(written by Islander)
We’ve had a couple of reviews today that are well worth reading — DGR’s take on Behemoth’s new compilation and Andy Synn’s writing about the fantastic new album from Great Falls. I was supposed to prepare the premiere of a full album stream for today as well, but that fell through because the band jumped the gun without warning to the label or me. So, I decided to use the unexpected free time to pull together this roundup.
As you may know, I didn’t write the usual weekend columns last weekend due to being on a short vacation in Eastern Washington with my spouse and some good friends. Fortunately, Andy filled the void with two review collections on Saturday and Sunday (here and here, in case you missed them).
Because I didn’t plan to do anything myself, I have a ton of possible roundup selections that had accumulated before last weekend, and even more now. With not enough time to attempt any kind of comprehensive survey, I resorted to impulse in making the choices. Fortunately, impulse control isn’t one of my strong suits.
RADIANT KNIFE (U.S.)
We don’t feature instrumental-only songs nearly as often as songs that include vocalists, and I can’t remember the last time I led off one of these roundups with a no-singing song. But Radiant Knife deserve the attention.
It’s definitely not the first time we’ve paid attention to this Louisiana duo (here is the proof), and to be clear, one of those two does sing — just not on this first single and title song from their new album Sankalpa (which had its premiere at Decibel). But I don’t think you’ll miss the vocals.
Over the course of nearly nine minutes Radiant Knife change course repeatedly. They begin with vivid skull-popping beats, abrasively clanging notes, enormous bass-throbs, and strangely dancing keys, and then they repeatedly twist the music in even more deranged directions (while still slugging very damned hard).
The music manically darts and heavily gouges, feverishly twitches and boldly brays, sends celestial keys shimmering overhead and inflicts brutishly chugging flurries, rhythmically rocks out and goes off-kilter, and becomes dreamy and woozy near the end, even as it continues to jab like a jackhammer.
Sankalpa is set for release on November 13th.
https://radiantknife.bandcamp.com/album/sankalpa
https://www.instagram.com/radiant_knife
https://www.facebook.com/Radiantknife
NIHILO (Switzerland)
The barbarous Swiss death metal band Nihilo have a new album named Abyss that’s headed for release by Xtreem Music on November 3rd. The first single, “Primal Instinct“, was discharged early last month, and I shared some thoughts about it here. Now we have a lyric video for a second single to enjoy (or to run from to save our lives), and it features a guest appearance by Shyaithan from Impiety.
In this compact song, “Dishonored Death“, raging and rabid vocals expel murderous and bleak words while the rest of the performers generate an electrifying musical surge. Hammering drums drive the pace while the riffing sends a roiling deluge of vibrating viciousness through the bloodstream. The music savagely swarms and frantically soars, further elevated in its intensity by harsh choral vocals. It doesn’t last long, but long enough to get its raking claws stuck in a listener’s head.
https://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com/album/abyss-2
https://www.xtreemmusic.com/
https://linktr.ee/nihilometal
https://www.facebook.com/nihilometal/
ANCESTROS (Spain)
Ancestros is a new Seville-based collective whose 11-person roster of members have been associated with Orthodox, Pylar, Teitanblood, and Voidescent (among others). That lineup caught my attention, as did their label’s description of the band’s debut album, which made comparative references to the likes of Portal, Deathspell Omega, Reverorum ib Malacht, Hellhammer, and Bathory. That description also identified the lyrical themes as grounded in Speculative Realism, with writings by Germán Sierra and Ramiro Sanchiz.
“Orbitor” is the colossal first single from the album, and its opening song. It’s a mind-bender from beginning to end, from the cacophonous voices and feverish static that open the song to the clobbering beats, skittering fretwork, and shrieking tones that follow.
The lead vocals are utterly crazed; the bass creates moaning fanfares of sound; and the drums go mad too, while the abrasive sandpaper riffing continues to feverishly shiver and crystalline keys wail. It’s a spectacular kaleidoscope of sensations, constantly spinning and contorting, and the remarkably varied drumming is a non-stop jaw-dropper.
Eventually, the song shifts and becomes somewhat less riotous, but only somewhat less multi-faceted and no less fascinating. When the intensity ramps up again, the band richly layer the textures once more, including bursts of screeching instrumental convulsions, cascades of eerie synths, dextrous bass-lines, prog-minded drum escapades, and some of the most berserk vocals you’ll find anywhere.
Madness reigns throughout, although an expiring leviathan heart seems to beat at the very end. You might be left gasping, and wondering, “WTF did I just hear?!?” And then you might want to hear it again (I sure did).
The name of the album is Blasfemia Austral. It will be released by Cyclic Law on November 16th.
https://cavsas.bandcamp.com/album/blasfemia-austral
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573388662926
GNULL (U.S.)
Gnull describe themselves as an “Experimental/Hardcore” band formed in late 2025 and based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. They’re releasing a debut EP named Imperial Degradation on November 23rd. I happened to notice it at the right time, which is to say, when I had enough time to check out the record’s first advance song, “Knife Cycle“. It knocked me down very damned fast.
With punk beats initially driving the engine, Gnull surge and charge, inflicting viciously swarming and jolting riffage, rapidly swirling lead-guitars, and howling vocal belligerence. It’s a superheated attack until the band back off a bit, with drums slowly tumbling and the music blaring and moaning in anguish. As the band torque the intensity again, you can feel the music’s emotional pain (and the unhinged explosiveness of the vocals) right in your core.
Gnull put their foot on the gas again in the song’s closing segment, and the fretwork strangely contorts and swirls– but the song is still a hard-charging, ruthlessly eviscerating barrage, and doubled vocals make it sound even more off the hook.
https://gnull.bandcamp.com/album/imperial-degradation
SUNDOWNER (Australia)
When we got a press release about a new album by Sundowner, the name rung a bell. The bell rang because of a split that Sundowner released last January with the Swedish misanthropic sludge band Slôdder (I wrote about it here) — though it would have rung louder if I’d heard Sundowner’s previous full-length releases.
The band’s new album is named Cesspool. Not exactly a warm and welcoming name, but it’s in keeping with the caustic and crushing nature of their music, which their label Disdain Records describes as a collision of “NOLA-inspired blues metal, corrosive riffs, suffocating grooves and bursts of hardcore violence”.
The album’s first advance track, “Intoxication Blues“, warrants their label’s description. It delivers a crushing, mid-paced stomp, but one that’s laced with woozy, weedy riffing that’s as thick as tar and blowtorch vocal intensity that’s heedless of your eardrums’ health.
As the song unfolds the band both slow the pace and speed it up, inflict bursts of feedback abusiveness, and cause the riffing to hungrily throb, to slither like engorged pythons, and to crawl like a wounded beast. The vocals are shattering throughout.
https://sundownersludge.bandcamp.com/album/cesspool
https://www.disdain-records.com
https://facebook.com/SundownerSludge
GHÂSIQIN (Indonesia)
I may have bitten off more than I can chew in deciding to finish off this roundup with a complete album, especially when the album is one I could write about in so many paragraphs that the weight of them might sink the site. Not wanting to sink the site or over-stress your attention span, I’ll try to keep this brief — but long enough (I hope) to induce you to explore the record more fully on your own.
The name of the album is The Birth Of Ghâsiqin — a fitting name since it’s the debut release by the Indonesian group Ghâsiqin, which shares members from Incinerated and Veneration. Their label describes the music as having been “inspired by Spektr, Mayhem (Blasphemer era), Drastus, Immolation, Monumentum, Aborym, Blut Aus Nord, Thorns, Ved Buens Ende and Martial Industrial art”.
The album’s opening track “Trail of Dust” is a striking one. On the one hand, it’s “just” an instrumental opener, but on the other hand it’s a great stage-setter. The drums combine enormous processional booms and frantic clattering beneath organ keys that rise up in chilling yet mesmerizing manifestations of mystery and magnificence.
From there Ghâsiqin launch into “Transfiguration“, a tirade of viciously darting and feverishly swirling fretwork that then flares into blast-beat fusillades and massive tides of unnerving and kind of queasy music. The howled and screamed vocals are throat-cutting; the drumming shifts patterns continuously; the bass vividly bubbles; and the dissonant and distorted music continues to put chills on the neck in changing ways.
In the middle of the song a grit-choked guitar creates an abysmal bridge, after which the music rings like fractured bells and slowly writhes. It messes with your inner ear and any sense of peace your mind might want to find, and Ghâsiqin continue doing that, though the nuanced work of the rhythm section still shines through the eerily miasmatic nature of the music. At the end, they let chaos reign again, with vocals raging without restraint and the guitars undergoing a multitude of attention-seizing convulsions.
That first proper song explains those previous comparative references to the likes of Blut Aus Nord, Thorns, Ved Buens Ende, and Immolation. The following songs flesh out those inspirations and others. At peak intensity they create eye-popping spectacles of spinning madness, and even when the pacing is less flat-out and the music is more stricken in its feeling (sometimes accompanied by solemn spoken words or wild wails), it’s still head-twisting.
The performers are obviously all very talented, and more than that, they are adventurously freewheeling as songwriters. The dynamism and dexterity of the rhythm section never cease to impress; the vocals channel an imperial brand of fanaticism; the riffing is alternately incendiary, engulfed by hopelessness, shrouded in esoteric mystery, and frighteningly grand; and the lead-guitar flourishes are both very fleet of finger and very stripped of tethers to sanity, but also capable of fashioning spells of dark sorcery.
There’s even a craggy interlude track that’s nearly the sole province of the bass. And the closing track “Towards the Sun” is the most experimental indulgence of them all, like some confluence of traditional gongs and spasming electronics functioning as the introduction to a wildfire that also transforms into a swaying demonic dance.
To repeat, I could spill a whole hell of a lot more words about the album and attempt to further trace its many twists and turns, but hopefully I’ve said enough to pull you into it. It’s really one of the most remarkable albums I’ve heard in months. I’ll leave you with these words from the album’s Bandcamp page:
The Birth Of Ghâsiqin is a metaphysical & existential: cyclical destruction and rebirth, the illusion of salvation longing for eden, and the tragic paradox of mankind, colliding transcendence yet will and pride endure conflict in the name of justice; this is peace in the chains of mechanism. Apo kataboles kosmos, towards new sun – a new harmony in submission.
The Birth Of Ghâsiqin was released on October 10th by the Slovak label Hexencave. I’m thankful to Rennie from starkweather for urging me to check it out.
https://hexencave.bandcamp.com/album/the-birth-of-gh-siqin
https://www.instagram.com/beholdghasiqin/