PLÈVRE – CITÉ MOUROIR

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Sep 172026
 

(Andy Synn takes a journey through a dying city with France’s Plèvre)

This… is not the review I was supposed to be posting today.

No, that review will now be coming next week, due to the fact that – just as I was coming to the end of the writing process – I was approached by one of my contacts with an offer for an exclusive premiere for that very same album that I/we simply couldn’t refuse.

Of course, this left me with something of a dilemma… what was I going to write about for today instead?

Thankfully my ever-expanding “to do” list furnished me with numerous options, some of which I’ll hopefully still be able to get to after this (even if only as part of my regular “Things You May Have Missed” round-up at the end of the month), with the fascinatingly dark debut from French Post-Black foursome Plèvre (which comes out tomorrow) ultimately demanding my attention (and, hopefully, yours) the most.

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NOVAE MILITIAE: “APOCRYPHON OF THE UNBORN LIGHT”

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Sep 162026
 

(We present Daniel Barkasi’s enthusiastic review of a new album by the French black metal band Novae Militiae, which is set for release by Serpent Sun Records on September 18th.)

When it comes to conversations about the top-tier creators of black metal, there are certainly plenty of names that get thrown out. You’ll hear Misþryming and Darvaza come out of my mouth quite a bit, and we could absolutely throw out quite a list of bands that hit the proverbial spot, but that’s not the point.

Rather, a number exist that should get talked about far more often than they do. Today, that changes, at least for us, with Novae Militiae, the mysterious and dedicated French curators who have been strengthening with each subsequent release since their 2011 EP Affliction of the Divine. Having since unfurled two full-lengths of unmistakable quality since that fiery debut, the group has momentum on their side. Most recently, Topheth engulfed the senses with a monstrous, fierce quality that was coarse and oddly psychedelic in a raging sort of manner. An album which no doubt left an impression.

That was six years ago, however, and it’s been relatively quiet in their camp, until now. Aligning with the burgeoning Serpent Sun Records, who seemingly can’t release anything that’s less than stellar since their founding last year, they present us Apocryphon of the Unborn Light. To say the ascent continues is a gross understatement; this is a record of immense impetus and fuming intensity that aims to overwhelm to the point of the listener wondering what the hell just happened. Continue reading »

HORIZON ABLAZE – LIVETS HØST

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Sep 152026
 

(Andy Synn catches up with a long-time NCS favourite and their long-awaited new album, out now)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but eight years is a pretty long time to go between albums.

Hell, in the last eight years I’ve attended multiple weddings (including my own), been to more funerals than I’d like, gained new friends, lost some others, and travelled to more countries than I can currently name off the top of my head.

What I’m saying is that a lot can change in eight years, so the Horizon Ablaze of 2026 is, inevitably, not the same band they were in 2018… both in terms of their overall line-up (with previous bassist Ole Madsen now replaced by former live-guitarist Jan Laksesvela) and in relation to how they’ve all changed and grown as people during the near-decade long gap between releases.

But, you know what they say… the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, END-OF-SUMMER EDITION

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Sep 152026
 

(Our Denver-based writer Gonzo had an eventful summer, and reported on some of those events in our pages, but he now returns to reviewing and recommending albums — six of them released earlier this year.)

Well, fuck.

To say the past three months have been busy would be my own personal understatement of the year. Said months included, in no particular order: My wedding, three festivals, one World Cup road trip, one trip to North Carolina to see Acid Bath at a brand-new venue in Asheville, and other random adventures I’m somehow blanking on. June now seems like a blurry haze, July was like a metalhead’s paradise, and August was mostly spent recovering.

As a result, life forced me to break routines and generally fall behind on business as usual this summer. Among the normal routines I broke: Posting my usual monthly roundup here. And like any routine, once it’s broken, it’s hard to get back on the horse and continue riding. As it turns out, my will to write prevails.

But now that we’re about 75% of the way through 2026, it’s been quite the year for heavy music—much of which we’ve already covered here. The following five albums are some of the best I’ve heard during that stretch that still slipped through the cracks. Continue reading »

KRALLICE – SCOUR ORDER

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Sep 142026
 

(Andy Synn says to expect the unexpected when it comes to the new album from Krallice, out Friday)

Love them or hate them (and, of a certainty, there’s plenty of folks in both camps) Krallice have long been one of the most reliably progressive, artistically provocative, bands in Metal.

Of course, while their avant-garde ambitions and experimental excursions haven’t always paid off – don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a fan, but I’m also willing to admit that their discography isn’t perfect, although that’s probably to be expected from a group continually trying to challenge themselves and take chances with their sound – it’s to their credit that every release, from Dimensional Bleedthrough toYgg Huur to Crystalline Exhaustion, has presented a slightly different face (or, at least, a subtly different facet) of the band.

And, in that sense, Scour Order is no different.

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AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HKSPK — “HEIMKEHR”

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Sep 102026
 

(written by Islander)

Because some people seem to value our daily premieres, they offer many opportunities for this listener/writer to both re-connect with bands we’ve learned to admire and to connect for the first time with others whose music is a new discovery.

Today we make one of those first connections by premiering a new album named Heimkehr by the German band HKSPK. This isn’t HKSPK’s first release — it was preceded by their 2024 Holy Scum debut album and their 2025 EP The Human Butcher — but it’s the first exposure we’ve had to their music.

That exposure has made an eye-opening impression, and we are glad for the chance to now share the whole album with you in advance of its release tomorrow (September 11th). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SHRINEBURNER — “HYMNS OF DESPAIR”

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Sep 092026
 

(written by Islander)

Hymns of Despair is the entirely fitting name of the debut album from Chicago-based Shrineburner. Press materials we’ve received describe the music as “earthquake-inducing”, and as “a sonic glacier of abyssal doom/sludge metal infused with fringes of psychedelic, cosmic, blackened elements”. As you will soon discover through our full streaming premiere of these six hymns in advance of Friday’s release date, those descriptions are also entirely fitting.

But of course we have slab of our own descriptions to drop on you. Continue reading »

MISCREANCE: “REMINISCENCE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 092026
 

(Below we present Professor D. Grover the XIIIth’s review of a new album by the northern Italian quartet Miscreance, which was released by Season of Mist in late August.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. There have been an increasing number of bands in recent years who are mining the early days of the tech-death subgenre for influence, to varying degrees of success. It’s a reasonable assumption that most of these bands grew up listening to classics like Human or Piece Of Time or Testimony Of The Ancients, especially with the internet making it so much easier to access and discover the sort of album that was fairly obscure at the time of release.

Miscreance caught my attention in 2022 with their full-length debut Convergence, and while I didn’t do the NCS review, I was sufficiently impressed that it wound up in the number 6 spot on my year-end list here, beating out releases from some of my favorite bands of all time. They’ve been on my mind ever since, and I was pretty darn excited when word came that their follow-up was coming. Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE ISSUE FOUR

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Sep 092026
 

(Our writer DGR has been playing catch-up on records released earlier this year when other distractions interfered with writing about them. Beginning in mid-July he has delivered three Issues (which you can find here, here, and here), and now we have Issue Four bringing together extensive reviews of four more records released in preceding months.)

I don’t mind the heat too much, I’ve found that I’m still fairly operable as an individual until we reach 110 or so, which thankfully doesn’t happen too often. I get excessively grumpy when there’s humidity involved, which again, isn’t too crazy in my corner of California. Enough trips to the East Coast and the humidity there has at least pulled back the curtain a bit for me on why so many people involved in politics seems like a fucking angry moron. That sort of heat+humidity combo can rot the brain of anyone, and when you have so little to begin with, one trip to our nation’s beloved capital and you come back barely functioning. It’s why the size comparisons when people start complaining about heat make me chuckle, because there’s a different sort of suffering attached to each conception of ‘hot’, and truly, I will always feel like a soft child just barely toughing through them all as it is.

What I do hate is actually the first week of consistent heatwave wherein I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m going to have the AC unit and a fan in my room running constantly. The noise itself is enough if you’re a tender sleeper – I’m not – but what gets me is if I forget to tell the fan to stop moving back and forth, otherwise as I’m sleeping it feels like someone gently brushing across my face whispering ‘hey, heeeeeey, hey, you trying to sleep? Not today fucker’. So even for as much bragging of being able to survive on the surface of the sun, I’m still a grumpy fool.

That said, I much prefer the cold. I feel like the margin of error has an easier curve there. I can always put on more clothes, I cannot get more naked.

I do have a few more of these features to finish and I can’t make the visits to my local coffee shop with my laptop any more awkward than they are already. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOCC — “DEMOLARIUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 082026
 

(written by Islander)

Earlier today we published Comrade Aleks’ interview of guitarist/vocalist Emilio from the Barcelona metal band Bocc, the spur for that being the imminent release by Night Terrors Records of Bocc’s second full-length, Demolarium. And now, following quickly on the heels of that interview, we’re premiering a full stream of the album.

The interview provides informative background for what you’re about to hear. Among other things, it explains the meaning of the band’s name, describes the influences and intentions for their music, identifies a change in their composition process for the next album based on a change in the lineup, delves into their largely live recording of the album as a band, and discusses the themes explored by the Catalan lyrics of their songs.

We’ll interweave some of that dialogue into our introduction to the album stream, but of course our main focus now is the experience of the music itself. Continue reading »

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