AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UPON THE ALTAR — “PROFANATION’S VAPOR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 102025
 

(written by Islander)

In thinking about the music from Upon the Altar’s side of a 2022 split with DeathEpoch, we wrote that it left “no doubt that Upon the Altar’s mission is to devour all light.” The music was often toxic, suffocating, granite-heavy, vicious, and vocally horrifying. They allowed very little wholesome light to shine in their second album, Descendants of Evil, which followed that split. What did shine through was the band’s talent for creating hateful musical horror — a complex of vile, malicious, oppressive, desolate, and violently furious experiences.

Those of us who’ve enthusiastically fallen beneath the previous malign assaults of this Polish band will be thrilled to learn that on December 12th Godz Ov War Productions will release a new Upon the Altar EP, a six-track manifestation of pitch-black ruin named Profanation’s Vapor — and even more thrilled to hear it today through our full streaming premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE SECOND FOVEA — “CLAWS OF BENGAL”

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Dec 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Today we’re touching base again (for the seventh time in the last four years) with The Second Fovea, a band originally birthed in India but whose members are currently spread among the U.S., India, and Canada.

Two of their previous singles which were the subject of all those previous writings focused upon wildlife — manta rays and snakes – but all of their songs, including those two, have carried socio-political messages, and most directly in the song “Headshot”, which was a potent condemnation of racism and hate crimes across the globe.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for a new single from the group, and as you can see, it’s devoted to Bengal tigers, and more specifically (as the band tell us), it’s “dedicated to the legendary Bengal Tigers of the Sundarbans in India — the world’s largest mangrove forest and one of the last remaining strongholds for this endangered species.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FOSSILIZATION — “CREMATION OF A SERAPH”

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Dec 082025
 

(written by Islander)

It is with terrible delight today that we help announce a new album by the tremendous Brasilian death/doom band Fossilization. It bears the name Advent of Wounds, and it’s set for release on February 13th by the ever-tasteful Everlasting Spew Records. The label rightly describes it as “a work of sheer ferocity and oppressive gloom” — “bleak, crushing and claustrophobic”, “a summoning of despair that drags the listener into a chasm where brutality and anguish entwine.”

In its current configuration, Fozzilization is still principally the work of V. (voices, guitars, bass) from the sludge/death/doom metal band Jupiterian, but now joined by  guitarist Z. Before we get to the main subject of this post — our premiere of the first advance song from Advent of Wounds — we want to share a statement by V. about this new album: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARVESTED — “GATHERED AND DELUDED”

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Dec 042025
 

(written by Islander)

In August of this year the Ottawa-based death metal band Harvested released their debut album Dysthymia. We were very happy to help spread the word in advance of the release by premiering a playthrough video for one of the album’s most electrifying groove-monsters, a song called “Synaptic Confusion” — very happy, because the album is such a killer release.

We weren’t the only people who thought so. Lots of other metal writers and fans have heaped praise on it both before and after its release. But of course, because Harvested is an independent and unsigned band there’s undoubtedly a lot of people who still don’t know what they’ve missed. We’ll make a further effort to help clue them in today with another video premiere, this time for a song off Dysthymia called “Gathered and Deluded“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SPLENDIDULA — “ECHOES OF QUIET REMAIN”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 042025
 

(written by Islander)

Loss and remembrance… these are the overarching themes of a new album by the Belgian atmospheric black/doom band Splendidula. Fittingly, the album’s title is Absentia, an apt name because the music’s emotional core lies in the tragic absence of loved ones.

No one can avoid the death of friends and family members. It’s only a matter of time. It’s rarely foreseeable, and often it seems unjust because it’s so random. Splendidula went through such a period beset by loss, and in the making of this new album they dedicated themselves to remembering, and to mourning.

As a new sign of what they achieved in their music, today we’re premiering a video for a song called “Echoes of Quiet Remain“. It includes a guest vocal appearance by Aaron Stainthorpe, known of course for his iconic role in My Dying Bride (and High Parasite). We’ll begin with Splendidula’s own statement about the song: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RAUMORDNUNG — “STEWARDS OF EON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 032025
 

(written by Islander)

The German metal band Eremit has followed an unusual path. Beginning with their 2018 debut album Carrier of Weight, they have narrated an unfolding fantasy tale set in a universe created by the band’s mastermind Moritz Fabian. That tale has continued over the course of two more monumental albums and a pair of EPs. Fabian has also been writing the story in book-length “Pamphlets,” with each musical release providing multi-faceted soundtracks to various chapters of the evolving saga. Moreover, the artwork accompanying the records and other merchandise has all been equally integral to the narrative.

The album that we’re premiering in full today in advance of its December 5 release by four labels is an even more ambitious undertaking designed by Moritz Fabian. The name of this project is Raumordnung, and the project’s debut album Stewards of Eon is also a multi-media narrative that’s set in the same universe as Eremit’s albums and described as “a dismal, heart-breaking story,” but represented as a science fiction concept.

How ambitious is it? The Raumordnung collective includes the work of 20 artists of different crafts, among them a wide variety of musicians, as well as authors, photographers, visual artists, illustrators, models, and costume designers. The album is being released along with a graphic novel that provides insight into the album’s narrative.

And the music itself brings together elements of war metal, power electronics, dark ambient, psy trance, and even opera, drawing influence from such disparate acts as Lingua Ignota, Full of Hell, Tsutomu Nihei, Chelsea Wolfe, Caldon Glover, and Antichrist Siege Machine.

On paper, those genre references wouldn’t seem to work together very well — but remarkably they do, in mind-bending ways. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SOREWOUND — “ESPANTO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Dec 022025
 

(written by Islander)

Like almost all genres of metal, sludge has evolved and branched in numerous directions since origins that saw hardcore bands slowing down and delving into doom. These days, calling a band’s music “sludge metal” is still useful in some measure, but still leaves a lot un-said because the musical variations within that broad genre have become so wide-ranging.

Which brings us to Sorewound, a Costa Rican band that seems bent on turning back the clock by a couple of decades. Their music, as represented in their debut EP Espanto, is by some current measures primitive and “stripped down,” ugly and corrosive, punk-influenced and capable of creating grisly harmonies that might be abysmal in one minute and feral the next — but always seem horrifying.

Here’s how Sorewound’s label, Cursed Monk Records, introduces the EP: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LEYLINES — “ABBERATION”

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Dec 012025
 

(written by Islander)

In October of this year the New York punishers Leylines dropped a devastating new EP named Sepulchral, which follows up their 2024 self-titled debut. It discharges a mix of heavy-grooved bludgeoning, freaked-out but surgically executed tech-metal, madhouse vocal savagery, and unexpected haunting clean passages.

To help spread the word about these “tech groove deathcore juggernauts”, today we’re premiering a horrifying video for what is probably the new EP’s most destructive song — “Abberation“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DOMHAIN — “MY TOMB BENEATH THE TIDE”

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Dec 012025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to premiere a beautifully made short film that’s mysterious, haunting, and harrowing, paired with a song by Domhain (from Northern Ireland) that channels those same feelings… and more. Together, they create a completely engrossing and emotionally compelling experience, one we predict won’t be soon forgotten by anyone who watches and listens.

The song is “My Tomb Beneath the Tide“. It’s from Domhain’s new album In Perfect Stillness, which will be released by These Hands Melt on February 20th, 2026. Spoilers follow, so feel free to scroll down to the video now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VIN DE MIA TRIX — “EXIT GLACIER”

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Nov 282025
 

(written by Islander)

We last considered the music of the Ukrainian progressive doom band Vin de Mia Trix in 2017, the occasion being the release that year of their second album Palimpsests. They now have a third one on the way, eight years and a Russian invasion after the last one.

The title of the new album, This Landscape Is Alive, reflects its themes, described as “a poetic and philosophical exploration of the troubled coexistence of the human and the landscape.” What we have for you today is the premiere of the new record’s opening song, “Exit Glacier“. Continue reading »

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