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”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARALLU — “SIERRA NEVADA”

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Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The long-running Israeli black metal band Arallu has provided the following background information concerning the inspiration for their song “Sierra Nevada” that we’re premiering today through a video:

In September 2003, five hikers set out on a two-week expedition deep into the jungles of Colombia, in search of a mysterious place known as “The Lost City”, an ancient ruin on a jungle-covered mountain hidden high in the Sierra Nevada range.

But what began as an adventure soon turned into a nightmare. One night, while they were asleep in their camp, they were ambushed and kidnapped by the brutal guerrilla group ELN (the “National Liberation Front”). The five were taken from their tents at gunpoint and held hostage under harsh conditions, surrounded by the unforgiving wilderness and the constant threat of death. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FELL OMEN — “BORN TO SIEGE”

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Jul 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Near the very last day of 2024 we hosted the premiere of a song with an arresting (and peculiar) name — “Dungeon Metal Punks Besieging Digital Castles” — presented through a video in which the music was performed by a figure in a suit of medieval armor, who wielded a hurdy-gurdy in the song’s opening. “Bonkers” was one of the words we used to describe the experience. Other words included “wild,” “fantastical,” “sinister,” “something like a hybrid between a battle charge and an exhilarating folk dance, both of them time-traveled from the Middle Ages and envisioned through the lens of a black crystal.”

That song was from Invaded By a Dark Spirit, the debut album of the Greek band Fell Omen, the solo work of one Spider of Pnyx and his first official “metal” release after performing live in dark ambient, neofolk, and noise settings, after contributing to the music of Mystras and Spectral Lore, and after also gaining recognition for crafting intricate cover art under the alias Gilded Panoply for black metal and dungeon synth artists.

We might have speculated that Invaded By a Dark Spirit would be a one-and-done curiosity, but it was received with considerable enthusiasm among listeners and reviewers (including us), and so Fell Omen has thankfully forged onward. Today we happily spread the news that in August True Cult Records will release a second Fell Omen album, this one named Caelid Dog Summer.

And we also happily have for you today the premiere of another Fell Omen video for the album’s first advance track, “Born To Siege“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EMISSARY — “HOBB’S END”

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Jul 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Some emissaries are open about the powers they represent, others are secretive or deceptive or simply misunderstood. The biblical Gabriel made quite clear who he represented. “The prince of the power of the air” had agents who were more secretive about their fiendish missions. We all know that big wooden horse was filled with Greek soldiers, but the Trojans thought it was a parting gift.

The Barcelona band Emissary are open-faced about their musical mission. The name they chose for their debut album — Eldritch — further signifies where they want to lead us: In their music they act as agents of cosmic horrors, beckoning us into “a labyrinth of shadowed realms where the unknown reigns supreme,” guiding us toward “a descent into madness” that “blurs the lines between reality and nightmare”.

Those are among the words offered to listeners on behalf of Fetzner Death Records, which released Eldritch in March of this year. We have some words of our own to offer, along with our premiere of a video for a song off Eldritch called “Hobb’s End“, which we hope will help spread the word of this Emissary to new listeners. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERMENTO — “THE STENCH SPREADING TO YOUR PROGENY”

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Jul 042025
 

(written by Islander)

If we had had our head screwed on straight and allowed a few minutes of calm thought instead of chasing after passing cars, we would have sent Fermento a few interview questions to accompany preparation for this premiere. Or at least one question: “What in the world caused you to make such a significant shift in sound on your new album?”

That question is the elephant in the room. Fermento made some big marks in the pages of Spanish (and even global) metal history, as perhaps the first death metal band in Spain when they formed in 1991, and as among the brick-layers over the next decade-plus in the building of the hostile edifice known as brutal death metal, with their 1997 debut album Symbols of Decrepitude, Symbols of Supremacy as a keystone.

Signs of restlessness became evident in their 2004 sophomore album Insignia, which followed the band’s move from Madrid to Ourense in Galicia and was far away from straight-forward brutal death metal, and in 2009’s Recipe for Cremation. But for as much evolution and experimentation as those albums revealed, they were still rooted in traditions of death metal.

Something clearly happened in the roughly 14 years that have elapsed since that third album and the new one, Acts of Blood, because, by the band’s own admission, it represents “a bold evolution in their musical direction.” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): I PROÉLEFSI — SELF-TITLED

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 032025
 

(written by Islander)

The Scream!

Despite the fact that black metal has warped in ways that never would have been foreseen by its young first-wave and second-wave progenitors, certain tropes still tend to define the genre in the minds of many bands and listeners. One of those is the screaming — the harsh, high-pitched, rasp-edged vocal volatility that has contributed to both the raw aggression and the supernatural aura of the genre.

What happens when there are no screams? And not just no screams, but reputedly no vocals of any kind, not even the kind of deathly gutturals and possessed wails (among many other vociferous manifestations) that have found their way into the genre?

Well, the answers vary among the small range of black metal projects, usually one-person formations, whose music is entirely instrumental. In the case of the Chilean project I Proélefsi, what happens is a range of experiences that include both atmospheric and avant-garde elements, drawing inspiration from, the likes of Emperor, Setherial, Abigor, and Limbonic Art, as well as Dark Ambient music.

You’ll discover the initial results of I Proélefsi‘s creative visions (near wordless but not entirely so) in the band’s self-titled demo that we’re about to premiere. But before getting to the music, we’d like to share what the band’s solo creator M. has to say about it: Continue reading »

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