FORTRESS FESTIVAL 2025 PREVIEW

 Metal News  2 Responses »
May 222025
 

(Near the end of this month our Floridian scribe Daniel Barkasi will be making his first trip to England, and his first venture into Fortress Festival. We look forward to his report, and what follows is his explanation of why he’s very excited to go.)

Spring is upon us, and soon enough summer will come searing in with its blazing hot temperatures and allergens abounding. My sinuses are crying with anticipation. But this time of year does bring something us connoisseurs of heavy music no doubt look forward to – festival season! With the very special to us at NCS’ blackened hearts Northwest Terror Fest just wrapping up, and the mighty Maryland Deathfest on the horizon, we’re actually mainly looking toward escaping to a seaside town in North Yorkshire, England.

What’s there, you ask? Normally known for its picturesque views, the odd beach, and a 12th century castle, the town of Scarborough will again be host to an event that’s a bit more on our level. We’re talking about the mighty Fortress Festival, now in its third iteration, happening at the Scarborough Spa, from May 31 – June 1. Continue reading »

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

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
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 »

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

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
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: BYZANTINE, CRYPTOPSY, GRUESOME, NIHIL KAOS, WEEPING SORES, XIPHOID DEMENTIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 192025
 

(written by Islander)

I began the day, barely awake, by reading an account of how the U.S. Revolutionary War began 250 years ago today. It was delivered in a speech last night, on the 250th anniversary of the famed events that led to war’s commencement. The speaker was a historian, and she told the story at a lantern lighting ceremony at Boston’s Old North Church commemorating the “two if by sea” signal from the church’s steeple.

The narrative of what happened that night and the next day is a remarkable and inspiring story. If you’re so inclined, you can find it here or here. Of course, people now celebrate the events because the cause succeeded. It might just as easily have failed, and all the revolutionaries executed or imprisoned. They certainly didn’t know how things would turn out more than 8 years later, 8 years almost always spent on the brink of failure. They risked their lives anyway, resisting tyranny. 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 »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 1): GAAHLS WYRD, IMPERISHABLE, MY DEMENTIA, ORTHODOX, A FLOCK NAMED MURDER, DISPYT, FAMILY GARDEN

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Apr 122025
 


Gaahls WYRD – photo by Jørn Veberg

(written by Islander)

It’s good to have friends. Friends can give you useful advice. Sometimes friends can also give you advice that makes you think, “I wish they hadn’t said that.” Case in point:

Since the middle of last week my wife has been 1,100 miles from where we live visiting her favorite sister. Home alone, I spent way more than the usual amount of time yesterday getting ready for this column. I listened to bits and pieces of 30 new releases, most of them singles and some of them EPs or albums. I picked 10 of them for today that I thought provided a good amount of variety. I even arranged them in a way I thought made sense.

I was so happy that I shared the list with my old friends Andy and DGR. Between the two of them they then pointed out 4 more new songs that I’d missed, all from known culprits we all like. Fuck me, what to do? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MIDNIGHT, ALIGN, FURNACE, STREGA, ARV, FLUISTERAARS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 052025
 

(written by Islander)

I don’t have a “physically active lifestyle” these days, yet some nights my body acts like I just ran a marathon. Last night was one of those. I conked out and woke up more than 9 hours later. Not even the part of my brain that always nags me, even asleep, about the need to get this Saturday column in shape could resist the bear-like compulsion to hibernate.

So, a very late start today, made later by the time needed to overcome grogginess. Still groggy, even after reading godawful global news stories while inhaling a cocktail of caffeine and nicotine, I glanced at the godawful big NCS in-box. Here’s the first message I saw:

Please take a moment out of your day to listen to the new track from Casa Mondo “Same Words.” It is a taste of Afro Reggae Summer Niceness and would give your followers a warm fuzzy feeling 🙂

I nearly wrote back to ask how in the world we got on this person’s list. We must be on many lists that have zero to do with what we do, because I see dozens of e-mails like this every day from musically remote planets (remote from our own ugly little asteroid).

Of course I didn’t write back, but I thought, the only warm fuzzy feeling our followers might want from music at NCS would be a feeling of fungal infection. And “niceness”? I think our definition of “nice” is not what Casa Mondo had in mind. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SERPENTES, GOLEM OF GORE, CRUST, ANZV, CAGED BASTARD, SKUGGOR

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 042025
 

(written by Islander)

I keep an electronic calendar and a paper calendar of premieres I agree to run for NCS. Belt and suspenders, as people use to say before suspenders went the way of the Dodo. But sometimes my pants fall down anyway, like when the plans of a band or label change and I’m being distracted by something else when I see that and then forget to change either calendar.

That’s what happened today. I had an album premiere on the calendar, but when I went hunting for the “assets” for the premiere I saw the e-mail chain where a schedule change had happened. So I found myself with time I didn’t expect to have today, and decided to make this roundup of new songs and videos as a bit of a head-start on the weekend roundups. My selection strategy was to pick the newest things I saw that I liked this morning. Hope you enjoy what I chose.

(In case you’re wondering, I do have assistants in my NCS work, but mainly they delete things I’ve written and introduce typos by walking across the keyboard. They’re less useful in keeping my pants up.) Continue reading »

CULTHE FEST 2025 — “LARGER, VASTER, FURTHER”

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 312025
 

(written by Islander)

Once again No Clean Singing is a co-sponsor of Culthe Fest, and its 2025 edition is rapidly approaching. The event will take place in Münster, Germany, on April 25th and 26th, and features 20 bands from more than 7 countries on 3 stages, headlined by Der Weg einer Freiheit and Ahab.

Culthe Fest proudly proclaims that this year’s edition will be “Larger, Vaster, Further”. Not only has the lineup expanded, more than half of the bands will be playing special sets, and the organizers will also be presenting a “Dark Arts & Crafts” exhibition that they plan to correspond closely with the musical program and bring together the works of various artists from several countries.

Below, we’ll share many more details about Culthe Fest 2025, but a main point we want to make up-front is that approximately 75% of all tickets have been sold, so if you want to attend the festival you should act quickly (we’ll tell you how to do that). Here’s the lineup scheduled for each day and notes provided by Culthe Fest‘s organizers: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSIDIAN TONGUE, HATE, OBSTRUKTION, JORDSJUK, APPLE OF BASILISK, SERIAL HAWK, CONTEMPLATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 292025
 

(written by Islander)

I didn’t expect I would be able to pull this Saturday column together, or the usual one tomorrow either. I thought my spouse and I would be leaving home very early today for a weekend trip. I even prepared a short notice to post this morning saying there would be no music at our site this weekend. But for reasons there’s no need to go into, we canceled those travel plans late yesterday.

That left me flat-footed this morning. I mean, I’m usually still scrambling on Saturday mornings to get this column figured out and finished, but today was set up to be an even bigger scramble because I’d given no thought to which songs and videos I might include. I had done a pretty good job over the last week of saving links to potential choices as I saw news about them — 30 or 40 links! — but no way could I check out most of those.

So, aside from picking a couple because the band names made me feel I’d be in good hands, sheer impulse ruled the rest. It’s a sign of how healthy metal is these days that making choices by impulse still turned out to be good choices. Continue reading »

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