Islander

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: WAMPYRIC RITES AND NOIRSUAIRE — “CONSECRATION OF NOCTURNAL ENTITIES”

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May 012026
 

(written by Islander)

Two steadfast standard-bearers of vampyric black metal mysticism and nocturnal transcendence have joined forces on a new album-length split that will be released on May 5th by the Lithuanian label Inferna Profundus Records. These two are Wampyric Rites from Ecuador and Noirsuaire from France, and the authentic name of their split is Consecration Of Nocturnal Entities.

Each band has forged three songs for the album, for a total of 34 minutes of galvanizing, glorious, and grievous music, and it truly is a union of kindred spirits. On this Bandcamp Friday we’re giving everyone a chance to listen to all of it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GROND

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Apr 302026
 

(Today is the day when Xtreem Music releases a new album by the band Grond, and to coincide with that long-awaited event we’re publishing Comrade Aleks’ in-depth interview with Grond frontman and founder Kist. Below you will also have a chance to stream the album in full.)

Moscow-based Grond are stalwarts of the death metal underground and dedicated worshipers of Lovecraftian Horrors. After a huge break the band returns with a new full-length album, and needless to say it’s their most mature, most sophisticated, and most cold-blooded work to date.

Xtreem Music gave Grond the green light, and The Temple, a concept album based on Lovecraft’s story with the same name, but the guys are true to themselves and they offer you their own interpretation of the master’s classics. We interviewed Grond’s frontman and founder Kist, and I’m excited to share this interview with you. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GOREWORM — “NO REPRIEVE”

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Apr 292026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we’re a bit like a caboose pulled along at the end of a powerfully surging freight train, the train being the Canadian death metal band Goreworm rushing forward to the June 12 release of their second album Miasmic Solitude by Transcending Obscurity Records.

We’re a bit like the last car because three songs from the album have already debuted and we’re now premiering the fourth one — “No Reprieve” — though of course Transcending Obscurity might release more before we hit the June 12 mile marker.

On the other hand, the surging freight train analogy doesn’t completely fit the picture, because Goreworm’s music isn’t a straight-ahead, all-wheels-on-the-rails kind of affair, as you’ll soon witness if you haven’t already. Continue reading »

TERROR: “STILL SUFFER”

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Apr 292026
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer’s review of the latest album, released last week via Flatspot Records, by the L.A. hardcore band Terror.)

Yeah, I know this is a metal blog, but Terror crosses over enough to give hardcore-leaning headbangers what they are looking for. The focused intention this album (Still Suffer) hits you with is something that would be amiss to not recognize. Ten albums into their career, the band’s origins date back to the band Buried Alive from the ’90s. The caustic elements in motion here are well-balanced for all the thrash metal embraced by the guitar riffage; there are more than enough gang vocals, and the attitude of the lead vocals makes it clear these guys are hardcore.

This band is perhaps even more harcore than most of the bands claiming that title in 2026. Taking you back to the ’90s, when that scene had a vital energy that made you feel like you were a part of something bigger than music. The title track sets the tone with a more groove-driven riff. When you hear it from the safety of your home, you still know this would be a brutal pit. The songs are concise one-two punches, rarely feeling the need to venture over three minutes. Continue reading »

SERPENT ICON: “TOMBSTONE STORIES”

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Apr 292026
 

(DGR has a new discovery he wants to share with you from the still-growing realm of melodic death metal, a German trio whose debut EP was released in March of this year.)

It isn’t too often that we get to arrive right at the ground floor of a group’s releases. The number of times we have pulled it off is, frankly, stunning, because we’re in a special circumstance built for discovery and even then… who has the time? The organic act of coming across a project on their first EP feels like one of those mathematical possibilities whose scale is so large that the mind fails to be boggled because it can’t comprehend the numbers to begin with. Yet, it seems like by sheer chance we’ve come across German melodeath group Serpent Icon and their debut EP Tombstone Stories, which saw release at the beginning of March.

This early third of 2026 as a whole has proven to be oddly fruitful when it comes to bands under the melodeath tent; perhaps the planets and nostalgia cycle have aligned just right that we’ve reached a critical mass of sorts, and the dam was bound to break at some point. That same chance at play seems to have made it so that quite a few of these bands hail from Germany, as if there was some sort of conference held and every musician in that region declared that they too could do well in the world of high-tempo thrash riffs combined with scene-stealing guitar lead and folk melodies.

Melodeath’s blueprint has been passed down through so many generations at this point that where we land feels less like ‘influenced by, influenced by’ and more like groups seeking to construct a monolith of their own, each band contributing one more stone to the still-growing colossus known as melodic death metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVEIR — “A FUTILE EXHORTATION”

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Apr 282026
 

(written by Islander)

For nearly a decade we’ve been recommending the recordings of the Brisbane-based black metal band Graveir, and we’re doing it again today. Their discography to date has included a pair of albums — Iconostasis (2016) and King of the Silent World (2020) — plus an EP and a pair of splits. And now they have a third album named The Festering Triad that’s set for release on May 29th by Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings.

As their label has accurately described, Graveir’s music has proven to be “bleak, violent and uncompromising.” It’s capable of evoking fury, chaos, and degradation, but also creating mind-warping melodic visions that are unearthly and even mesmerizing but also profoundly frightening. And here is how Apocalyptic Witchcraft describes their new full-length:

The Festering Triad, their third album, is a bleak vision of societal decay and corrupted power. Across eight tracks, bile-fuelled aggression surges through anxiety-ridden drums, convulsing guitars, and serpentine basslines—forming a suffocating, venomous descent into rot.

What we have for you today is a startling sign of just how accurate that description is, a song named “A Futile Exhortation“, which arrives with a tremendous video that captures many of the album’s dire concepts. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MASCA — “THE PERSEVERANCE OF SACRILEGE”

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Apr 282026
 

(written by Islander)

Masca is a new group that unites three long-time friends who have been involved in the Italian and international metal underground, with such names as Beheaded, Adversum, and Daemusinem on their resumes. They have recorded a debut album named Maskerie Filia Diaboli that will be co-released on May 22nd by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Underworld Echoes Records (Greece).

And beyond that we don’t have much other information to share about the band or the album, other than the labels’ recommendation of it for fans of Dark Funeral, Belphegor, Behemoth, and Immortal. That’s potentially useful in pointing the way to some kind of powerful amalgam of black and death metal, but we have a more immediate and tangible sign of what Masca have done through our premiere today of an album track called “The Perseverance of Sacrilege“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NON SERVIAM — “DÉESSE MORTE”

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Apr 272026
 

(written by Islander)

Five years after Le Cœur Bat (2021), and more than a decade after Un petit peu d’amour pour la haine, the genre-blurring French collective Non Serviam are returning with a third album named La Lune Dont Mon Âme Est Pleine, now set for release on June 12th.

The new full-length is described as “a symbolist concept album centered on the myth of Diana and Actaeon, exploring themes of the desire for the absolute, the violence it engenders, and the melancholy that follows.” And further:

Beyond the metamorphosed and tormented figure of Actaeon, the album also invokes Émile Henry, the late-19th-century French anarchist, as well as the apocalyptic goddess Kali, voiced by Mirai Kawashima (Sigh) in a powerful homage.

Those excerpts from the album’s press materials should create a sense of intrigue among listeners, even listeners who haven’t already been exposed to the shape-shifting musical nature of Non Serviam’s previous releases. They remain shape-shifters on the new album, and even more so, as you’ll discover from the new song and video we’re now premiering. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECT DESIGNER — “SCORCHING THE RIVAL POGONOMYRMEX BURROWS”

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Apr 272026
 

(written by Islander)

From the standpoint of a listener the idea of a band like Norway-based Defect Designer taking their music to a higher level is a bewildering concept — because their music has been so continuously bewildering. They have used death metal as a laboratory for experimentation, with results that are eccentric, subversive, unpredictable, and dazzling.

For this listener (and I suspect for all their fans), Defect Designer’s music produces big smiles. Maybe they were smiling too when they named their new album Depressants, because it is a powerful anti-depressant, no prescription needed. At least based on early listening, it also comes across as their best work yet.

Yes indeed, they have found ways to take their music to a higher level, though how to linguistically define the unconventional countours of that new plateau is no easier than it has been in the past.

We’ve premiered songs from each of Defect Designer’s last three releases, and fortune has smiled upon us because today we get to do it a fourth time, linguistic challenges and all. Speaking of linguistic challenges, the name of the song you’re about to hear is “Scorching The Rival Pogonomyrmex Burrows“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SOULBURN

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Apr 272026
 

(The Dutch metal extremists Soulburn will release their fifth album on June 12th through Testimony Records, and that created a good opportunity for our Comrade Aleks to check in with Soulburn co-founder Eric Daniels. A great discussuion ensued, and you can check it out below along with the album’s first two singles.)

Dutch extreme metal act Soulburn was born 30 years ago after the first disbanding of legendary death-doom aggressors Asphyx whose core members Eric Daniels (guitars) and Bob Bagchus (drums) taught a new lesson of extremity with the devastating debut Feeding on Angels (1998). Years passed, and Eric is the only original Soulburn member now, although his bandmates Twan van Geel (bass, vocals), Remco Kreft (guitars), and Marc Verhaar (drums) are hardened veterans of the metal underground too.

Honestly, I didn’t expect any surprises from the band’s new album Quantifying Cosmic Doom but more good old blasphemous extreme stuff, yet the album strikes me not only with its high technical quality but also with a much wider concept, both lyrically and music-wise. The album is scheduled for the 12th of June by Testimony Records, so be forewarned! Quantifying Cosmic Doom this way comes.

I was lucky to get this in-depth interview with Eric himself, and there’s no better way to learn more about Soulburn than to read it. Continue reading »

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