allen West before the latter was replaced by Rick Rozz, recording with them their first two proper demos before hanging up his bass to lead a ‘normal’ life.

That is until 2019 when Lee called him back, eventually becoming part of the team that would record and release the Resurgence album and a few subsequent EPs, including Mythos. Said team included Rogga Johansson from PAGANIZER and a zillion other bands with whom Borders would soon have a very special bond, leading to formation of RAVAGED BY THE YETI in 2023, right after his second and final exit from MASSACRE.

After a cool but nowhere-to-be-found debut on a rip-off label (Apex Predator) and a slight reshuffling of the line-up – gone are both WOMBBATH’s Jonny Pettersson and drummer Jon Skäre – RAVAGED BY THE YETI’s brand-new album Snowbound Horror on the far more reliable imprint Testimony Records is as dumb and fun as its title suggests and Borders doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORNS OF ABOMINATION — “HORNS OF ABOMINATION”

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Jul 092026
 

(written by Islander)

Horns of Abomination is the name of a new Southern California-based one-man audio terror. It is also the name of the band’s debut demo tape to be released by Sentient Ruin, and it’s the name of the demo’s opening song, which we’re now premiering.

As usual, Sentient Ruin has crafted its own vivid prose to describe what happens on the demo:

Treading a liminal outer realm of ear-splitting chaos where bestial war metal and pure noise converge into experimental derailment riding the confines of sanity, Horns of Abomination establishes an audial conquest of unprecedented cruelty and destruction. Obsessive, maniacal, barely coherent rhythmic pulsations plumbing a bloodbath of distortion; assaultive, chainsawing guitars creating berserk repetitions against a foul regurgitation of bestial, disemboweled vomits.

Of course, we have some descriptions of our own to offer. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEFIANT — “CAESARS MESSIAH”

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Jul 092026
 

(written by Islander)

Not for the first time, an extreme metal band has used excerpts from The Passion of Joan of Arc to illustrate one of their songs. This time it is the Croatian black/death metal band Defiant, who commemorated their 20th year of existence in 2025 with the release of their fifth album, Mammon Mantra. But in the video we’re premiering for their song “Caesars Messiah” from that album, Defiant aren’t celebrating the famous martyr, but using the scenes for a different purpose.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a 1928 French silent film directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and starring Renée Jeanne Falconetti. It focuses on the time that Joan of Arc was a captive of England and depicts her trial and execution for heresy by French clergymen loyal to the English. It is rightly regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. Even seeing only the excerpts used by Defiant, you can get a sense of why that is.

But, as suggested above, the lyrics of “Caesars Messiah“, which you will also see in the video, seem to have a different moral than the injustice visited upon Joan and the reasons for her ultimate elevation to sainthood by the church. Continue reading »

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