AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TARLUNG — “AXIS MUNDI”

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Jan 272026
 

(written by Islander)

As an older person who’s been smoking cigarettes since age 16 I feel like a band named TarLung was made for me. Though they probably have a natural following among coal miners, hash fiends, and people who do enough weed each day to stop a water buffalo in its tracks and haven’t changed their bong water since the Obama Administration.

With a name like that, I also expected this Viennese band’s music would be unhealthy, nasty, and possibly choking. And I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t entirely right either, because while their new album Axis Mundi does deliver crushing (and often nasty) sludge and doom, it includes many other captivating ingredients as well.

You’ll be able to understand that for yourselves because what we have for you today is a full premiere stream of the album in advance of its January 30 release by Argonauta Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DECIPHER — “LITANY”

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Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

On March 20th Transcending Obscurity Records will release θελημα (Thelema), the second album by the Greek black metal band Decipher. T.O. introduces the album this way:

Decipher released a sublime album in Arcane Paths to Resurrection, which was steely and composed, enriched with melodic undertones. It was the timeless kind of black metal that was largely inspired by the classic black metal bands and yet didn’t sound too dated. Two years later, the Greeks return with a new opus, elaborating on the music forged on that album, adding better nuance and structure to the songs whilst retaining the sound and appeal.

Allowed better expression, the songs are comparatively longer and have a narrative quality to them without straying too far from the core sound. The riffs are drenched in emotions without being overtly melodic as the music marches ahead resolutely with its steely demeanour. This is the kind of black metal that gets its priorities straight – with the right focus on riffs, feeling, intensity, and passion.

To verify these claims, what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for the album’s second single, a dramatically powerful and harrowing song called “Litany“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ENNUI — “DECIMA”

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Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

On February 27th Meuse Music will release a new album by the band Ennui from Tbilisi, Georgia. Titled Qroba, it’s the first full-length from the band in more than seven years. In early January we hosted the premiere of a song from the album named “Antinatalism“, and today we’re premiering a second song — “Decima“.

We’ll begin introducing it by again sharing this statement from the label and Ennui:

Qroba means “Vanishment”. It is a story of coming to terms with the inevitable, told through melancholy and contemplation. The fifth full-length album by Ennui blends atmospheric funeral doom and death metal with Georgian poetry and the spirit of the land it was born from. Slow, heavy rhythms, cold harmonies, and haunting melodies evoke a descent into stillness, where pain and peace become one. This is music about the beauty of disappearance, majestic, inevitable and timeless.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SKULLD — “ABYSS CALLS TO ABYSS”

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Jan 232026
 

(written by Islander)

Yeah, Skulld dropped the “e” from their name but it still sounds the same and it still accurately portrays how their music may leave you feeling, i.e., skulled, and you won’t need an exam in a blue concussion tent on your playing field to provide confirmation. Your inability to form a complete sentence will be sufficiently diagnostic (except for those of you have that problem all the time).

But in truth, Skulld’s new album Abyss Calls To Abyss has a great many other things going on in the music besides furiously ramming your head until you wake up to the most abominable conditions of life as many people must now endure it. Unquestionably, it is indeed a loud and angry deathpunk wake-up call, but it has deeper dimensions as well, in both its lyrical themes and its musical spectrum.

Below, we’ll dig into those depths and altering dimensions, but the main thing we’re doing is proudly giving you the chance to hear the album from front to back in advance of its January 30 release by Time To Kill Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TJAKTJADÁLVVE — “ENCOMPASSING NOTHING”

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Jan 222026
 

(written by Islander)

For most people (definitely including this writer) the name Tjaktjadálvve will be a tongue-twister. Apart from wondering how it is pronounced, I also wondered what it meant, and so I spent some time searching for an answer.

One thing I found was an interview from last fall in a Hungarian publication of Matthew Bell, the Australia-born but Sweden-residing musician behind the black metal project he named Tjaktjadálvve. With some help from an online translation tool, I saw that Bell gave this answer about the word’s meaning:

The word means “autumn winter” in the Sámi language. A lot of my music is based on my experiences in northern Sweden, so the name seemed perfectly fitting. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KARLOFF — “REVERED BY DEATH”

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Jan 202026
 

(written by Islander)

Reportedly, the German band Karloff “formed in 2018 initially as a means for erstwhile Graveyard Ghoul member Tom Horrified to blow off some punk-oriented steam with a couple close comrades.” But they’ve obviously turned out to be more than a one-and-done “let’s do this for the hell of it” outfit.

Not only have Karloff followed up their initial 2018 demo with five more releases, including an EP, a handful of splits, and their 2022 debut album The Appearing, they’ve persistently evolved their music in ways that most listeners probably wouldn’t have expected based solely on their first couple of releases.

And they’ve done that again on their forthcoming second album Revered by Death, as you’re about to discover for yourselves based on our full streaming premiere of the record today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BARBARIAN — “REEK OF GOD”

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Jan 192026
 

(written by Islander)

From everything we’ve read about the members of Barbarian over the last 15 years or so, they’re a trio of die-hard metal maniacs whose heads are filled to the brim with music from a variety of classic eras throughout heavy metal history. They have also consistently demonstrated a rare ability to let that array of influences almost instinctively flow through their own songwriting in ways that are familiar but never formulaic, so much so that you never know quite what they’re going to do from one album to the next, or even within individual songs, except you know it’s going to light a bonfire in your head.

Undoubtedly, the songwriting process of these Italians begins with riffs — because the songs are usually packed to the brim with them — but it’s also clear they devote a lot of care to refinement of their initial ideas, with the objective of leaving no one bored, and least of all themselves.

To repeat, you never know quite what’s going to happen, or even which inspirations might work their way into the music, but you can be damn sure the results will be interesting… and exhilarating… and heavy metal to the core.

Which brings us to Barbarian’s new album Reek of God, which we’re excited to share with you from start to finish today in advance of its January 23 release by their new label Dying Victims Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CIRCULAR RUIN — “PERISHER”

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Jan 162026
 

(written by Islander)

“Circular Ruin is the ever-recurring end of everything once great, the endless cycle of temporary prosperity followed by death and devastation, and the inevitable demise of humanity by its own hand.”

Yes indeed, anyone with even a passing interest in human history could agree with that depiction of our past and our future, a recurring and millennia-long sequence of self-inflicted ruin in which no important lessons are ever learned and what we have to look forward to is a circling of the drain.

Apart from being a succinct encapsulation of where our species has been and where we are going, Circular Ruin is also the name of a Swedish extreme metal quintet whose debut album is about to be launched upon a helpless public.

That album, A Sermon in Tongues, follows up the band’s 2023 EP Future Graves, and it will be released by Vendetta Records on January 30th. One song from the album has already exploded, and today we’re premiering a second one — “Perisher“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PUTRED — “DEVORAT DE ÎNTUNERIC”

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Jan 162026
 

(written by Islander)

Almost one year ago we published our contributor Zoltar’s very insightful interview of veteran guitarist Uriel Aguillon, riff-writer of the Romanian death metal band Putred. The discussion included this revealing Q&A:

Do you think that Putred would have sounded different if you hadn’t been born in the first half of the ’70s, and thus had the chance to catch the whole death metal boom when it all started?

Absolutely! I’ve been in the metal underground since the mid ’80s and it is what I know how to do, it comes naturally, and I couldn’t continue listening to new stuff after 1996, so I got stuck in the past for good. Putred is old rusted murky and filthy rotting death metal based in that feeling/mood rather than anything else.

This is an honest claim, and an accurate one when it comes to the music of these Transylvanian ghouls. One year ago Putred had just launched their second album Megalit al putrefac​ț​iei, and this year they’re returning with a new album titled Blestemul din Adânc that’s set for release in March by a trio of conspiring labels. What we’ve got for you today is a visualizer premiere for the record’s first single, “Devorat de Întuneric“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORS VERUM — “CANVAS”

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Jan 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Lest any poor deluded souls think it’s okay to relegate cover art for albums to afterthoughts, mis-believing that half-assing the artwork won’t matter as long as the music is strong and will sell itself, just take a look at the above artwork created by Arifullah Ali. We venture the guess that even people who have never heard the music of Mors Verum will be so intrigued that they can’t help but want to hear their new EP.

As it happens, this writer was already familiar with Mors Verum’s past releases (for example, we’ve hosted two premieres in support of their previous music), including their dissonant, dizzying, and strangely beautiful 2021 EP The Living.

The band’s previous releases also obviously caught the admiring attention of the Transcending Obscurity Records, because on February 6th that prominent label will release a new Mors Verum EP named Canvas, which features the fascinating artwork up above.

Fittingly, this Ontario band’s new EP is every bit as fascinating and frightening as the artwork — a conclusion we think you’ll share when you hear our premiere of its title song (and one other we’re also sharing). Continue reading »

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