AN NCS INTERVIEW: JEFF WAGNER

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Jan 052026
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks’ excellent interview with veteran metal author Jeff Wagner, whose latest book — an extensive official biography of Voivod — is out now.)

Jeff Wagner is a writer and journalist who dedicated over 35 years of his career to the metal scene working with labels like Relapse, InsideOut, Century Media, and The End as well as being an editor of Metal Maniacs magazine. Besides that, Jeff is the author of Peter Steele’s biography Soul on Fire, an overview of 40 years of the progressive scene titled Mean Deviation, and Destination Onward, Fates Warning’s biography as well.

His new book is Always Moving – The Strange Multiverse of Voivod, a 540-pages-long journey into the realms of one of the ever-evolving and most exciting metal bands. Needless to say, no stone was left unturned during Jeff’s research, and he performed a great work reaching out to a lot of people connected with the band. More information on Jeff’s quest and his work ethics in the interview below. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ILLA

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Dec 302025
 

(Here we present our Comrade Aleks’ interview with Saїmon Ramov, frontman of the Siberian black metal band ILLA, whose new albnum Dialogue was released this past September.)

Born in Novosibirsk two years ago, ILLA claimed to be quite an active project as it took just one year to give a birth to the first full-length, Sarva-Saktan (2024), and one more year was spent on finishing the sophomore work Dialogue, released on September 16th by SoundAge Productions and Svarenne Music.

One of ILLA’s main features is their sheer interest in Hindu mythology and culture. Thus their (mostly “post-“) black metal has its atmospheric and epic charm. As Saїmon Ramov, the band’s frontman, states: “Each track is a journey into unexplored corners of consciousness, where culture, tradition, and music intersect. We strive to convey to listeners not only sound, but also the significance of stories shrouded in mystery”. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEAD SUN

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Dec 292025
 


L-R: Thomas Ohlsson, Rogga Johansson

(On December 19th Emanzipation Productions released This Life Is A Grave, the latest album by Rogga Johansson’s long-running melodic death metal band Dead Sun. And that event led Zoltar to contact Rogga for the interview you’ll find below. We’ve stitched in some of Dead Sun’s new music too, which is well worth your time.)

Oh yeah. Rogga Johansson. Like again. I know what you’re thinking: with no less than 48 (!) bands/projects listed as ‘active’ on his metal archives page, and don’t get me started on those considered ‘inactive’ as there are as many, it may be hard sometimes from an outsider point of view to take the man seriously. I mean, who does have 48 bloody different aliases, especially since in most cases it more or less is to do the same kind of chuggin, old-school and full of ‘ugh!’ style of death metal whose foundations were laid out by his main band PAGANIZER back in 1998? Isn’t it all the same all over again?

Well, as one of the few psychos who own, if not all, say, most of his works (give or take, over 120 + albums dude), I (slighty) beg to differ. Yep, you need first of all to be a sucker like me for this brand of Swedish mid-tempo rudeness but believe me when I tell you you’ll find different flavors here and there, that is if you know where to look.

Case in point being DEAD SUN: next to his solo albums or EYE OF PURGATORY, this is probably as close as ‘melodic death metal’ goes, Rogga Johansson-style. Meaning: catchy as fuck, because let’s face it, the man knows a thing or two about coming up with instantly memorable in-your-face crusty riffs. Yes, This Life Is A Grave is their (his?) official ninth full-length, but next to the criminally overlooked 2019 Night Terrors one of their best under that moniker. Plus it’s DEAD SUN’s first under the banner of Emanzipation Productions, who already has a long history of partnership with Mr. Johansson thanks to STASS or THORIUM.

So come on, don’t be shy, come on and have a taste! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OLDE OUTLIER

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Dec 192025
 

(Today is the day when Iron Bonehead Productions releases the debut album by the eldritch Australian death metal band Olde Outlier, and coincidentally it is the day when we publish the following excellent interview by our Comrade Aleks of the Olde Outlier songwriter and current drummer Beau Duer.)

The Australian group Olde Outlier is the successor to the disbanded death-black metal act Innsmouth, whose members already had years of experience cutting extreme metal. The names of these underground scene veterans are Beau Duer (drums), Ben Askew (guitars), Mark Appleton (vocals), and Greenbank (bass). Together they bring back to life the spirit of early ’90s death metal, with a lean toward rough death-doom in the spirit of early Tiamat, resulting in four solid, well-developed tracks.

The first track, “The Revellers,” is a good start: eight minutes of inventively performed, focused, old-school death metal, but with pure, abstract, atmospheric melodies. The ravenous mid-tempo “The Sounding of Hooves” quickly transports us into the catacombs of Paradise Lost-esque death-doom, and it’s not the only time Olde Outlier changes the track’s direction in its 11-minute runtime. “Swept” doesn’t disappoint either, captivating us with its unabashed retro charm, embedded in the instrumentation, the melody, and the vocalist’s raspy growl. The technically proficient “From Shallow Lives to Shallow Graves” exudes the innocence of the extreme metal scene’s early years, as does the closing track, “All Is Bright.”

But I’m not going to do another review, as we had a conversation with Beau himself, so here’s a better narrator regarding Olde Outlier and everything around it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AFSKY

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Dec 182025
 


photo by Naya Buch

(In October of this year the Eisenwald label released a new album (Fællesskab) by the Danish black metal band Afsky, and that led our Comrade Aleks to reach out for an interview with Ole Pedersen Luk, which we present today.)

Arguably the most promising black metal entity in the Danish realm, Afsky still exists as a solo project, although its founder, Ole Pedersen Luk, toured with guest musicians in the fall of 2025 to support the release of his fourth full-length Fællesskab. While Afsky’s previous albums have displayed Ole’s interest in ancient literature and history in general, in his new songs Ole offers a critical assessment of modern society, going somewhat beyond banal misanthropy.

However, Ole has, again, framed his views on society in a universal format. The six tracks on Fællesskab are written in the spirit of harsh yet melodic black metal, with an extremely focused and intense delivery. This unique poetic perception of reality, coupled with perfectionism and, to some extent, a talent for storytelling, allowed Ole to articulate his ideas into a coherent artistic narrative.

At first, it seems like piercing vocals, signature black metal tremolos, and high-speed riffs leave little room for stylistic variation, and yet ghostly folk motifs flit by like shadows across a couple of tracks, and although all these features could be met in different proportions in a few up-to-date black metal albums, Ole managed to keep his original vision of black metal as it is. Due to the tour’s schedule it wasn’t that easy, but finally here it is – an interview with Ole himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DAVID GEHLKE

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Dec 042025
 


photo by Shane Mayer

(We are thrilled to present Comrade Aleks’ interview of metal journalist David Gehlke —  because it’s such a great discussion with such an experienced, articulate, and humble documenter of metal history. The ultimate focus is his new fully authorized biography of Chuck Schuldiner published by Decibel Books, but the conversation delves into many of Gehlke’s other important works as well.)

David E. Gehlke has been researching the metal underground and its suburban vicinities since 2002, and if you’re old enough, then you may have read his publications in Throat Culture, Snaggletooth and Metal Maniacs. Nowadays he’s better known for his collaboration with Dead Rhetoric and Blabbermouth as well as being the author of a few books. The titles of Damn the Machine – The Story of Noise Records and The Scott Burns Sessions – A Life in Death Metal speak for themselves, and the biographies of Paradise Lost and Obituary were something that needed to be written.

David keeps a good creative pace, and this year he released the authorized biography of Death’s founder – Born Human: The Life and Music of Chuck Schuldiner. We have prepared an extensive interview with David, so without wasting any time, I invite you to join our conversation. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEAD AND DRIPPING

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Nov 272025
 

(New Jersey-based Dead and Dripping has created macabre musical intersections of sounds that are ghastly, putrid, bludgeoning, and malicious, but also machine-precise, head-spinning, and dazzling – in a very demented way. Their new album will be released tomorrow by Transcending Obscurity Records, and that provided the impetus for Zoltar to reach out for the following interview with D&D’s mainman Evan Daniele.)

There are fucked up death metal bands. And there are REALLY fucked up death metal bands. Dead And Dripping defo deserves to be on the latter top list. Initially ‘just’ a solo project by Sentient Horror’s Evan Daniele who’s never hidden his love of death metal the brutal way, one could have easily expected the result to be on the same basic-and-brOOtal wave-length as, say, Putrid Pile or Insidious Decrepancy, just to cite two early 00s prime examples of one-man-brutality.

But as soon as his debut – first digitally, then on CD format through France’s Percussive Spectre – Profane Verses Of Murderous Rhetoric dropped, we realized that as in Matrix, instead of choosing between the blue or the red pill, Daniele went for both and thus, opened a doorway to some psychedelic, twisted, and, well, truly fucked up parallel universe. And if you thought his first three albums sounded like Demilich or Timeghoul heavily tripping on acid through a brutal death metal vortex, wait until you hear the new one, Nefarious Scintillations.

Turn on, tune in, drop out, and get blasted. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SECOND TO SUN

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Nov 202025
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks’ wide-ranging interview of the very busy Russian musician and producer Vladimir Lehtinen, and we’ll let Aleks introduce it.)

Vladimir Lehtinen is a one-man army, as he has managed not only to rule one of the most prolific and exemplary Russian black metal bands, Second to Sun, but also stay as one of the organizers of an annual festival of extreme music known as T’ma Fest (Darkness Fest) and to keep on working as a sound engineer who has mixed and mastered dozens of metal albums.

Second to Sun remains Vladimir’s main outfit, and together with Theodor Borovski (drums) and the Sysoev brothers from cult bands Grima and Ultar, he manages to keep the balance between quality and the quantity of music he produces. The band’s most up-to-date release is the EP Thunderbolt, which you may have heard as it was out in February 2025; yet you need no special reason to make an interview with such a man, as Vladimir, being deeply involved in the underground, has a lot to tell. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SLAUGHTERDAY

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Nov 182025
 

(The German death metal band Slaughterday signed with a new label, Testimony Records, and their first release for Testimony (which will be out on November 21st) turns out to be something different from what you might expect. We’ll let Zoltar explain, just before he dives into a discussion with Slaughterday bassist/guitarist Jens Finger.)

When former Obscenity guitar player Jens Finger caught up with his old friend Bernd Reiners to go see Autopsy play at the Party San Festival on August 13th 2010, the pair quickly realized that the song title “Slaughterday“ off the classic Mental Funeral album performed that night would make a great band name.

Since then, besides setting a live line-up to play shows around their native Germany, the two have laid out four great albums of doomish old school death metal in between 2013 and 2022. After over a decade on FDA Records, Slaughterday have just signed a brand-new contract with Testimony Records (Deserted Fear, Carnal Tomb, Leper Colony). Yet, as suggested by its cover artwork (a spoof of the mighty Horrified album), the very first result of this new alliance ain’t exactly what you would have expected from those guys.

Instead of their usual downtuned catchy style, Terrified turns out to be a four-tracks, nine minutes, in-your-face grindcore EP, but the kind of grindcore only metalheads raised in the ’80s on a severe diet of thrash metal and hardcore/crust could really muster. We caught up with Jens, who handles guitar and bass in the studio, to see if this was just a spur of the moment thing or an indication of a sudden change of heart… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ACHATHRAS

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Nov 132025
 

(In September Cult Never Dies released the debut album by the mysterious black metal band Achathras. It impressed our Comrade Aleks (as it did others around here) and he sought an interview, which was granted. As you’ll discover below, it resulted in a very interesting and very articulate discussion.)

Although Cult Never Dies has earned a reputation in the book publishing industry, they couldn’t resist the temptation to support the scene as comprehensively as possible, occasionally releasing and reissuing interesting thematic releases. The debut album of anonymous project Achathras is surprisingly competent and exciting as it sticks to the canons of such iconic ’90s black metal bands as Abigor, Emperor, and Old Man’s Child. The trio consists of Eidolon Drakh, Malefic Orator, and Vorthol, whose identities are hidden.

Their debut A Darkness of the Ancient Past radiates uncompromising determination, controlled aggression, and it’s full of cold melodicism covered with mystic atmosphere. The high quality of this material is explained by the fact that its members are experienced musicians, and no, I didn’t aim to uncover their names, so this interview with Eidolon (probably) is focused mostly on Achathras’ music and spirit in wider sense.

Continue reading »

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