May 262025
 

(What follows is DGR‘s review of the latest slab of brutality released by the Argentinian band Massacred.)

As if there were ever any chance we weren’t going to cover this one. We don’t have a military-grade spy satellite overlooking the entirety of the world when it comes to heavy metal, but even to those of us who may have bifocals thicker than a California Business Code Of Conduct book, this one wasn’t going to sneak by that easily.

We’ve reviewed some absolutely incredible albums over the course of the year so far and we’re always looking for more. That’s why this one went skating across the desk at the old NCS offices, as we continue our endless sisyphean task of attempting to track down new music for our readers to devour. As if they had a hunger, neverending, and a singular focus on simply obtaining more.

It’s rare that we get to touch base with the solo brutal death and slam scenes these days. The whole genre has seen explosive growth over the past decade as recording implements have democratized and been able to reach wider audiences. It’s resulted in a breed of musician whose desires are different than pure artistic expression, laying somewhere familiar to the grindcore crowd wherein music can be both emotional expulsion and an internet shitpost – the two need not be mutually exclusive.

Argentina’s Massacred is to be appreciated, then, as their aspirations are waved on a banner, worn proudly, and stated so up-front that you could never accuse them of trying to be more than what they are — which is pure and unadulterated Mortician-inspired death metal, one that just happens to have a taste for both horror movies and, surprisingly enough, the Resident Evil series of video games. Continue reading »

May 232025
 

(DGR continues to dig back into the earlier months of this year in search of gems previously overlooked at NCS, and found another in the debut EP of Texas-based Terror Corpse. Below is his vivid review of this sonic maelstrom.)

The union of death and grind has been fruitful for decades now. The deathgrind genre is one where the artist has had more capability to define what the music is than the listener does; over the years it has become a field wherein any death metal group with a taste for hardcore punk riffs or the classic circle pit grind guitar parts could find themselves standing side by side with groups for whom “slop” is the definitive way to describe their music, their peers within the sphere doing just the same, creating chaotic hybrids of unrelenting death metal that just happens to be very abbreviated.

The genre’s one unifying aspect as it has gone through its many mutations and transitions since the initial fusions began has been that the music is immensely abrasive. Terror Corpse is a union of Houston, Texas based musicians whose resumes delve deep into the death and grind underground (a block of Terror Corpse‘s lineup hails from the Necrofier crew). Their newest EP Systems Of Apocalypse will easily rank up there as one of the most chaotic, heaviest, and noisiest releases out this year, perfectly assembled for the deathgrind-loving ghouls of the heavy metal world. Continue reading »

May 222025
 

(Serenity in Murder‘s Timeless Reverie has been out since the end of February on Apostasy Records, but it won’t let go of DGR, and so even now he feels compelled to sing its praises.)

One of the joys of being an internet dork such as we are is that we get to witness regional scenes and tastes sprouting up across the world and then attempt to archive it. While the language barrier is always a little daunting, depending on the country, the need for loud aggression is more universal. It’s not surprising that the semi-permanent poverty and extreme artform of heavy metal has held appeal across the world in that regard.

Sometimes you need to just yell and share your band’s name with a Slayer song, and whatever gets filtered through that particular point in time is transformed based on the person’s ambition. It’s why you can have some of the most musically inclined and smartest people in the world playing essentially the dumbest fucking thing possible – either in an attempt to elevate the artform or the more commonly cited reason of “it’s just fun”. Continue reading »

May 212025
 

(The Polish titans Vader have bestowed upon us a new EP named Humanihility that will be sprung free by Nuclear Blast on May 30th. Below is our writer DGR‘s take on what it offers.)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s that time of year in which Vader drops a new EP on us that will no doubt offer a solid preview of things forthcoming from the now three-guitarist-armed band. Vader have done this like clockwork for years now, in between full-length albums offering up a two- or three-song EP that shows where their headspace is at, usually as a tight enough package on its own that it can hold people over for the extended wait that some album cycles tend to require.

They’re also a pretty good preview of what sort of Vader you’ll likely be getting on whatever upcoming full-length the titans have in store. Will it be death metal heavy Vader? Will it be thrashier Vader? Will Vader buck all trends and finally go full avante-garde and unleash some sort of blackened folk swing with extra emphasis on tuba? Will we get another fun cover song in the mix? Will we finally figure out how to work the word “lugubrious” into a review without calling attention to it beforehand?

Schrödinger’s Vader exists in multiple forms in the lead-up to the first spin of a new Vader EP and the sheer potential of it all is enough to keep things exciting. Continue reading »

May 212025
 

(Andy Synn boldly goes… where light fears to descend)

Due to the fact that DGR and I have been spending the last week or so terrorising the mean streets of Seattle together, we’ve had a lot more time than usual to hang out, shoot the shit, and discuss important matters like art, music, and where to get our next beer.

And it was during these discussions where he raised the point that there’s a bunch of bands – quite a lot of them now, to be perfectly honest – that we’ve adopted as favourites here at NCS, to the point where we actively try to cover everything they do in the hope that other sites will also pick up on them and help give them more exposure.

As some of you may have already guessed, Black/Doom/Sludge coven Crust have been one of these bands for a fair number of years now, and with their new album set for release very soon – this Friday, in fact – now felt like a good time to once again try and give these devils their due.

Continue reading »

May 202025
 

(Here we have another monthly column of Daniel Barkasi‘s vivid reviews, this time focusing on six highly recommended albums released in April 2025.)

Sometimes, you need to savor the weird pastimes that make life grand. One of those things for me that I haven’t touched upon much in this space is theme parks. Ah, I love a good theme park. Disney does it best, and having been to every Disney park on the planet, we’re a tad invested – both emotionally and financially. No park is better than Tokyo DisneySea, and it’s not particularly close.

Recently, however, we attended a preview of the brand new Universal Epic Universe with KevinP (another theme park connoisseur) before it officially opens to the public on May 22. Everything wasn’t operational, as it’s in a testing phase, but what we experienced was pretty fantastic. We’ll be going again one more time before opening day, and hopefully we’ll get to do everything that we didn’t get to the first time. If you find yourself in the sweaty hellhole that is Orlando, I’d suggest giving it a whirl – especially fans of Universal Monsters and Frankenstein. That land – or “portal” as they’re calling it – is worth the price of admission itself.

More akin to the music subject, this time of year brings festival time. NCS’s beloved Northwest Terror Fest just wrapped up and looks like it was an amazing time. One of these years, I’ll make it out. We’ll be attending Maryland Deathfest, per tradition. Hopefully plenty of readers will be descending upon Baltimore, and if that’s you, don’t be shy and say hello! One of the best things about festivals is the awesome people, and we’re looking forward to seeing plenty of friends and making new ones. If you can make it out to a festival this year, definitely do so.

Whether or not a festival is in the cards, April was bountiful with new releases well worth your time. We could list well over ten that we really enjoyed, and we’d still feel like something is getting unjustly left out. We’ve got six slots, however, so kick back with me and slap on your best headphones. Continue reading »

May 202025
 

(Everyone here only writes about music they want to recommend, but as you’ll see from DGR‘s following review of Symbiotic Growth‘s new album, he is especially enthusiastic about what they’ve accomplished.)

As 2025 has wandered onward we’ve been afforded a few chances to dig backward through the pile of music that we missed. The compulsion to try and cover everything that you’ve been enjoying can sometimes be just as strong as the urge to constantly be at the forefront of the most recent music to hit. The battle of the two can sometimes turn ugly and the cuts made can be just as brutal as the music you’re listening to.

But sometimes you find stuff that’s so special you just can’t let it go, and the world be damned, you will make time to discuss it in one form or another. Thus, when we do get these chances to bring up releases that we’d been meaning to talk about for a while, we’re going to take it. And that brings us to Symbiotic Growth, a progressive black and death metal band hailing from Ontario, Canada. They share members with a few other projects we’ve written about, including the oppressively dense death metal act Fractal Generator, whom drummer Dan Favot has belonged to. Continue reading »

May 192025
 

(Andy Synn presents his thoughts on Rivers of Nihil‘s upcoming self-titled album, out 30 May.)

With Rivers of Nihil stating that their upcoming fifth album – which we’ll get to shortly – would involve a synthesis of ideas and elements from all four of their previous records (plus some new ones born from some significant line-up changes) I felt it might make sense to start this review off with a quick round-up of where I stand in relation to their discography so far.

Their underrated debut album, The Conscious Seed of Light, still holds a special place in my heart for the way it introduced me to the band and their nascent blend of rigid, biomechanical riffage and fluid, melodic embellishments, while the heavier, hookier, and more tightly-structured Monarchy remains, in my opinion at least, the most focussed and consistent release of their career (so far, anyway).

And while I understand the love a lot of people have for Where Owls Know My Name – which, with its proggier and more accessible vibes, was where a lot of fans fell in love with the band – to me it remains something of a mixed bag (half “killer”, half “filler”) with the more ambitious and even more progressive (not to mention divisive) approach of The Work representing a much bolder and more successful creative step in my opinion (even if a couple of tracks still didn’t quite… ahem… work).

So, with that in mind, here’s what I think of their eponymous fifth album, which comes out next week.

Continue reading »

May 182025
 

(written by Islander)

For reasons explained yesterday I’ve had less than the usual amount of time this week to explore new music from the blacker realms of extreme music. I’ll fall behind again next week due to MDFing and will likely leave a void in this column’s place next Sunday.

Bereft of the time needed to make a more complete survey this week, I randomly threw a couple handfuls of mental darts at all the tabs I’d opened for new songs and albums. There were misses, but enough solid hits to furnish the following collection, which I hope will both darken and immolate your day. Continue reading »

May 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In this feature we are taking a few large steps off the various beaten, broken, and thorn-shrouded paths we usually follow in our musical meanderings around here. The connections to those paths, such as they are, derive in part from the person who made the music you’re about to hear.

That person goes by the name “twi” in this new project, but we can disclose that the person is the Slovakian musician and vocalist also known as Twisted in the experimental industrial doom/death metal band 0n0, whose music we’ve written about repeatedly over the last nine years (here’s the proof of that).

The name of the new project is hspdn. hspdn‘s first release is Heyday’s Ruin, a four-song, 18-minute work set for release open May 23rd and self-described as “an EP about climate and personal crises”. What we have for you today is the premiere of its title song. Continue reading »