Album Reviews Archives - Page 10 of 565

INFERI: “HEAVEN WEPT”

Apr 012026

(The Artisan Era will release a new album by Nashville-based Inferi on April 10th, and DGR has managed to beat that deadline with an extensive review of it today.)

I ain’t no fancy law-talkin’ indivigible but I would argue that the case for what sort of band Inferi are is made within twenty or so seconds of their opening song “The Rapture Of Dead Light” from their new album Heaven Wept.

Inferi are a tech-death band of what could now be considered a classic style. Born of an early and mid-2000s collision of hyperspeed melodeath, proper death metal, and the more technically inclined stylings of groups like Necrophagist and Spawn Of Possession that overtook an entire subgenre in one fell swoop. They are part of a collective that helped crystalize what we now recognize as tech-death proper, enough so that you can mention specific record labels and have a good idea of the waterfall of guitar and drumming that will be headed your way.

Inferi were the band that took every element and just cranked the volume up to ten on everything. They would regularly release such densely packed albums that even years after a release you could go back to one and you’d be stunned by just how much general stuff you missed within each song. The prospect of an Inferi album was in some ways terrifying because you knew it meant you’d be getting hit with these gigantic, multi-suite songs that resulted in near-hour-long releases that would leave the brain scrambled by the time you were done.

Inferi are the sort of band that puts out an album and it doesn’t even occur to you that it had been five years since their previous release, mostly because you’re still not sure you’ve digested that previous one. They are a band where you’ve likely never been more thankful for an album to consist of just eight songs. which is what their newest album Heaven Wept is. Eight songs of hyper-fast, densely packed tech-death built out of the sort of overstimulation that can send lightning crackling across the grey matter in your skull. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Mar 312026

(Andy Synn presents the first of two articles covering some of the many things he missed in March)

There were just SO many releases during March that I wanted, but didn’t have time, to cover, that you’re getting two “Things You May Have Missed” articles this week, rather than the usual one.

Of course, even with twice the usual number of entries I’m still having to leave a horrifying number of bands on the proverbial cutting room floor, and some (but not all) of the bands also considered for this article include Bedrängnis, Circle Back, Deadnate, Egocide, Funeral Pile, Mammon’s Throne, Mariner, Poison the Well, and Teratoma… with many more still on the short-list for the next article as well.

I’ve also got another edition of The Synn Report to somehow squeeze in before then too, so I’d better stop wasting time with this preamble and get to the music, which once again features a quartet of bands, all from different genres, that I would take it as a personal favour if you all checked them out.

IMMOLATION – DESCENT

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Mar 302026

(Andy Synn takes on the titans in Immolation for the start of a new week here at NCS)

One of the things we love doing here at NCS is pushing new and up-and-coming bands and helping them find their audience.

This, however, is not one of those times.

Because what we also love doing is celebrating seminal artists undergoing a well-deserved career-resurgence, and few bands deserve recognition in that regard more than Immolation.

THE DUSKFALL: “THE EVERLASTING SHADOWS”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 302026

(This is DGR’s review of the first new album by The Duskfall in a dozen years. It was independently released earlier this month.)

There is no such thing as the phrase “did not have that on my bingo card for the year” when said bingo card has effectively been shot to shreds and has existed as confetti since mid-January. While loathe to make predictions for the year outside of trying to will albums into existence by virtue of bringing them up at end-of-year season, a lot of that has basically been a smoking hole in the ground and replaced with a lot of new band and genre explorations in its place.

While we aren’t unfamiliar with bands returning from hibernation at this site – we’ve had a few premieres over the years for groups taking another shot after a decade-plus away – there are times when albums you expected to happen or were even being hinted at just kind of don’t. For whatever reasons, the group will go silent, the assumption being that they’re basically done, so that upcoming album forever exists on a hard drive somewhere but otherwise won’t be seeing the light of day. Eventually the thought just leaves your recollection and a group’s standing catalogue becomes its cenotaph. This was the case with The Duskfall, who it seemed like might have quietly called it a day after five decent-to-great albums. Continue reading »

LANTLÔS – NOWHERE IN BETWEEN FOREVER

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 252026

(Andy Synn has a long history with Lantlôs, and that continues on their new album, out 03 April)

As we have seen so far this week, there are Black Metal bands, and there are Post-Black Metal bands… and then there are bands like Lantlôs who used to belong to the second category (and were, in fact, a seminal part of its genesis and evolution) but who are now truly “post” Black Metal, in the most literal sense of the term.

Though, to be fair, that’s been true for a while, with 2014’s Melting Sun (still a huge favourite of mine) and then 2021’s even more provocatively poppy (but still absolutely stunning) Wildhund (which earned a spot in my Critical Top Ten) demonstrating that Lantlôs, aka Markus Siegenhort, have long since shed any remnants of their old skin in favour of a kaleidoscopic rainbow of shades and colours that has more in common with – among others – the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Foo Fighters, and Devin Townsend.

And, wouldn’t you know it, on Nowhere In Between Forever they’re at it again.

THE LUNA SEQUENCE: “RIFTS BECOME PASSAGES”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 252026

(Here is DGR’s review of a new album by one of his old favorites.)

Having a retraceable history with a project is always fun. Holding up the hourglass of time and attempting to gaze backwards through it is a fun way to hold oneself accountable, or as has more often proven to be the gaze, to serve as a cattle prod to the memory centers to let one know how you felt about a previous few releases. It is grounding in that way, having an artist’s releases serving as particular stopping points in time that you can center yourself on and remember the many years back. The musical adventures of the decidedly non-metal electronics and heavy metal guitar instrumental work of The Luna Sequence has been one such project.

This is a musical venture that has been mentioned in some form or another for a hair over a decade since your’s truly has set up camp in the corner of the site’s vast musical catacombs. The Luna Sequence has traveled with artist Kaia Young across the country and through multiple genre influences, absorbing ideas like a sponge and slowly adapting itself around them. It has seen permutations that have been aggressively heavy, surprisingly relaxed, introverted and meditative, and more often than not some unholy combination of all of the above depending on which ideas might’ve excitedly crashed into each other to form an energetic explosion. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AGGRESSIVE PERFECTOR — “COME CREEPING FIENDS”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Mar 242026

(written by Islander)

Commas are critical units of punctuation. “Let’s eat Grandpa!” is not the same as “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” Or, as in the joke about pandas and firearms, “Eats shoots and leaves” is not the same as “Eats, shoots, and leaves”. But even though Aggressive Perfector named their new album “Come Creeping Fiends“, I’m still reading it as “Come, Creeping Fiends” or “Come Creeping, Fiends”, i.e., as an invitation to people like us rather than a preview (or warning) about what happens within the course of the album.

Well, now that you have that interpretation of the title in your head, which you now won’t be able to forget, we’ll provide our own invitation to listen to the album, an invitation that goes on for much longer than the grammatical contortion we’ve applied to the record’s name.

Or, you could skip the invitations, scroll down, and just listen to all the evil songs now, before Dying Victims Productions releases this magnificently diabolical album on March 27th. Continue reading »

CALVANA – SUB JANUS

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 242026

(Andy Synn has something a little grimmer and grimier for you all to enjoy today)

By sheer coincidence today we’re talking about the second masked band in as many days.

But whereas Gaerea‘s semi-anonymous aesthetic has started to feel more and more like a calculated attempt to craft a marketable mystique, Calvana‘s decision to conceal their identities reads more as a purposeful rejection of anything and everything that might otherwise distract from their music.

And what music it is… as rough and as raw as their Portuguese cousins are polished and pristine, these unknown Italians continue to eschew the trappings of modernity in favour of a more primal and primitive sound that remains firmly rooted in the ancestral dirt of Black Metal.

HELLRIPPER: “CORONACH”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 242026

(This is Daniel Barkasi’s review of a new album by the Scottish band Hellripper that’s set for release on March 27th by Century Media Records.)

The story of Hellripper is quite a humble one, and the project’s meteoric rise in the metal scene has been exciting to witness. The brainchild of sole songwriter and multi-instrumentalist James McBain, it all started as an EP in 2015 – The Manifestation of Evil – that he hoped a few folks in the local Aberdeen, Scotland scene would dig, and it’s been quite the rapid ascent since.

His approach to black/speed/thrash is deeply rooted in the black metal classics like Bathory and Venom, the punky thrash of Toxic Holocaust, and the rock ‘n’ roll swagger of Motörhead, but done so in his own highly singular amalgamation of those aforementioned influences. Having gained further steam with each album, his 2023 effort Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags has been the most complete thus far, adding a sense of refinement within the raw, pacey attack that makes Hellripper so damn fun and memorable.

With his fourth full-length Coronach, which is titled after a traditional improvised song during a wake in the Scottish Highlands, McBain continues fine-tuning Hellripper’s sound with added instruments and songwriting techniques, while not straying from the firmly established overarching approach. There’s enough primal intensity in the album’s 44 minutes to power a freight train at full throttle, and the newfangled elements bring a fresh purview to the riff-centric chaos, ensuring that this isn’t a mere rehash or more of the exact same. Continue reading »

NEUROSIS — “AN UNDYING LOVE FOR A BURNING WORLD”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Mar 242026

(This is our Gonzo’s review of the first new album from Neurosis in a decade, a surprise drop last week from the band’s Neurot Recordings.)

We live in a world where it’s exceedingly difficult to keep secrets.

When it comes to new music, fans tend to catch wind of things well in advance. That’s all by design, of course. The ubiquity of streaming platforms and social media has long since given a bullhorn to every band on the planet that wants to tease “big news coming soon,” and honestly, I think we’ve all grown a little numb to those tactics.

So, when I woke up to the news last Friday (March 20) that Neurosis had not only reunited some time ago under a veil of total clandestineness, but also added post-metal demigod Aaron Turner as a fulltime member, and dropped a new album with zero fanfare, zero advanced warning, and zero indications that the band was anything other than long-dormant, the shock factor probably could’ve been mistaken for actual Bay Area seismic activity.

Obviously, this left me with a lot of fucking ground to cover. Continue reading »

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