AN NCS PREMIERE: ARGUL — “KAMOG”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 202026
 

(written by Islander)

Surprises are often the spice of life, other than when the surprises involve things like getting T-boned at an intersection or having that mole turn out to be melanoma. But the song we’re about to premiere (and the whole album it comes from) has turned out to be a very happy surprise for this writer.

It’s a surprise because I wasn’t previously familiar with the band, and because their style of music is outside the kind of gnashing, gnarly, macabre, and malignant brands of extremity to which I usually subject my crippled ears. And it’s a spice-of-life surprise, because it turns out to be some of the most completely captivating music I’ve heard all year.

The band is Argul, a quartet from Lima, Peru, consisting of guitarist/vocalist Mauricio Guerrero, guitarist/vocalist Jose María Venturi, bassist Jian Holmes, and drummer Alonso Guerrero. They independently released a four-song demo in 2023, and now their debut album Soledad & Orgullo is set for release on August 21st by Personal Records. That album is the home of the remarkable song we’re now premiering, an enthralling track named “Kamog“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HANGING GARDEN — “TEARS OF LUSTFUL, SECRET DESIRE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jul 202026
 


(written by Islander)

As you can see, we’re about to premiere a song by Hanging Garden. This is not the Finnish collective that has been releasing music for the last 20 years under that name but is instead a vehicle for the solo work of Dylan Cruz from Yonkers, New York, whose resume includes current or former membership in Noxis, Scumbag, and Dissonance.

Though the name may cause some confusion, no one would confuse the music of the two Hanging Gardens. The one whose song we’re premiering today traffics in a form of technically impressive and richly nuanced progressive death metal.

This Hanging Garden released a debut album (The God That Made Them Bow) in 2024, and on September 18th Transcending Obscurity Records will release the project’s second full-length — Dream Death. The song we’re now premiering is “Tears of Lustful, Secret Desire“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FEARTHROPOD — “LESSER CARNIVORA”

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Jul 172026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we’re announcing that on November 11th Satanath Records (Georgia) and Bajo Tierra Records (Mexico) will co-release the third album from the Mexican death metal band Feathropod, which is a solo project founded in Querétaro by Armando Ríos. The name of the new album is Oathkeeper.

For those who might be unfamiliar with Feathropod, its music has evolved in a steady stream of releases that have elaborately embellished a death metal framework with ingredients of black metal, doom, and especially orchestral music.

Yet while “symphonic death metal” might be a decent genre label for Feathropod’s music, it might be a bit misleading for some listeners, because it might not adequately prepare them for the spectacles of sheer madness that Fearthropod is capable of creating. We have one such spectacle to share today in our premiere of a lyric video for the first single off the new album — “Lesser Carnivora“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ETHEREAL ROT — “FESTUM TERRAE”

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Jul 172026
 

(written by Islander)

Today is the day when the New England blackened technical death metal band Ethereal Rot will release their self-titled debut album, and to help spread the word we’re premiering a video for a song off the new album called “Festum Terrae“.

The album narrates an elaborate cosmic horror story conceived by the band, which we’ll soon attempt to summarize. As for the band itself, it’s a quintet from Maine and New Hampshire that includes members of such groups as The Last King, Sonic Pulse, and Sawtopsy, and they recommend their music for fans of Cattle Decapitation, Suffocation, and The Zenith Passage.

Those are appealing references, but they’re still probably not adequate preparation for the mind-bending spectacle of madness and devastation that you’ll experience in the song we’re about to premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ETERNAL MOURN — “WINDS OF SORROW”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 162026
 

(written by Islander)

The Italian metal band Eternal Mourn is a new name, but their lineup is a group of experienced musicians whose resumes include participation in Black Oath, The Rite, Extirpation, Funest, Araphel, and Demonomancy. In this new formation (as their name suggests) they’ve paid homage to the great death-doom traditions of the ’90s as expressed through the music of Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Anathema, and Cemetary.

Of course, many other bands have drawn upon those august influences over the past decades, with widely varying degrees of emotional power and memorability. Eternal Mourn’s debut EP Winds of Sorrow stands out from the pack. These first three songs don’t sound like a debut release. They are so well-crafted and so expertly executed that they sound like the work of people who’ve been delving into this kind of music for a long time, and the results are unmistakably desolate but still head-hooking, spine-shaking, and even mystically beautiful. They are also immediately memorable.

Those are among the reasons we quite enthusiastically agreed to premiere the EP today in advance of its July 21 release by Terror From Hell Records. More reasons follow…. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECEPTOR — “STREET GENERAL”

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Jul 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in the details.

What you’re about to hear is a song called “Street General“. Its lyrical protagonist is an evil force, a leader of killers who stalk the streets at night in search of innocent souls to destroy.

The song as a whole is also evil to the core, a generally high-speed death/thrashing attack with murder on its mind, but with the kind of multi-faceted dynamism calculated to keep listeners on the edge of their shaking seats (and to start heads spinning). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FEBRUUS — “SUICIDE BY PROXY”

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Jul 152026
 

(written by Islander)

The Swedish musician Andreas Karlsson has been on a creative hot streak since 2021. Beginning in that year his solo project Februus has pumped out a demo, three EPs, and a debut album named Surveillance Orgy. These releases caught the attention of Transcending Obscurity Records, which will enthusiastically release the second Februus album on September 4th of this year. Its name is Construction of Conflict.

“Fascinating and eccentric”, “packed with plenty of deviations and surprises”, “while maintaining a deceptively rough, clamorous demeanour”. These are among the descriptions of the new album proffered by Transcending Obscurity, along with FFO references that include the likes of Edge of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium, Demilich, Disharmonic Orchestra, and Defect Designer.

“Progressive Death Metal” is a logical label for what goes on within Construction of Conflict, though the breadth of that classification leaves a lot un-said. The songwriting displayed within Construction of Conflict has its own logic, though the music is so spectacularly head-spinning and exhilarating that it might not be immediately obvious.

You’ll understand when you listen to the song we’re gleefully premiering today — “Suicide By Proxy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOOTHSAYER — “SOONER ACCEPTANCE”

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Jul 142026
 

(written by Islander)

The Irish blackened doom band Soothsayer released their debut album Echoes of the Earth in 2021. In the context of premiering a song from it, we described the music as “harrowing in the extreme, and also transportive”, the kind of experience that “makes such a transfixing and mind-bending impact that it’s very hard to forget, no matter how unreal and disturbing it can become”.

Soothsayer didn’t hurry in creating their next album, but we would have been surprised if they had. The first album was so carefully crafted and so accomplished in its rendering of changing visions that any follow-up was likely to involve unhurried effort if it was to successfully build upon the debut’s formidable foundations.

But now their second album, The Unbinding, has at last been released (just 10 days ago) by Soothsayer’s new label Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings. It includes five songs of substantial length and tremendous emotional force. To help draw deserved attention to it, today we’re premiering a video for the song “Sooner Acceptance“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TERATUM — “TOTAL VOID”

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Jul 142026
 

(written by Islander)

The Swedish group Teratum rose up from the ashes of the band Beastiality in 2024, and the next year they viciously announced themselves with a two-song promo tape made available in extremely small quantities. They are now following that with a debut EP named Ordnance of Spiritual Warfare, which will be widely released by Dying Victims Productions on August 21st.

The EP includes re-recorded versions of both songs from the demo, and two more. For those who weren’t exposed to the demo tape, Teratum’s music does draw upon the violent black/thrashing antecedents of Beastiality, but it has other dimensions as well, which become evident in the song we’re premiering today, “Total Void“, which Teratum present with a frightfully occult video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZHIROCK — “EROTIC PANIC”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 132026
 

(written by Islander)

As we occasionally do, we’re about to step off our usual well-beaten musical paths and premiere a song whose changing facets include a lot of singing, a lot of industrial-strength groove, darting keyboards, and other features that might brand it as hard rock or maybe nu metal. But don’t worry, the song gets much more extreme too.

The name of the song, which is presented through a lyric video, is “Erotic Panic“. It’s from a conceptual album named The Killer I See In Me by the band AzhiRock, who originated in Tehran, Iran. The album is projected for release in 2027 by Satanath Records, and it will follow the band’s 2025 full-length, Echoes of Drifting Stones. Its concept is described in these words:

This album is about a person who has grown up in Terror, Pain, and sadistic family and society, Trauma which pushed him/ her to be a antisocial one…

He/She feels a killer is living inside….

Continue reading »

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