AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEPHOSPHORUS — “PLANETOKTONOS”

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Jul 162025
 

(written by Islander)

The title of the new fifth album by the Greek “cosmic grind” band Dephosphorus is Planetoktonos. That is a Greek word coined by the band, which roughly translates to “Planetkiller.” The album will be released on set on July 18th by a trio of labels in a variety of formats.

The new album’s name is an inspired choice, in part because it is reflective of the science-fiction and cosmology themes that lyrically run through the songs, and in part because the album often sounds like a planetkiller — as you’ll discover today through our premiere stream of the record in its entirety. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARVESTED — “SYNAPTIC CONFUSION”

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Jul 152025
 

(written by Islander)

Your muscles are about to reflexively twitch, your head is about to hammer, your pulse is about to accelerate. Audio worms will slither into your ear canals and take up residence there. Some of your cranial neurons may start spinning, creating visions of fast devils and hulking monsters.

Those are our predictions of what will happen when you see and hear the playthrough video we’re premiering for the song “Synaptic Confusion” by the Ottawa-based death metal band Harvested. It’s an excellent way to rev up your own motor as Harvested rev up theirs. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STOMACH — “LOW DEMON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 142025
 

(written by Islander)

Miserable and merciless, doomed and depraved, an exorcism of inner demons. Those are among the descriptions you may have seen if you’ve come across the news about a new album from Chicago-based Stomach. You may have also seen the album’s name: Low Demon. And man, is it ever that.

The album will be released this coming Friday by Hibernation Release. It will likely turn the end of the week into a smoking crater, from which horrid smoking things will crawl. But hell, why wait to see what happens? Let’s see what happens today. There’s no good reason to let this week pretend to have a positive start (we know better than to be fooled that way), and so we’ll drop Low Demon on your heads right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VISITANT — “STARLESS”

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Jul 112025
 

(written by Islander)

Visitant is an excellent name. Unlike the more mundane “visitor”, it suggests the appearance of something uncommon, something supernatural and possibly dangerous, like an apparitional visitation from the spirit world. That idea is reinforced by the striking red-hued cover image on this U.S. band’s debut album Rubidium.

True to the name they chose, Visitant‘s music turns out to be uncommon as well, a changing braid of varying genre ingredients that creates altered and interwoven sensations — sensations haunting and harrowing, disconsolate and vengeful, diaphanous and pulverizing, and altogether head-spinning.

You’ll get an idea of just how variable those ingredients are when you see the “for fans of” references provided by Visitant‘s label Exitus Stratagem Records: Gojira, Opeth, Naglfar, Between the Buried And Me, Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir, Mgła, Leaves Eyes, and Chelsea Wolfe.

Of course, not all those allusions become relevant within each song on Rubidium. The weave tends to change from song to song. The one from the album we’re focused on today is “Starless“, presented through a gripping lyric video made by Motus Insaniam. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEBEPHRENIQUE — “VISIONS OF MAGDALENE”

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Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

“Think Gorguts by way of Mayhem, filtered through Anaal Nathrakh’s violent theatrics and a heavy dose of dystopian dread.” That’s part of how Gutter Prince Cabal and Brilliant Emperor Records vividly preview Decathexis, a new album from the Australian band Hebephrenique that those labels are set to release on August 23rd. And there’s more:

“Decathexis is a whirlwind of spite-fueled vocals, mechanical precision, and hypnotic ambience, anchored by songwriting that hurts as much as it surprises. It’s more technical, more aggressive, and somehow even more unstable than their acclaimed EP [Non Compos Mentis], a deeper dive into madness and alienation.”

At first blush it’s hard to believe that the new album could be more aggressive or destabilizing or disorienting than that 2023 EP. When we premiered it, we frequently resorted to words like “insane,” “crazed”, “kaleidoscopic”, “diabolical”, and “dazzling”. We analogized it to a theater of devilish carnivals set in hellish asylums and a labyrinth of lunatic splendors.

We further wrote that “it’s also one of the most fascinating and engrossing records we’ve heard this year, and it marks the advent of a remarkable new talent that we hope will return with more madness soon.” Now our wish is coming true. As a first sign of what new madness comes our way we’re premiering a video for “Visions of Magdalene“, the first single from Decathexis. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GJALLARHORN’S WRATH — “WICCAN WYRD”

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Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

On September 5th of this year Non Serviam Records will release The Silver Key, the debut album from the Spanish band Gjallarhorn’s Wrath. It’s a new name, but the group has older roots. Non Serviam provides this background:

Gjallarhorn’s Wrath is an extreme metal band from Barcelona, born from the legacy of Oblivion, an atmospheric black metal act founded in 2001. Oblivion made a strong impact on the Spanish metal scene with their deep exploration of light and darkness. They performed across Spain and toured with Norwegian legends Ancient. Over time, the band members went their separate ways, and the group disbanded. However, the spirit of their music endured.

Years later, the core members reunited with a shared vision to create something even more ambitious. With the addition of vocalist Alex, Lord Ashler moved to bass, Javi Iron returned to handle drums, keys, and composition, and Arash continued as lead guitarist. Together, they formed Gjallarhorn’s Wrath, blending the raw aggression of blackened death metal with the grandeur of orchestral and cinematic elements.

What we’re presenting today is a transfixing video for a sonic spectacle from The Silver Key named “Wiccan Wyrd“, a song that justifies Non Serviam‘s description of this band’s new music. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MASS DECEPTION — “RUINS OF DOMINION”

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Jul 102025
 

(written by Islander)

In 2016 the Dutch metal band Mass Deception launched their recording career with Revelations, the first album in a conceptual trilogy. They followed that in 2019 with Redemptions, and now (following the 2022 EP Halls of Amenti), they’re closing the story with a new album named Resurrections that will be released by Gruesome Records on July 25th.

To help spread the word, what we have for you today is the premiere of a riveting video for a riveting song off Resurrections called “Ruins of Dominion“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LOTAN — “INCANTATION OF HATRED”

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Jul 092025
 

(written by Islander)

For a change, let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in some additional details.

What you’re about to experience in this premiere, as the Danish band Lotan accurately say about their new album Yetzer Hara, is sound as a weapon, ruthlessly wielded to express both fury and crushing dismay over the pathetic failures of humankind. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAND CADAVER — “DARKENED APATHY”

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Jul 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Not long ago we were musing around here about the emergence of silver linings around the black clouds of death and dissociation that shrouded the world during the covid pandemic. The lockdowns were miserable for many and welcome for some but disruptive for all. They shut down certain species of communal creative activity but spawned others. They forced a suspension of many plans, but by the same token that gave people room to ruminate about how to fill the unexpected open time in their lives.

The Swedish band Grand Cadaver, forged during the 2020 lockdown, was one of those silver linings. It led five old friends from Gothenburg and Stockholm to collectively indulge their shared a love for old-school, HM-2-drenched Swedish death metal: vocalist Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect), guitarist Stefan Lagergren (The Grifted, ex-Treblinka/Tiamat), guitarist Alex Stjernfeldt (Novarupta, CHILD), bassist Christian Jansson (Pagandom, Dark Tranquillity), and drummer Daniel Liljekvist (Disrupted, Vorder, ex-Katatonia).

We’re told that their debut EP, Madness Comes, was recorded in just three days, and it was released in 2021 by Majestic Mountain Records. The band soon followed that with their debut album the same year, Into the Maw of Death. And fortunately for fans like us, Grand Cadaver still weren’t finished, even after the covid clouds passed.

More singles followed, along with a second album (Deities of Deathlike Sleep in 2023), and now Grand Cadaver have a new EP named The Rot Beneath due for release on August 15th via Majestic Mountain, giving us the occasion for the 10th (!) article/review we’ve written about Grand Cadaver since their spawning (the evidence is here). This time we’re premiering a song off the new EP named “Darkened Apathy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KRATORNAS — “EVIL AND PLUNDER”

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Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The last time we wrote about the music of the Filipino band Kratornas (here) was in the context of their third album Devoured By Damnation in 2016. In a nutshell, we described it as “an electrifying amalgam of grindcore, raw black metal, thrash, and death metal” that “pours sulfurous satanic hellfire down upon the damned (and everyone else) in a superheated torrent.” And while we summed it up as one of the most raw and wild thrill rides of that year, we also found “impressive intricacy and dynamism in the songs, as well as jaw-dropping technical skill and manifest blood lust.”

Now, more than eight years later, Kratornas is releasing another album. Bearing the name God of the Tribes, it was mastered by none other than Dan Swanö and is set for a CD and digital discharge by Grathila Records in August.

You will probably not guess what has happened to the music of Kratornas. You may also have difficulty stopping your head from spinning off your body as you listen to it. Continue reading »

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