AN NCS PREMIERE: HEXROT — “CONSECRATING LUMINOUS CONFLAGRATION”

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Jun 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Haxes and hexes…

Transcending Obscurity Records has established a global reputation for good taste, and quite varied taste. Their roster of bands run a broad gamut of metal sub-genres, and their releases over many years now have been consistently excellent. At this very site, we’ve had a vivid demonstration of this over just the past week.

Five days ago we premiered an astonishing epic-length song by the Floridian progressive death metal band Haxprocess, and today we’re following that with a song from the Massachusetts duo Hexrot, a much shorter song by comparison but thoroughly head-spinning nonetheless. Its evocative name is “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BIOLENCE — “EXTERMINATION THROUGH MUTATION”

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Jun 272025
 

(written by Islander)

Formed in 1998 in Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto, Portugal), Biolence have more than 25 years of death/thrashing carnage under their belts and no shortage of the will or skill needed to continue delivering what is rightly claimed as “no-frills, old-school intensity”. That becomes vividly apparent when listening to their forthcoming fifth album, the aptly named Violent Obliteration. Its appeal is primal, its punishment ruthless, its effects exhilarating, the kind of music that gets heads hammering and blood rushing.

You sort of have to take our word for it at this point, because the album won’t be released until the first of September this year by a trio of labels — Doomed Records, Raging Planet, and Selvajaria Records. But you don’t have to entirely take out word for it because today we’re bringing you an official video for a mad and monstrous song off the album named “Extermination Through Mutation“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WHEN THE DEADBOLT BREAKS — “IN THE GLOW OF THE VATICAN FIRE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 262025
 

(written by Islander)

The lyrics of most extreme metal songs are often an after-thought, both for the bands and for fans and “critics”. They’re often written after the musical core of the songs has solidified rather than intertwined with it from inception; they’re usually difficult to hear, since vocals usually function as simply another instrument that adds fuel to the emotional fires; and if we’re being honest, the words are quite often uninspiring and forgettable.

The extensive lyrics of In The Glow Of The Vatican Fire, the forthcoming tenth album from the Connecticut-based “avant-sludge metal” outfit When the Deadbolt Breaks, are a startling departure from those norms. This writer had them in hand and decided to read all of them before listening to anything from the album. They left me shaken. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NO SHELTER — “ROTTEN”

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Jun 262025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re told that the German band No Shelter came into existence in May 2017 as the union of members who had played in many other bands. Since then they’ve discharged a couple of EPs,  a couple of splits, and a couple of albums (Rest In Death and Erasing Life). From the beginning they’ve brought together elements of hardcore punk, crust, and Swedish death metal in varying degrees of combination, spawning references among writers to a collision between such bands as Trap Them and Entombed.

This summer No Shelter will have a third album for us. Entitled Remission/Resolve and encompassing 12 songs (including a “Wolverine Blues” cover), it’s set for a July 25 release by This Charming Man Records. What we’ve got for you today is a song off the album pointedly named “Rotten“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GOLGATA — “SORG”

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Jun 252025
 

(written by Islander)

In August Satanath Records (Georgia) and WP And RO Productions (Netherlands) will co-release Själabod, the powerful fourth full-length by the Swedish black metal band Golgata. Here is part of how they introduce the new record:

The album Själabod is about new beginnings and closure…. The music is inspired by the history and nature that surrounded the part of Sweden where the duo originates. The music is raw and intense but at the same time melodic and atmospheric. The lyrics are darkly poetic and narrative. With music and lyrics combined, Golgata explores the past to describe their view of modern day.

As a vivid sign of what the new album brings, today we’re premiering a song named “Sorg“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAXPROCESS — “SEPULCHRAL VOID”

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Jun 252025
 

(written by Islander)

“Haxprocess are playing incredibly heavy death metal music – leaden, thick and dark, and are somehow attempting to go progressive wielding that sound. It’s like Morbid Angel covering The Chasm songs under the influence of Blood Incantation.”

That’s part of how Transcending Obscurity Records pitches Beyond What Eyes Can See, the forthcoming second album by the Floridian quartet Haxprocess. They also mention that the album includes only four songs that average 10 minutes per track — epic in length, and allegedly epic in impact.

Well, to say the least, expectations have been raised. How well does the reality conform to them? Discerning listeners already have half the answer, because T.O. has already streamed the album’s opening two songs — “Where Even Stars Die” and “The Confines of the Flesh“. Now you’ll get three-quarters of the answer because we’re about to premiere the album’s closing track, “Sepulchral Void“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE BLEAK PICTURE — “SHADES OF LIFE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 242025
 

(written by Islander)

“There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.”
– Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis”

Those words feature prominently in The Bleak Picture‘s previews of their second album Shades of Life, which will be released by Ardua Music on June 27th. The music will remind you of them, but the music will also inspire other moods and other visions.

The album is a formulation of melodic death-doom metal that is at once earthy and astral, immensely heavy and gossamer light, stricken by sorrow but elevated by expansive visions of splendor, a powerfully immersive, emotionally moving, and often spine-shaking experience from beginning to end. And we are very fortunate to premiere its full stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INDESIDERIUM — “APOCALYPTIC FUNERAL MARCH”

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Jun 232025
 

(written by Islander)

Indesiderium is a Los Angeles based black metal duo founded by vocalist, guitarist, and bassist Atrum Lorde and now accompanied by drummer Warhead. Indesiderium has released two albums so far, Wanderer of the Abyssal Plains (2015) and Of Twilight and Evenfall​.​.​. (2018), and now a third one, The Nocturnal Seance Of Lucifer, is set for co-release later this week by Satanath Records (Georgia) and WP And RO Productions (Netherlands).

From the beginning, the band’s mission has been to channel in uncompromising terms the bleakness, the cold majesty, and the evil of second-wave black metal in its golden age, paying homage to the influence of such bands as Dawn, Dark Funeral, Dissection, Immortal, and Emperor. As a sign of where the band now stand in that mission, we’re premiering today a song from their new album named “Apocalyptic Funeral March“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISEMBODIMENT — “INFECTED TO ROT”

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Jun 232025
 

(written by Islander)

About five weeks ago we premiered a song from Spiral Crypts, the forthcoming debut album of Disembodiment from Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. We preceded it with a warning:

You are about to be stomped and gouged, bounced off the walls and lacerated, dragged into foul and choking cesspools and made witness to violent charnel-house abominations. Your pulse will pound, your head will move, your guts will churn. And you will smile broadly at every abuse to which you will be subjected!

Five weeks might have been long enough for physical and mental therapy to have had some beneficial recuperative effect on listeners who heard that song, “Stygian Overture“. It’s possible listeners have stopped smiling now too (smiling takes extra effort when your jaw’s wired shut). And so the time is right to bring you another helping of death metal trauma straight from the Spiral Crypts, through a song whose title describes some of its own consequences: “Infected To Rot“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MROME — “BONEYARD TWIST”

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Jun 202025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band MROME have been making music since the mid-’90s, first under the name Kingdom and then as MROME. Under the latter name they’ve released four albums so far, most of which we’ve paid attention to (as you can see here), and on June 23rd they’ll release a fifth one.

Entitled Boneyard Twist, the new one 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!”

What we have for you today is a full stream of the new record, preceded (of course) by some thoughts about it. Continue reading »

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