AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORBYDA — “UNDER THE SPELL”

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Jun 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The Leipzig-based band Morbyda will have their debut album Under the Spell released on June 20th by Dying Victims Productions. If enough people find it, we predict it will bring throngs of people under its spell, people across a wide range of ages who relish the glories of devil-horned heavy metal. This quartet may be fairly new to the scene, but they sound like they’ve been at this for decades.

“Blackened speed metal” is the high-level descriptor of the music, and it’s not off-base, but it doesn’t fully capture all the traditions Morbyda pull from, or the absolutely electrifying and fist-pumping results they’ve achieved. With this album, they become a band worth watching very closely Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FILTH — “EMACIATED”

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Jun 172025
 

(written by Islander)

Following up on a two-song promo released last fall, the Swedish death metal trio Filth will have their debut album Time to Rot released on July 18th by Me Saco Un Ono and Rotted Life.

From the name of the band to the name of the album and the more ghastly aspects of the cover art, the signals are sent that this will be death metal with a decidedly foul and fetid aroma. Perhaps less immediately obvious, the new album is also stunningly ferocious and bludgeoning.

And you should take something else away from the unusual colorfulness and more surreal aspects of the cover art: There is more going on in Filth‘s music than grotesque putrescence and rampaging evisceration — as you’ll discover very quickly upon listening to “Emaciated,” the album track we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VANISHING EARTH — “THE BOUNDLESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 162025
 

(written by Islander)

Anyone who was even a semi-regular visitor to our site from 2011 through 2023 will recognize the name Oak Pantheon. Over that period we wrote 24 articles about this Minneapolis band’s music, dating back to their first single and continuing through our review of their last album, 2023’s The Absence.

And yes, it did turn out to be their last album, because this past February Oak Pantheon announced that they were amicably splitting up. They explained on social media: “Drifting motivations and musical interests have made it difficult to agree on a cohesive path forward. We will likely work together again, just in different forms.”

Throughout the entirety of their existence and their quite varied musical expressions Oak Pantheon was principally a collaboration between Sami Sati and Tanner Swenson. Since the dissolution of Oak Pantheon neither of them has abandoned music-making. In the case of Sami Sati, we are happily announcing today that he has a new project called Vanishing Earth that serves as a continuation of his efforts and ambitions in Oak Pantheon.

And today we are also very happily hosting the premiere of Vanishing Earth‘s musical debut, a two-song EP named The Boundless that will be released on June 17th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NORILSK — “LA FONTE”

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Jun 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In February of this year Hypnotic Dirge Records released a new album named Antipole by the Canadian death/doom metal band Norilsk. Originally a duo consisting of Nic Miquelon and Nick Richer, the band had expanded by then to include guitarists Tom Hansen and Matt MacIvor, who joined in 2016 and 2017 respectively. But Antipole was the first album to be recorded by all four members, after extensive rehearsals and work among them on the arrangements.

The results of this collaboration, as captured on Antipole, really represent a significant step forward for the band (every band says that about each new release, but in this case it’s really true). The music isn’t conventional death/doom by any means, but encompasses intriguing and surprising stylistic interplays and contrasts.

Moreover, the music’s changing shades of light and dark, of beauty and tragedy, of granitic weight and ethereal evanescence, reflect its thematic interests (sometimes rooted in literature) in expressing duality. As an example of this, today we have a compelling lyric video for a very compelling song off Antipode called “La Fonte“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MROME — “ARISTOCRAT”

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Jun 132025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band MROME have been making music since the mid-’90s, first under the name Kingdom. As MROME, they’ve released four albums so far, most of which we’ve paid attention to (as you can see here), and now we’re very happy to report that a fifth one is on the way.

The newest one, Boneyard Twist, includes 9 tracks recorded live in the studio, and the band have described it to us as “a kind of return to our dark roots from the early ’90s, inspired deeply by the first wave black metal.” Lyrically, they tell us the songs deal “with grave residents, disabilities of body and mind, necromancy and …monks exploding!”

As a sign of what the new album brings, today we premiere a lyric video for a song named “Aristocrat” — or at least we have tried to premiere it! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LAVA INVOCATOR — “WELCOME TO HELL”

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Jun 132025
 

(written by Islander)

When the Ukrainian black metal band Lava Invocator released their debut album Mörk in March 2017 Russia had already illegally “annexed” Crimea, and pro-Russian “separatists” had declared “independence” in the eastern region of Donbas, leading to persistent fighting that had killed thousands. But at that time Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was still five years away. Now, of course it is a brutal reality.

It was in the midst of that brutal reality that Lava Invocator wrote and recorded their second album, released in April 2023, and gave it a name inspired by what was happening around them and in the world at large: Signs Of Apocalypse.

The war grinds on. There have been significant combat casualties on the Ukrainian side, and the thug in charge of Russia also continues to rain death in routine terror attacks on Ukrainian civilians. But according to this report yesterday in The Washington Post, since January 2024 Russian forces have seized less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory and “Russian fatalities in Ukraine now exceed the total number of Soviet and Russian soldiers killed in every war since World War II combined.” The report estimates that by this summer Russia will likely pass 1 million total military casualties.

It is in this context that today we premiere a lyric video for a song off Lava Invocator‘s last album, their greeting to invaders called “Welcome to Hell“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GROG — “SPHERE OF ATROCITIES”

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Jun 122025
 

(written by Islander)

High-energy metal can make people pump their fists and bounce their bodies off each other. We see that, we do that. And although hell-raising music doesn’t really cause blood to boil or heads to spin (or Hell to be raised), sometimes that’s also a good way to describe the impact of a fist-pumping album like Grog‘s Sphere of Atrocities.

We’ve commented before about how unusual it is for this Portuguese band of brutal death/grinders, who’ve been plying their deadly craft since 1991, to hold together with the same lineup for the past 20 years despite the usual upheavals in personal life and the world at large, not to mention the constant upheavals in the realms of heavy music.

It’s even more unusual that after such a long career they’re still pushing themselves musically, still sharpening their execution and still finding new ways of getting the blood of listeners rushing and their heads wildly spinning. You’ll realize this for yourselves when you dive into our premiere stream of their explosive new album today, in advance of its June 13 co-release by Helldprod Records and Murder Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DIGITAL NEGATIVE — “THE BLANKS”

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Jun 112025
 

(written by Islander)

It’s unhealthy to live on red meat and potatoes alone, or so the health experts tell us, and even in the case of the bloody red and fungally infested music that’s often our daily fare around here, it’s sometimes wise to diversify our diet. And so today we present Digital Negative.

That name will already be known to some of our more musically diversified patrons, perhaps especially because the resume of one of its two members (Richard Johnson) includes work with Drugs Of Faith, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and Enemy Soil. The other member, Daniel Euphrat, has been involved in Person918x, Timmy Sells His Soul, and Bodied. Together they’ve released two EPs and now a third one named Intersect is on the way.

Digital Negative is one of those silver linings on the pandemic cloud. Pre-pandemic, Johnson and Euphrat had begun the process of forming a metal band together, but the covid lockdown threw obstacles in their way and unexpectedly led to a change in musical course, and thus the birth of Digital Negative.

Where their musical explorations have now led them in the case of Intersect is further down a path of indulging electronic and industrial influences while continuing to focus on socio-political and dystopian themes. As you’ll discover from the video premiere for “The Blanks” that we’re hosting today, the new EP’s name is apt. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MYR — “BRENNT”

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Jun 112025
 

(written by Islander)

Myr is a new band composed of two experienced Polish musicians who appear here under the names Svartan and TZommer. They are quite forthright in their goals for Myr: to express their passion for the heritage of such Scandinavian black metal bands as Satyricon, Bathory, and Dissection, and to create anthems rooted in those traditions that invoke moods of mysticism, darkness, and the brutal intensity of the Nordic wilderness.

They have set June 20 as the release date their debut album Hellvegen, and to help spread the word we’re hosting the premiere of a video for a song from the album named “Brennt“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITHOUTMIND — “INTERSTELLAR IMMORALITY”

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Jun 102025
 

(written by Islander)

Hailing from Bogotá, Colombia, the band WithoutMind launched themselves with a first demo in 2008 and followed it with a discography that includes two albums and a handful of splits and EPs. At a high level, their music has combined brutal death metal and grindcore, and their clever lyrics have tended toward the sarcastic and the satirical but with a wide range of themes that touch on more profound subjects as well.

The band’s second album (their latest one) was digitally released in October 2023, bearing the name Interstellar Immorality. It included a whopping 20 tracks, ranging in length from 5 seconds to slightly more than 2 minutes; at 2:04, the title track is the second longest. Lyrically, the band describe it as “a journey through conspiracies and inner reflections, where we ask: what if everything we believe is a farce?”

The album deserved a physical release, and now it will get it, through a June 18 CD co-release by GrimmDistribution and DirtyEar Records. The timing is good, because WithoutMind are gearing up for a series of live performances across Colombian cities in the second half of 2025, with plans to expand to Latin America. And to help spread the word about the album’s physical reissue, today we’re premiering an animated lyric video for its title song, “Interstellar Immorality“. Continue reading »

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