AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AMIENSUS — “THE LODGE”

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Nov 112025
 

(written by Islander)

One of our site’s favorite bands, Minnesota-based Amiensus, have busied themselves this year by releasing singles — “Fields of Emerald Fire” (reviewed here), “We Still Bloom” (reviewed here), and “The Peak of Denali” (reviewed here). They have also been teasing a fourth single to emerge before year-end, and today we’re very happy to bring it your way.

This one is a cover song, and you might guess whose music Amiensus is covering based solely on the cover art. But in case you’re still scratching your head, it’s Agalloch, and the song is “The Lodge” from the band’s beloved 2002 album The Mantle. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE OMEN MACHINE — “DELAY, DENY, DEFEND”

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Nov 112025
 

(written by Islander)

“If you dislike the American healthcare system, have had issues with doctors, or have ever had problems with health insurance, boy do I have a song for you….”

That’s how Colin Busse from Rochester, NY begins to introduce the latest song from his collaborative metal project The Omen Machine. The name of this new one, which we’re premiering today with a video in advance of its November 14 release, is “Delay, Deny, Defend,” a title derived from a book of the same name by Jay Feinman, which excoriates the self-serving, profit-directed behavior of U.S. insurance companies.

Deplorable recent events here in the U.S. have put the affordability of healthcare on the front burner of lots of people’s minds, and so the timing of The Omen Machine’s new single could hardly be more on-point. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURNING DEATH — “DEATH IS SALVATION”

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Nov 102025
 

(written by Islander)

You’re about to imagine what it would be like to catch fire and cavort with devils, to throw caution to the winds and spin like a tornado of flame while bouncing off demon bodies in Hell’s own mosh pit.

That’s one way of trying to capture the experience of “Death In Salvation,” an absolutely electrifying and evil-minded song off the self-titled debut album of Burning Death, an infernal thrash outfit from Nashville, Tennessee, which is now set for release on December 5th by Caligari Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAGETISSE — “TO WITHER BENEATH THY RADIANCE”

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Nov 102025
 

(written by Islander)

For approximately 35 years the Dutch artist Maurice de Jong (aka Mories) has been churning out music as if his life depended on it (and we can infer that it probably does). This morning a count of his endeavors at Metal-Archives shows 45 current or past bands through which he has released music over that span of years.

The ones best known from that list are probably Gnaw Their Tongues, Cloak of Altering, and De Magia Veterum, but we should not lose sight of Hagetisse, one of the arguably more “traditional” of his musical vehicles, the tradition being strains of black metal rooted in the ’90s — witness the fact that Void Wanderer Productions recommends the newest Hagetisse album for fans of Ulver, Emperor, and Obtained Enslavement.

That new album, an 8-song affair, is titled To Wither Beneath Thy Radiance, and to help spread the word about it we’re premiering its title song today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MIND PRISONER — “GRADIENT”

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Nov 072025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to premiere a song from Mind Prisoner, a PDX-launched band (now divided between Oregon and South Carolina) that continues to seize our attention around here, and should seize yours. But first, a bit of history for those of you who might be encountering their music for the first time.

Following a handful of demos and an EP, the band released their debut album The Color of Ruin about 11 months ago. Our Andy Synn wrote that it “made one hell of an impression” on him after finally hearing it, using “an array of Black Metal, Post-Black Metal, and Blackened Doom influences” to create experiences that were “dark and desolate,” “bleak yet beautiful,” “bitter” and “biting,” “terrifying” and “tormented.” He closed by suggesting “that Mind Prisoner haven’t even reached the peak of their powers yet, and we should all make sure to watch this Portland-based pair very closely in the future!”

What the future then brought was a new single released on October 1st this year named “Years Gone,” the first excerpt from Mind Prisoner’s forthcoming second album Less Faith. It signaled a shift in the band’s stylistic ingredients, previewed by their label as “post-black metal with elements of doom, post-punk, and gothic rock.” It hooked this writer right damned fast. Allow me to repeat what I banged out very soon after hearing it (as if you had a choice in the matter!): Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KAOSOPHIA — “FUNERAL OF THE GODS”

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Nov 072025
 

(written by Islander)

The Ukrainian black metal band Kaosophia released their last album, Serpenti Vortex, a long eight-plus years ago. In attempting to describe the music here, we used such words and phrases as “tyrannical and magisterial, doom-shrouded and savage, hallucinatory and harrowing,” a union of “blood-rushing energy and brain-twisting psychosis” but music that was also capable of creating “an atmosphere of mythic, warlike grandeur”.

At last, Kaosophia are now returning, with a new album named Beyond the Black Horizon that’s set for release on December 12th by the UK label Serpent Sun Records. The first single from the album, “Funeral of the Gods“, is the subject of the video we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE GLOOMY RADIANCE OF THE MOON — “TO SURRENDER TO THE ETERNAL”

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Nov 062025
 

(written by Islander)

The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon is a Dutch solo project whose third album in three years will be released tomorrow (November 7th) by the Dusktone label, which introduces it with these words:

With its extremely long, descriptive track and album titles, with the mystery surrounding the identity of the creator but most of all with a new, cosmic, symphonic and pensive black metal album called As The Stars Shatter in Agony. Once again, The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon delivers a powerful, overtly theatrical and keyboard-driven take on black metal demonstrating the Nineties have not been forgotten at all.

The album consists of eight songs, and what we have for you today in advance of the album’s release is its second single, “To Surrender To the Eternal” — a song that manages to be both magnificent and mystical, violent and harrowing, heart-broken and haunting, and perhaps unexpectedly but undeniably poignant. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ØRB — “GHOST KEY”

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Nov 062025
 

(written by Islander)

Ørb is the melodic death metal project of English/Danish solo artist Karl Koch. Ørb’s debut album is a concept record wrapped around a dystopian sci-fi theme that focuses on a very real and urgent phenomenon, described by Ørb as follows:

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.

What we have for you today is the premiere of the first single from this forthcoming album, a song named “Ghost Key“. Here is how the song fits into the album’s narrative arc: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CARNAL SAVAGERY — “CURSE OF THE CATACOMB”

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Nov 052025
 

(written by Islander)

Although the Swedish death metal band Carnal Savagery released their first demo only five and a half years ago they’ve kept their feet jammed on the gas pedal ever since, releasing six albums in rapid succession and now with a seventh one on the way. Their album titles brazenly brandish their musical devotion to themes of supernatural horror and foul decomposition: Grotesque Macabre; Fiendish; Scent of Death; Worm Eaten; Into the Abysmal Void; Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones; and now Crypt of Decay.

Here’s part of the tantalizing linguistic preview of the new album offered on behalf Moribund Records, who will release it on November 28th: “The band’s seventh full-length album, Crypt of Decay, is a brutal exploration of human depravity, darkness, and death. This savage collection of tracks will drag you through the deepest catacombs of sonic devastation, where death metal, blackened riffs, and dark atmospheres converge in an unholy union of chaos.”

As a more tangible sign of what the new record delivers, we’re now premiering a horrifying video for the album track “Curse of the Catacomb“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OUTLYING — “THE RAVEN IS GONE”

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Nov 042025
 

(written by Islander)

The melodic death metal band Outlying hail from the old industrial city of Trois-Rivieres in the province of Quebec, Canada. The band was founded in 2007 by lead vocalist/guitarist (as well as producer and writer) Fred A. Dubeau, and now includes drummer Martin Reithler and bassist Charles Alex Bilodeau.

On November 21st Outlying will release their third album, and their first one since 2016’s Frameworks for Repression. The name of the album is Oblivisci, which means “to forget” in old Latin. They chose the name “to reflect the tendency to withdraw from reality and ‘forget’ society and the existence you live in, so to speak,” and thus the songs “express oppressive feelings of trauma, alienation, grief, loneliness….”

What we have for you today is the premiere of the album’s third single, “The Raven Is Gone“. Fred Dubeau introduces it with these words: Continue reading »

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