SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MALTHUSIAN, UPON STONE, BEFORE THE DAWN, CASTRATOR, ENTRAILS, A CAT IN THE BRAIN, LOMMI, BOMBUS, GLUED MOUTH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 212025
 

(written by Islander)

This Saturday selection of new songs and videos provides a lot to take in, and lots of twists and turns in the musical path as you move from one to the next (which is what I hope you’ll do).

Fair warning: I’ve included a pair of songs that feature entirely clean singing, and another where singing trades off with harsher expressions. Today’s collection is also a mix of well-known bands (at least well-known to yours truly) and others that have scoured my ears for the first time this week. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AMORPHIS, ZATOKREV, BARBAROUS, ACCURSED, NECHT, IN THE COMPANY OF SERPENTS, FER DE LANCE

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Jun 072025
 


Amorphis – photo by Sam Jamsen

(written by Islander)

This is another Saturday column in which I decided to lure people with a “big name” at the start and then eventually expose people to names they might not know but should.

I could have included an even bigger collection of prominent names, because the past week also brought new music and/or new videos from Opeth, Paradise Lost, Dark Angel, Car Bomb, and Baest, to name a few. You can find those via the hyperlinks I included. But I wanted to have more time for lesser lights. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION, CRUST, DOMKRAFT, ANGEROT, MORDBEAR, BEAR MACE, OSI AND THE JUPITER

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May 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The last two weeks have been out of the ordinary here, and the next 10 days will be too. In the weeks now past I and a few of my NCS comrades joined forces with a lot of other terrific volunteers to help put on the 3-day Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. (See above, just after we finished last Saturday night.) The fest was fantastic, but it didn’t leave me enough clear-headed time to do the usual weekend posts for NCS.

During the past week I had some good post-fest outings in the Seattle area with DGR and Andy Synn. That put a crimp in my usual new-music listening. And now, beginning on Wednesday of this coming week, we’re all going to venture to Baltimore with other friends to take in Maryland Deathfest. That makes it highly unlikely I will be doing the usual NCS posts next weekend either.

The wall of possibilities for this roundup and the blacker one tomorrow is enormous. I scraped against it, sort of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption digging through the wall of his cell with a tiny rock hammer, except I don’t have 19 years to get the job done. Here’s what I chipped away for today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HSPDN — “HEYDAY’S RUIN”

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May 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In this feature we are taking a few large steps off the various beaten, broken, and thorn-shrouded paths we usually follow in our musical meanderings around here. The connections to those paths, such as they are, derive in part from the person who made the music you’re about to hear.

That person goes by the name “twi” in this new project, but we can disclose that the person is the Slovakian musician and vocalist also known as Twisted in the experimental industrial doom/death metal band 0n0, whose music we’ve written about repeatedly over the last nine years (here’s the proof of that).

The name of the new project is hspdn. hspdn‘s first release is Heyday’s Ruin, a four-song, 18-minute work set for release open May 23rd and self-described as “an EP about climate and personal crises”. What we have for you today is the premiere of its title song. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AZURE EMOTE, CHTHONIC, SKJOLDEN, TENEBRAE IN PERPETUUM, JOLIETTE, CWFEN

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May 032025
 

(written by Islander)

It should be called “Bandcamp Week” instead of “Bandcamp Friday”. Every week ending in one of those Friday’s, including last week, tends to see a greater than usual volume of new-music releases, a reflection of the principle that “recency is primacy” when it comes to spending decisions. This “Bandcamp Week” phenomenon further complicates the preparation of these Saturday columns, but I’m still glad Bandcamp is continuing the tradition this year.

While I have your attention, I want to add a note about changes planned for NCS next week before we get to the new metal I picked for today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 2): HEAVEN SHALL BURN, OMINOUS RUIN, BALMOG, CHAINSWORD HURSAN, KATATONIA, GHOST

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 122025
 


Heaven Shall Burn – photo by Candy Welz

(written by Islander)

Fanatically determined to get both Parts of this roundup posted today, I took a 10-minute break after launching Part 1 and then dived into this one. I haven’t gone to the bathroom yet, but like Cory Booker I’m depending on Depends.

As discussed in Part 1, today’s already-large roundup mushroomed into an even bigger one after my pals Andy Synn and DGR threw 4 more songs into a mix that already included music from 10 bands.

As also discussed there, for you criminals who didn’t bother to read it, I used those 4 as bookends, 2 at the start and 2 at the finish. The 2 at the end have stressed out my usual NCS site-title boundary lines to the breaking point, but not for the first time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ELUSIVE GOD — “KOB”

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Apr 112025
 

(written by Islander)

Pay no attention to the name of our site. We don’t really mean it. Well, honestly we mostly do mean it, but not all the time. Some of the time we hear singing that just makes us shake our heads in wonder and are helpless to bar the door against it. Today is one of those times. (So, for those few snarks who can’t resist yelling, “But there’s clean singing in this song!”, just choke that down or you’ll prove you’ve never been here before.)

What we have for you today is the premiere of a song named “Kob” off the thrilling new album Ambis by the Croatian epic doom band Elusive God, which will be released on May 9th by the always-interesting Personal Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PYRE

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Apr 082025
 

(Today we share Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Dmitry “Dym Nox”, the drummer, bassist, and vocalist of the Russian death metal band Pyre, whose latest album has been out for a couple of months on the Osmose label.)

Pyre is probably the most powerful and recognized Russian death metal band, and the release of their third album Where Obscurity Sways at the end of January on Osmose Productions was an event.

The previous album Chained to Ossuaries was recorded five years ago by Dmitry “Dym Nox” (drums, bass, vocals), Roman Rotten (guitars), and Fred Obsinner (guitars). It was a strange experience for the band: Pyre were then on a tight deadline, there were problems with the drummer, and they, as never before, wrote and recorded all the material in a year, and it was immediately released. And Dmitry considers Where Obscurity Sways as a spontaneous continuation of its predecessor, but on a different level both in general and in production.

According to him, the band is currently euphoric about the result, especially since the new material was recorded with drummer Oleg “Malleus”, with whom Pyre had been playing together for a long time and testing out ideas. The result is impressive. I interviewed Dmitry for the Dark City magazine, and as soon as the current issue is released, I’d like to share this interview with you.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARCOLH

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Apr 042025
 

(In February we had the pleasure of premiering and reviewing the newest album by the French doom band Carcolh, which is out now on Sleeping Church Records. Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ new interview with Carcolh vocalist Sébastien Fanton, and he again proves to be a wonderful conversationist.)

Five men from Bordeaux love and know how to make smart, traditional, almost textbook doom metal. And why not! Most of them did it years before Carcolh, and, let’s face it, they are professionals in their field.

“Carcolh” is a mythical half-snake, half-snail from French folklore, but this does not mean that the guys are “barely dragging their feet.” They managed to tell six stories in the 46 minutes of their third full-length Twilight of the Mortals, revealing in their own way the nature of human tragedies in the sublunary world.

This album shows that Carcolh maybe do not progress in a global sense of the word, but confidently move forward enriching their soundscapes with a lot of new nuances and semi-colours. All the instruments sound heavy, clear, rational, and tasteful. Sébastien Fanton’s vocal lines are harmonious and noble, matching the themes performed by his colleagues. Twilight of the Mortals is far from monotonous; its pace varies from the furious gallop of “The Battle Is Lost” to the crushing dirge of “My Prayers Are for Rain” or the twelve-minute long, multifaceted, and saturated “Empty Thrones”.

This material isn’t something one could easily digest in a case you aren’t into traditional doom metal, yet we did the interview with Sébastien, and it may help you to get how cool Carcolh are. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DROUTH, DÉMONOS, SVARTA HAVET, LUX INTERNA, AASH, MRAKOMOR

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 162025
 

(written by Islander)

I’m afraid I have a self-imposed deadline to finish this weekly collection of music from the blacker arts so I can turn to other obligations, and so I’ll dispense with an introduction and dive right into all the quite varied music I’ve picked for your entertainment and edification.

DROUTH (U.S.)

To begin, here’s “False Grail“, a startling new song from a new album named The Teeth of Time by Portland’s Drouth. Continue reading »

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