AN NCS PREMIERE: HUMANITY ZERO — “FORGIVENESS DEVOURED”

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Jul 292025
 

(written by Islander)

The musical evolution of the Greek band Humanity Zero continues. In its early phases and continuing through many albums the band embraced death metal in the vein of such bands as Death, Hypocrisy, Unleashed, Nile, and Immolation. By the time of the 2017 album Withered In Isolation, the reference points included My Dying Bride, Tiamat, Amorphis, Katatonia, and Ophis. The movement in a doomed direction was even more pronounced on the following album Proselytism as the music became slower still and even more nightmarish.

And now Humanity Zero brings us their sixth album, Cursed Be The Gift Of Life. It comes almost seven years after Proselytism. Think of what has happened to the world during those seven years, and maybe you can begin to guess about the direction of this band’s new music.

But there’s no need for guesswork: As a tangible sign of what those long intervening years have wrought in Humanity Zero‘s increasingly frightening and doomed musical interests, today we premiere a song from the new album named “Forgiveness Devoured“. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BELLICISTE AND ÚIR

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 282025
 

(written by Islander)

This coming Friday (August 1st) two excellent black metal bands, Belliciste and Úir, will release an album-length split on cassette tape (and digitally). It includes four songs from Belliciste, three from Úir, and one song that is a collaboration between the two bands. Today we’re very happy to share a full stream of all the songs.

Further commentary is likely unnecessary, but of course you’re going to get it anyway. This is an hour-long compendium of music, and because most days for most people are hurried and harried, explaining why it would be worthwhile to pause for this, from its beginning to its end, may be useful. Beyond that, the commentary functions as an expression of thanks to these musicians for enriching our hurried and harried days with something this superb. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VELZEVUL — “ABIGOR”

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Jul 252025
 

(written by Islander)

Elegantly garbed and golden-masked, the symphonic black metal band Velzevul has emerged from the far east of Russia with their debut album Pandemonium set for release in September by Satanath Records and More Hate Productions.

Their album imagines the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, a nuclear wasteland on the shores of the Sea of Japan — that almost wholly enclosed body of water bordered by the Japanese archipelago, the Korean peninsula, and mainland Russia. Its concept is described in these words on behalf of the band and the labels (as translated from the Russian text): Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPERIALIST — “BENEATH THE SANDS OF TITAN”

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Jul 242025
 

(written by Islander)

The California-based black metal band Imperialist have released two albums so far (Cipher and Zenith), and their third one — Prime — is now set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on September 5th. We’ve been fortunate to host premieres of music from those first two albums, and are fortunate again to premiere a song from the third one today.

Speaking of good fortune, all three of Imperialist‘s albums have featured tremendous cover paintings that connect with the band’s science-fiction themes, Adam Burke having created the first two and Eliran Kantor devoting his tremendous talents to the new one. Kantor‘s two-panel piece reveals a panorama of intricate detail. Its entire expanse creates a daunting alien vision, but it draws the eye in.

Something similar stands out about Imperialist‘s new music: Their songs are crafted with great attention to detail and executed with eye-popping skill, and they also draw the listener in (often from the very first seconds) and then wholly consume attention with their musical visions while creating a viscerally physical response at the same time.

The song we’re premiering today, “Beneath the Sands of Titan“, is an excellent example of these achievements, and it also seems to connect with the album’s cover art because what Eliran Kantor rendered might indeed be a vision of Saturn’s greatest moon — undergoing a catastrophic event. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KVSKET — “ALL THIS TALKING”

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Jul 232025
 

(written by Islander)

The Minnesota band kvsket (pronounced “casket”) describe themselves as “Minneapolis Goth Rock”. That’s the definition of a short-hand description. The “for fans of” references to Deftones, Gojira, My Chemical Romance, Turnstile, and The Cure is more descriptively complete but still doesn’t complete cover the waterfront of kvsket‘s head-spinning music on their album Patiently Awaiting Your Arrival, which was released last February. We tried to unpack it in May when we premiered a video for one of the album tracks (“Hot Grip”):

The 11 mostly short songs on Patiently Awaiting Your Arrival encompass a lot of musical variety…. You’ll find big burly bounding grooves, guitars that abrade like a belt-sander and glitter like needles or quiver like warped sirens, high-flying singing with a raw edge, dark gothic crooning, furious wailing yells, and nasty snarls. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CULT BURIAL — “BESEECH”

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Jul 232025
 

(written by Islander)

We ran out of fingers. It took all 10 of them and one toe to count the number of articles we’ve published here about the London band Cult Burial, all of them in just the last five years. The attention began with the release of their 2020 debut EP Sorrow and has continued through their release of numerous singles, another EP, and two albums. Now this duo of Simon Langford and César Moreira will release a third album in September named Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust.

The new album is described in these haunting and harrowing words:

Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust is a record about erosion — of structures, of certainty, of meaning. Across eight tracks, Cult Burial tears through the frameworks we cling to, carving out something that sits between aggression and despair, weight and absence. The music is dense and layered, yet unafraid of space; at times claustrophobic, at others stripped to bare wire and exposed edge.

Each song peels back the layers between memory and oblivion, order and chaos. Built on jagged riffs and drenched in haunting textures, this album traces the gradual decay of mind, identity, and ritual. From the first shudder of collapse to that final, ash-choked breath, it offers no solace. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLUTSAUGER — “BLACK SHROUD RITUAL”

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Jul 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Though Italian in location, the black metal band Blutsauger chose a name for themselves that means “bloodsuckers”, drawing inspiration from Transylvanian and Austro-Hungarian folklore and evoking the undead monstrosity of Nosferatu. They named their 2021 demo Path of the Bleeding Dead, and their forthcoming debut album is emblazoned with the title Nocturnal Blood Tyrants.

All of that, and their signing with the label De Tenebrarum Principio (a division of ATMF), signals music of “nocturnal terror and eternal darkness”, of “sanguine delirium” and “feverish ultraviolence”, and of a “trance-like state” that might be induced by their blood-lusting and blood-letting assaults against victimized listeners.

Those are among the preview words offered on behalf of the label. We have some of our own, impelled by the Blutsauger album track we’re premiering today: “Blood Shroud Ritual“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SULPHURIA — “LA DANZA DEL SATIRO”

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Jul 212025
 

(written by Islander)

Imagine you’re staring at the face of a clock instead of this page, a clock with a sweep hand that steadily ticks away the seconds. Then imagine the clock goes haywire, the second hand and the other hands spinning instead of ticking or crawling, and then all of them suddenly spinning in the opposite direction.

That’s one way to prepare you for the Sulphuria song “La Danza Del Satiro” we’re about to present. It spins in very different directions from the kind of music we usually feature here, strange directions that become strangely seductive, a twist on black metal that exotically warps it, an alchemy that justifies a “for fans of” reference which includes Goblin and Mercyful Fate as well as Beherit and Gorgoroth (among others). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: UNALIGNED — “DREAMING IN DECAY”

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Jul 182025
 

(written by Islander)

“Blackened Tech Death” is the shorthand description offered by Transcending Obscurity Records for A Form Beyond, the debut album of the U.S. band Unaligned, though the label also rightly draws attention to the band’s penchant for creating a more atmospheric and epic take on the technical death metal style.

The song we’re premiering today, “Dreaming in Decay“, which arrives with a vividly illustrated lyric video, bears out those descriptions. It manages to be eerily supernatural, a manifestation of ancient gods and demons, but also a blood-rushing display of instrumental exuberance, hard-hitting groove, and spine-tingling vocal savagery. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BA’AL — “THE FINE LINE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HERE”

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Jul 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The British metal band Ba’al picked a name for their new album that will make most people’s scanning eyes stop in their tracks when they see it: The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here. Your hurrying brain might quickly interpret it one way (the wrong way) and then pause (if it’s not rushing too fast) to realize it says “Here“, not “Hell“.

The title is clever, but it’s also meaningful. The band explain:

“The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here reflects on growing up in a city like our home of Sheffield; the contrast between bleak, grey industrial sprawl and the beauty of nature that surrounds and often overlaps with it. It touches on mental health, substance abuse, suicide, grief and existential dread.”

“Here“, where we are, can be hellish. Human beings have always imagined the torments of Hell based on what they know and have seen of ourselves and our fellow travelers on our spinning orb. It may be that we have also imagined the glories of Heaven based on the glories of Here too.

How Ba’al have used their music to render the grey and the green, the scars and the sublime, will be revealed in full today through our premiere of their new album. Continue reading »

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