AN NCS PREMIERE: LESOTHO — “A FLASHING ON PLAIN GLASS”

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Feb 182026
 

(written by Islander)

Just two days ago we hosted the premiere of an instrumental metal song by Utah-based Osmium Gate. We concluded the introduction by proclaiming, “It really is one of those songs that’s so emotionally evocative, so viscerally soul-stirring in its impact, that vocals are unnecessary, and indeed would have risked distraction from all the other marvels had they been present.” Coincidentally, we’re now premiering another instrumental metal song, this time from the other side of our continent, and the same impression holds for this one: You won’t miss the vocals at all.

What we have for you today is the title song for A Flashing on Plain Glass, the intriguingly named forthcoming third album from the Boston-based instrumental post-metal trio Lesotho. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARLUGUBRE — “SHE NIGH HIS DEATH”

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Feb 182026
 

(written by Islander)

By definition, “concept albums” are based upon narratives or themes that connect the songs. Most often, the concepts are represented lyrically. Often, the lyrics are written independently of the music, even after much of the music has already been written. Although listening to the riffs and melodies might inspire the lyricist’s development of concepts, sometimes there may be no evident connection at all between an album’s “conceptual framework” and what the songs sound like.

Which brings us to a new concept album by the Italian artist Marlugubre. The name of the album is Per Amor Nymphae, and as that title signifies (it translates to “Through the Love of the Nymphs”), the songs are based upon the mythical figures of nymphs. Deeply rooted in Greek mythology, the songs include tales of the primordial figure of Nyx from Hesiod’s Theogony, of Chloris, of the tragic myth of Scylla and Glaucus, and of perhaps the even more tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice — which is the subject of the song from Per Amor Nymphae that we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s February 27 release by Dusktone. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STRUP — “ABYSSURGE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 172026
 

(written by Islander)

The labels Rotted Life and Gurgling Gore have joined forces for the first time in a collaborative release of a debut album named Abyssurge by the Ukrainian band Strup, with a street date of February 20th. They describe the band as “a death grind assault unit blending the surgical brutality of death metal with the speed, chaos, and ferocity of grindcore”.

That description is true, but doesn’t completely capture all the musical ingredients of Abyssurge. Most prominently, Strup’s music is also hideously foul and abysmal as well as maniacally furious and brutally bludgeoning.

But you’ll soon see this for yourselves, because today we’re premiering a full stream of this Kyiv band’s debut — preceded (of course) by our own more detailed thoughts about what you’re about to encounter. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORS.VOID.DISCIPLINE — “SANGUINEM IN ANUM CAPRAE PUTRESCENTIS EIACULANS”

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Feb 162026
 

(written by Islander)

Take it from someone who’s been struggling to write about music for 16+ years: It’s not easy to capture sounds in words, or to represent how they alter feelings and inspire the imagination without running afoul of triteness or tedium. A humbling challenge to be sure, but even more humbling when we run across the prose of the honcho behind Sentient Ruin Laboratories. Here, as a pertinent example, is an excerpt from the label’s linguistic preview of an album that’s the source of a song we’re about to premiere:

Chilean bestial goregrind terror-cult Mors.Void.Discipline emerge from the bottomless dungeons of South America’s extreme metal underground with their debut full-length monstrosity Txketh)ëké, a twenty-minute obfuscation of terror-spawning bestial war metal destruction swathed in the flesh-eating violence and maggot-infested putridity of 90’s goregrind.

Cryptic and malignant beyond thresholds comprehensible to man, Txketh)ëké projects forth a cancerous aural perversion in which the war-mongering assaults of Blasphemy collide with early Carcass’ mangled and deconstructed sonic butchery. Its astonishing hideousness and violence are not only shaped by its unequivocal descendancy, but further complexed by the peculiar antediluvian and occult aura historically permeating Chile’s underground scene, as well as by the band’s enigmatic inner workings and imagination harvesting perversions from beyond the reach of sanity.

You see? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OSMIUM GATE — “WATERS OF NATRON”

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Feb 162026
 

(written by Islander)

We are genuinely thrilled today to introduce you to Osmium Gate, a two-person instrumental metal band “forged in the shadows of Salt Lake City, Utah”. Those two people are guitarist/bassist Drew Ehrgott, known for his work in Reverence Of The Martyr, and drummer Rene Gomez, “whose percussive presence reverberates through Ibex Throne, Yaotl Mictlan, and his bass work in Pan-Amerikan Native Front.”

Osmium Gate was formed in December 2024, and they now have a debut album named Cannibal Galaxy set for release on March 13th. We’ll share these further words from the press materials we’ve received, already excerpted above: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXORCISED — “HATRED KNIFE”

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Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

On March 13th a new Spanish underground label named Cruel Gates Records will release Fire & Sulfur, a debut album from the Spanish band Exorcised.

Born from the ashes of the thrash band Madsher, Exorcised have devoted their hellish energies to the creation of old school death thrash, taking their cues from such bands as Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Devastation.

Today we have an example of the infernal sonic madness they’ve created through our premiere of a lyuric video for a song from their debut full-length named “Hatred Knife“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEIMLER — “DARKNESS FALLS”

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Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

In 2023 the Spanish death metal band Deimler released a concept album named Immortalized that was based on Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking 1979 movie Alien. Following that up, guitarist/vocalist Pako Deimler decided to pay tribute to a personal favorite series from the ’90s — The X-Files. More specifically, Deimler’s new album, Darkness Falls, is based on one episode from the show’s first season that itself was named “Darkness Falls”.

That was a standalone episode in which Mulder and Scully went looking for a group of loggers missing in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State (which coincidentally isn’t far from the HQ of our site), only to be confronted by a deadly form of mutant insects. Pako has said that he loves that episode in particular because of its “atmosphere” but also because it’s “one of the few episodes where the main characters have a hard time and are truly in great danger.”

The new album is now set for release on March 20th by Awakening Records, and what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for its second single — the title track “Darkness Falls“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WAMPYRIC RITES — “UNDER THE TRAGIC FULLMOON OF THE VAMPIRE”

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Feb 122026
 

(written by Islander)

Vampires and other undead entities reputed to feed on the essences of living humans have figured in the folk mythologies of many cultures around the world for millennia. Fear of such creatures has led to episodes of mass hysteria, executions, the exhumation and decapitation of corpses, and of course the staking of suspected revenants through the heart.

(Many such incidents and more are documented in Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, an exhaustive scholarly work by John Blair published just last November.)

Vampirism lives on in our imaginations (hopefully, only there), itself a deathless dream that the passage of millennia can’t exorcise. In our tiny corner of modern culture, black metal has kept the nightmares alive more than any other sub-set of metal, and one of the most prolific exponents over the last seven years has been the Ecuadorian band Wampyric Rites.

This band’s newest album, Under the Tragic Fullmoon of the Vampire, is now set for release by Inferna Profundus Records tomorrow — Friday the 13th of February — and on the eve of that dreadful event we have a full stream of the album for your consideration. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: FORCEFED HORSEHEAD AND SHAVING THE WEREWOLF — “FROM HORRID TO WORSE”

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Feb 112026
 

(written by Islander)

“Next Friday, February 13, two of Norway’s most unhinged entities collide as Forcefed Horsehead and Shaving the Werewolf unleash their split EP From Horrid to Worse, a violently inventive, no-rules document of chaos that feels less like a release and more like a controlled detonation.”

That’s how the press materials have announced this new split, and it’s spot-on. So is this further introductory comment:

On one side: Forcefed Horsehead, weaponizing grindpunk, death metal, hardcore and hysteria with apocalyptic precision. On the other: Shaving the Werewolf, twisting powerviolence, noise rock, nu-metal and mathcore into something deeply uncomfortable and disturbingly catchy. Together, it’s all bruises, whiplash, and creative malpractice of the highest order.

To back up these words, what we have for you today (along with introductory comments of our own) is a full stream of Horrid to Worse in all its apocalyptic and poisonous glory. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ØRB — “PRESENCE:ABSENCE”

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Feb 112026
 

(written by Islander)

Last November we premiered a song called “Ghost Key“, the first single from the debut album of Ørb, the melodic death metal project of English/Danish solo artist Karl Koch. Today we’re presenting the second single, “Presence:Absence“. To set the stage for it, we’ll quote again from Ørb’s description of the album’s dystopian sci-fi theme — which focuses on a very real and urgent phenomenon:

The full-length album follows a lone resistance figure in a dystopian future where humanity teeters on the brink of extinction under the omnipotent grasp of The Nexus – an advanced AI network that has reduced humanity to obedient cogs in a machine-driven existence. Armed only with unwavering principles and the history of humankind, this stoic survivor embarks on a perilous journey to challenge the AI overlord.

The album’s narrative arc traces a revolt that may be liberation—or only another loop in the machine. Central questions drive the work: Can fate be overcome? What remains of human identity when autonomy is stripped away? Does a belief in determinism empower or limit us? These aren’t abstract philosophical exercises—they’re survival questions in an age where AI increasingly shapes human experience.

The project stands with one boot in tomorrow’s wasteland and one in the world we already feel tightening around us, creating a parable about resistance that resonates beyond the boundaries of extreme metal. Continue reading »

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