AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXORCISED — “HATRED KNIFE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

On March 13th a new Spanish underground label named Cruel Gates Records will release Fire & Sulfur, a debut album from the Spanish band Exorcised.

Born from the ashes of the thrash band Madsher, Exorcised have devoted their hellish energies to the creation of old school death thrash, taking their cues from such bands as Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Devastation.

Today we have an example of the infernal sonic madness they’ve created through our premiere of a lyuric video for a song from their debut full-length named “Hatred Knife“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEIMLER — “DARKNESS FALLS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

In 2023 the Spanish death metal band Deimler released a concept album named Immortalized that was based on Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking 1979 movie Alien. Following that up, guitarist/vocalist Pako Deimler decided to pay tribute to a personal favorite series from the ’90s — The X-Files. More specifically, Deimler’s new album, Darkness Falls, is based on one episode from the show’s first season that itself was named “Darkness Falls”.

That was a standalone episode in which Mulder and Scully went looking for a group of loggers missing in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State (which coincidentally isn’t far from the HQ of our site), only to be confronted by a deadly form of mutant insects. Pako has said that he loves that episode in particular because of its “atmosphere” but also because it’s “one of the few episodes where the main characters have a hard time and are truly in great danger.”

The new album is now set for release on March 20th by Awakening Records, and what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for its second single — the title track “Darkness Falls“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WAMPYRIC RITES — “UNDER THE TRAGIC FULLMOON OF THE VAMPIRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 122026
 

(written by Islander)

Vampires and other undead entities reputed to feed on the essences of living humans have figured in the folk mythologies of many cultures around the world for millennia. Fear of such creatures has led to episodes of mass hysteria, executions, the exhumation and decapitation of corpses, and of course the staking of suspected revenants through the heart.

(Many such incidents and more are documented in Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, an exhaustive scholarly work by John Blair published just last November.)

Vampirism lives on in our imaginations (hopefully, only there), itself a deathless dream that the passage of millennia can’t exorcise. In our tiny corner of modern culture, black metal has kept the nightmares alive more than any other sub-set of metal, and one of the most prolific exponents over the last seven years has been the Ecuadorian band Wampyric Rites.

This band’s newest album, Under the Tragic Fullmoon of the Vampire, is now set for release by Inferna Profundus Records tomorrow — Friday the 13th of February — and on the eve of that dreadful event we have a full stream of the album for your consideration. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: FORCEFED HORSEHEAD AND SHAVING THE WEREWOLF — “FROM HORRID TO WORSE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 112026
 

(written by Islander)

“Next Friday, February 13, two of Norway’s most unhinged entities collide as Forcefed Horsehead and Shaving the Werewolf unleash their split EP From Horrid to Worse, a violently inventive, no-rules document of chaos that feels less like a release and more like a controlled detonation.”

That’s how the press materials have announced this new split, and it’s spot-on. So is this further introductory comment:

On one side: Forcefed Horsehead, weaponizing grindpunk, death metal, hardcore and hysteria with apocalyptic precision. On the other: Shaving the Werewolf, twisting powerviolence, noise rock, nu-metal and mathcore into something deeply uncomfortable and disturbingly catchy. Together, it’s all bruises, whiplash, and creative malpractice of the highest order.

To back up these words, what we have for you today (along with introductory comments of our own) is a full stream of Horrid to Worse in all its apocalyptic and poisonous glory. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ØRB — “PRESENCE:ABSENCE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 112026
 

(written by Islander)

Last November we premiered a song called “Ghost Key“, the first single from the debut album of Ørb, the melodic death metal project of English/Danish solo artist Karl Koch. Today we’re presenting the second single, “Presence:Absence“. To set the stage for it, we’ll quote again from Ørb’s description of the album’s dystopian sci-fi theme — which focuses on a very real and urgent phenomenon:

The full-length album follows a lone resistance figure in a dystopian future where humanity teeters on the brink of extinction under the omnipotent grasp of The Nexus – an advanced AI network that has reduced humanity to obedient cogs in a machine-driven existence. Armed only with unwavering principles and the history of humankind, this stoic survivor embarks on a perilous journey to challenge the AI overlord.

The album’s narrative arc traces a revolt that may be liberation—or only another loop in the machine. Central questions drive the work: Can fate be overcome? What remains of human identity when autonomy is stripped away? Does a belief in determinism empower or limit us? These aren’t abstract philosophical exercises—they’re survival questions in an age where AI increasingly shapes human experience.

The project stands with one boot in tomorrow’s wasteland and one in the world we already feel tightening around us, creating a parable about resistance that resonates beyond the boundaries of extreme metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORION — “STRONGHOLD”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 102026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we introduce you to Horion, a relatively new band from the Basque Country of Bayonne, France, and their debut EP Doom which will be released on March 26th by Void Wanderer Productions. Their music could be summed up as a dark and melodic brand of black metal infused with death and doom influences, but it is unusual in several respects.

First and foremost, the music prominently features cello performances which (as Void Wanderer accurately portrays) are “sometimes melodic, sometimes abrasive, always engaging a dialogue with the guitars and carving out soundscapes between chaos and melancholy”. But the music also includes a distinctive songwriting approach, which you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere today of the EP’s first single, “Stronghold“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORGAN — “DOGMA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 102026
 

(written by Islander)

A long seven years ago we prepared a feature called “Where Doom Meets Death“. One of the bands we spotlighted then was Organ from Belluno, Italy, and their extensive EP Eterno. We summed up the music as “massive, mountainous, megalithic music, and equally immense in the scale of its bleakness” — “both crushing and celestial, mortifying but mesmerizing, apocalyptically desolate yet also delirious, reaching frenzies of intensity that seem to straddle the line between shattering grief and the rapture of being burned by holy fire.”

Eterno was indeed a stunning release, and left us looking forward to what the future would bring for Organ. It has been a very long wait, but at last Organ are returning, with a new album named IMMOBILISM that will be released on April 8th through Invisible Order Records. In addition to helping announce this eagerly anticipated event, today we’re premiering one of the new album’s five nightmarish tracks — “DOGMA“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLADIUM REGIS — “DURINDANA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 092026
 

(written by Islander)

Gladium Regis was born in the early 2000s in Italy, and later moved forward in London to produce a dungeon synth release named Kingdom in 2020 (during the intervening years, the project’s alter ego Arcanist Augur Svafnir co-founded and fronted the Italian pagan black metal band Draugr). Now Svafnir has re-directed the music of Gladium Regis in a way intended to re-capture “the unpolished grandeur of early 1990s symphonic and epic black metal”, and the results are manifested in a new album named Quest.

Although Gladium Regis is Svafnir’s solo project, he is accompanied on Quest by some talented guests: Davide Straccione (Shores of Null) provided guest vocals on three songs; Lupus Nemesis (Atavicus) joined Svafnir on additional instrumentation, choral arrangements, and final mixing at Genxia Studios; and Tamoth (Obscura Nox Hibernis) contributed acoustic guitar passages for the album’s intro and intermezzo.

What we have for you today is the premiere of the second single from Quest, a song named “Durindana“. But before we get to it, we want to share some of the words of introduction provided by the Dusktone label, which will release the album on February 27th: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZIMUT AND OCTOPUS KRAFT — “AGNI PARTHENE APOLEIA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 092026
 

(written by Islander)

In September 2023 the Ukrainian band Azimut independently released their debut album Stuma, which interwove a wide range of influences, including sludge, post-metal, and black metal. Now the boutique Ukrainian label Robustfellow Prods. is releasing Stuma on a limited edition of cassette tapes, with a special bonus track.

The bonus track is a musical collaboration between Azimut and the Ukrainian project known as Octopus Kraft (now the solo endeavor of Yurii Dubrovskyi). It’s two-part title is “Agni Parthene / Apoleia“, and we’re premiering a lyric video for it below. The piece is described as follows: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GJALLARHORN’S WRATH — “THE ABYSSWALKER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 062026
 

(written by Islander)

Last year the multi-national (but largely Spanish in origin) symphonic blackened death metal band Gjallarhorn’s Wrath released their debut album The Silver Key through Non Serviam Records. We published an enlightening interview with bassist Lord Ashler and had the pleasure of making video premieres for two songs off the album in advance of its release. Today, with equal pleasure, we’re premiering a third video from the band, this one for the song “The Abysswalker“.

The video, directed by bandmember Javi Iron, is quite a spectacle, interweaving fast-cutting and eventually rain-drenched footage of these raging heathens throwing themselves headlong into the song’s performance, along with striking imagery of an armored figure, presumably the Abysswalker of the song’s title.

The music is quite a spectacle too. Continue reading »

 Older Entries