Islander

AN NCS PREMIERE: AZAMOTH — “ANCIENT SIGNS OF WAR”

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May 292025
 

(written by Islander)

The Israeli black metal band Azamoth first formed in 2004 and released their debut album Eternity in 2006. In just a few days — roughly 18 1/2 years later — they will release their second album, Bellum Nostrum (“Our War”), via the Symbol Of Domination label.

Obviously, that’s a very long recording hiatus, and the lineup that created Bellum Nostrum isn’t identical to the one that made Eternity (though founding vocalist Scorch and founding guitarist Lord Grief remain in place). So the impulse is to take the new album as a re-launch of the band, as a new statement of intent, as a flaring of ideas and experiences that have accumulated over that long stretch of years.

Today we have a sign of what Bellum Nostrum holds for listeners as we premiere the album track “Ancient Signs of War“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVE WITH A VIEW — “THE LASH”

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May 292025
 

In the long hours of night when the daylight will not come, when the ghosts of the past and the devils of the present toy with your sanity and dissect your sense of self and self respect… when the first razor cut, made with trembling hand, sends a shocking stream of crimson crawling sluggishly across the sickly pale white of your sun-starved skin… when there is no comfort to be found and you are lost in a shadowed labyrinth of torment and grief, sinking in a morass of blood and tears… on a night like this there is no salvation in the bottle or the needle. There is no god in heaven and no fallen angel in hell. There is only the emptiness that cannot be filled and the unbearable loneliness that gnaws at your soul. And the unshakeable certainty that there is no way out.

As album preambles go, that one is a particularly soul-shuddering thing to read. It is also an entirely fitting encapsulation of Raw Illumination, an album released last fall by Finland’s Grave With A View — not only the album’s bleak emotional inspiration but also the wretchedness, ruin, and rage of the musical experience itself.

The Dusktone label, which released the album, offered their own preview: Continue reading »

NEKRODEUS: “RUAß”

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May 292025
 

(Here we present Didrik Mešiček‘s review of a new album by the Austrian band Nekrodeus, recently released by FDA Records.)

“Gott ist tot,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest people in German history. And now over a hundred years later we have Austrians bringing us the same idea through a more modern medium. A contemporary form of philosophy, if you will. Nekrodeus is another one of those black metal (ish) bands from the Graz scene and they’ve released their third album, Ruaß, on May 16th, 2025, through F.D.A. Records.

Despite Nekrodeus being labeled as simply death metal on Metal Archives, this is a band that keeps changing their sound and have definitely leaned a bit into black metal at some points. Having seen them last summer, I remember them as being a bit blackened and also a bit punkish and that’s the side that hits us from the start with this release. There’s a very aggressive note coming from the vocals combined with a rather dissonant sound that acts almost like an alarm and furious drumming. “Abgrudmensch” is certainly a song that gets your attention and wakes you up. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PUTERAEON — “MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS”

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May 282025
 

(written by Islander)

We should begin this album-premiere feature with what the great Dan Swanö has said about Puteraeon‘s forthcoming fifth album, Mountains of Madness:

“I have had the pleasure to work with Puteraeon since 2017 and their releases have always been solid, but the quality of this new album completely took me by surprise. It is just so damn good it’s hard to fathom! It’s like they thought about every little detail on how to make the album brutal as hell, yet memorable and extremely epic. I dare to say this one will go down in the history books as one of the best Swe-Death releases ever.”

If that doesn’t make you sit up straight and pay attention, probably nothing will — though the name of the album and Ola Larsson‘s cover art should also seize your attention. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JONAS LINDBLOOD (PUTERAEON)

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May 282025
 

(Our French contributor Zoltar conducted the following excellent interview with Puteraeon founder and vocalist/guitarist Jonas Lindblood in advance of Emanzipation Production‘s release of this Swedish band’s newest album on May 30th — an album we will premiere-stream one hour from now.)

“Dead but dreaming.” Howard Philipps Lovecraft probably never thought while writing for the first time about what would become his most famous creation in the aptly titled The Call Of Cthulhu nearly a century ago back in 1926 that, somehow, this conception would also ring true about his never-ending influence on extreme metal.

A lot has been said about how pioneers like Black Sabbath (‘Beyond The Wall Of Sleep’) or Metallica (‘The Call Of Ktulu’) early on associated the name of the master of Providence to distorted riffing on selected tracks, but lately more than a few bands like French weirdos The Great Old Ones or German epic travelers Sulphur Aeon have gone the extra mile by entirely dedicating their lore to his writings and monstrous cosmology.

The cool thing about Puteraeon is that they never jumped on the bandwagon to start with yet made it clear from their third demo what the deal was, going as far as doing a whole set of songs (The Extraordinary Work Of Herbert West) solely dedicated to one of Lovecraft’s most-beloved novels – and the source of inspiration for what remains his best movie-adaptation, Stuart Gordon-directed 1985 cult horror flick Re-Animator. Continue reading »

MARTWA AURA: “LAMENT”

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May 282025
 

(Barely one week ago the Malignant Voices label released a new album from the Polish black metal band Martwa Aura, and our Norway-based writer Chile was tremendously impressed by it, as you’ll see from his review below.)

Once in a while, instead of devising some cute, little introductory story about how my childhood formed my adulthood listening habits, or how my lifestyle determines my deathstyle, or something, we could just go straight to the point, the good old in medias res. So this time, we dive head first into the deep, black end of the pool.

Not surprisingly, some metal bands just don’t care about matters of publicity or marketing and they’re just in it for the sake of their art, or so they say. Those in the black metal genre seem especially culpable of this by doing the bare minimum, dropping albums without any kind of big announcements or follow-ups, seemingly having no interest whatsoever to deviate from that path.

Anyway, Martwa Aura. Just by saying that they are a Polish black metal outfit should pique the interest of anybody even tangentially interested in the genre itself, as Poland has been a hot spot of black metal for a number of decades already and has produced some of the most magnificent music in existence during that period, as mentioned recently in the Wędrowcy~Tułacze~Zbiegi interview published on this very site.

You guessed it right by now, Martwa Aura dropped to minimal fanfare a new album called Lament on May 19th through the Polish label Malignant Voices, five years after their previous one Morbus Animus. This being their third full-length should make them an established name on the Polish scene, but the feeling is they’re still being a well-kept secret just waiting to explode like an atom bomb onto an unsuspecting population.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LOATHFINDER — “BROKEN BRANCHES AND TORN ROOTS”

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May 272025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band Loathfinder made their recording debut with a 2017 EP (deliciously titled The Great Tired Ones), and then followed that two years later with the Aspects of Oblation split with Alaska-based Druj. Now at last they are on the verge of releasing their first album, Broken Branches and Torn Roots, through Godz Ov War Productions.

Our own Andy Synn reviewed that 2017 debut EP and described it as “hideously heavy and gloriously grim Blackened Death/Doom,” offering up “four tracks of bone-grinding riffs, putrid vocals, and suppurating, suffocating grooves, which seem purposefully designed to ruin your day.” He also wrote:

Yet as disgustingly dirty (love that guitar tone) and remorselessly gloomy as the band are, there’s a real method to their madness, above and beyond the compulsion to simply wallow in sonic filth…. All in all this is one hell of a nasty piece of work, and one which thoroughly deserves your time and attention.

But roughly 8 years have passed between the EP and the forthcoming album, long enough that even early fans of the band may wonder whether, and if so how, their music has changed over the interim. You’ll get your answers today as we premiere a full stream of Loathfinder‘s full-length debut. Continue reading »

CARNAL FORGE: “THE FRACTURED PROCESS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 272025
 

(This is DGR‘s review of a new EP by the Swedish band Carnal Forge, released in March by ViciSolum Productions.)

Much as it is tempting to turn every review into a tome that could challenge Webster’s Dictionary in terms of pages, sometimes something shorter and sweeter is the order of the day. Carnal Forge have been kicking about since the late ’90s, with one real lengthy gap between releases in that time. Their 2019 album Gun To Mouth Salvation was their first full-length in close to twelve years so it’s not too hard to believe that in an age of ever-shifting lineups a near-six-year gap would then follow before we heard from the guys again.

March 2025 offered us a peak behind the curtain of what the band still have in the tank with a three-song EP entitled The Fractured Process, and judging by the near-eleven or so minutes of material that this EP is offering up, they’re not looking to rock the boat too hard. Carnal Forge are continuing the walk the pathway of some very sinister melodeath and thrash music, effectively kicking the machine back into motion right where it left off from Gun To Mouth Salvation. Continue reading »

BURIED REALM: “THE DORMANT DARKNESS”

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May 262025
 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth returns to NCS to sing the praises of a new album by Colorado-based Buried Realm that saw release in April of this year.)

“Who the hell is Josh Dummer?”

Greetings and salutations, friends. The above question was what I asked myself upon hearing Buried Realm’s 2020 album Embodiment Of The Divine, a surprisingly polished platter of modern melodeath in the vein of Scar Symmetry and Bloodshot Dawn, two bands whose output I greatly enjoy.

Dummer is the sole member of Buried Realm, handling all songwriting, guitars, bass, and vocals, with the exception of a number of notable guests on each album (more on that in a moment). I was impressed at the level of skill present on Embodiment, to the point that it ranked as my number 7 album of 2020. 2022’s eponymous follow-up was equally impressive, with a better sound, and ranked as my number 10 album of the year in a very strong crop of albums.

Now, Dummer returns with The Dormant Darkness, and I have thoughts. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LÖMSK — “FURIA”

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May 262025
 

(written by Islander)

Last fall the Gothenburg-based black metal band Lömsk made a tremendous first impression with their debut EP, Act I. Those four songs were dark and devastating, often towering in their scale and sweeping in their expansiveness. In Lömsk‘s renditions of war-zone chaos the music was fiery and harrowing, but their powerful melodies also channeled sensations of tragedy and despair with staggering intensity. (We had more to say about Act I here.)

Vendetta Records released Act I on CD and 12″ vinyl editions, and (not surprisingly) those sold out in just a few days after release. Reacting to demand, Vendetta ordered represses of those editions and they are now being made available. And, as a fresh reminder of Lömsk‘s daunting and exhilarating power, they are releasing a new single.

This new song, “Furia“, will be released on streaming platforms on May 30th, but we’re privileged to provide an exclusive premiere of the song today. Continue reading »

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