THE SUN DOES NOT SET ON THE “SONS OF SET”: A REVIEW OF LYCOPOLIS’ NEW FULL LENGTH

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 262025
 

(After a months’ long hiatus our Vietnam-based contributor Vizzah Harri has arisen again to write (as only he can) about a new album from the Egyptian black metal band Lycopolis, and many other wide-ranging subjects that the music led him into.)

Let’s play a game?

The adults running things are playing lots of games out there these days that started out as silly and became rather fucking terrifying of late.

Our game is simple.

Go to Bandcamp.

Type Sons of Set.

Play Eldest Son.

Try to sit still.

Fuckit, I’ll spare you the effort, here it is:

Verify human?

Success! You’re not a robot if you failed, though if you were absolutely comatose the past 117 seconds, please call a doctor.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WHEN THE DEADBOLT BREAKS — “IN THE GLOW OF THE VATICAN FIRE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 262025
 

(written by Islander)

The lyrics of most extreme metal songs are often an after-thought, both for the bands and for fans and “critics”. They’re often written after the musical core of the songs has solidified rather than intertwined with it from inception; they’re usually difficult to hear, since vocals usually function as simply another instrument that adds fuel to the emotional fires; and if we’re being honest, the words are quite often uninspiring and forgettable.

The extensive lyrics of In The Glow Of The Vatican Fire, the forthcoming tenth album from the Connecticut-based “avant-sludge metal” outfit When the Deadbolt Breaks, are a startling departure from those norms. This writer had them in hand and decided to read all of them before listening to anything from the album. They left me shaken. Continue reading »

BARREN ALTAR – BOUND BY IMPERMANENCE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 262025
 

(Andy Synn hopes that his love for the new album from Barren Altar is in no way impermanent)

For those of you who still think my review slate recently – Cryptopsy, Deadguy, Heaven Shall Burn, etc – has been a little too “big time”, here’s something undeniably uglier and more underground courtesy of Black/Doom death-worshippers Barren Altar.

Continue reading »

NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION – TUTTA LA MORTE IN UN SOLO PUNTO

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 252025
 

(Andy Synn encourages those of you who want a little more chaos in their lives to check out the new album from Noise Trail Immersion, set for release this Friday on I, Voidhanger Records)

I feel like I’ve been covering quite a few big – or, at least, well-known (in Metal circles at least) – bands recently, so perhaps it’s about time to switch my/our attention to a group who are a little less (in)famous?

That doesn’t mean that Noise Trail Immersion don’t already have a reputation to uphold with Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto, their upcoming fifth album – in fact, we’ve probably played a small role in helping raise their profile over the years – but for the wider community, including some of our readers I’m sure, this could well be their first time encountering the Italian quintet.

And what will they encounter? Nine tracks of swarming, swirling, switch-blade sharp Dissonant Black Math Metal whose main purpose seems to be to repeatedly punish and perforate your eardrums over the course of forty-three furious minutes.

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AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE BLEAK PICTURE — “SHADES OF LIFE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 242025
 

(written by Islander)

“There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.”
– Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis”

Those words feature prominently in The Bleak Picture‘s previews of their second album Shades of Life, which will be released by Ardua Music on June 27th. The music will remind you of them, but the music will also inspire other moods and other visions.

The album is a formulation of melodic death-doom metal that is at once earthy and astral, immensely heavy and gossamer light, stricken by sorrow but elevated by expansive visions of splendor, a powerfully immersive, emotionally moving, and often spine-shaking experience from beginning to end. And we are very fortunate to premiere its full stream today. Continue reading »

HOLLOW LEG: “DUST AND ECHOES”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 242025
 

(Wil Cifer reviews Florida-based Hollow Leg‘s new compilation album Dust and Echoes (combining two 2024 EPs), which was released on June 13th by Third House Communications.)

The fact that guitarist Brent Lynch is the only member of Hollow Leg who was not from Bloodlet might lead you to think, this band is a continuation of the forerunners of dark hardcore’s legacy. That is not the case.

It’s respectable for the band to mark this as a new chapter rather than use the name of their previous project for the sake of recognition. This is truth in advertising as this band is much more metal, and in my best guesstimation, and the fact they are fellow Floridians, I can assume things changed as they started smoking a ton of weed which caused the shift in musical direction. The biggest change is that Scott’s vocals are still gruff, but come closer to a scowl-tinted croon than the hardcore roar that marked what he did in the late ’90s. Continue reading »

HEAVEN SHALL BURN – HEIMAT

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 232025
 

(Andy Synn has a lot of history with Heaven Shall Burn, which now includes their new album, Heimat, which is set for release this coming Friday on Century Media Records)

Way back in the year 2002 a young man who would one day come to be known (in certain dark corners of the internet, at least) as Andy Synn fell in love with an album by the name of Whatever It May Take by German Metalcore icon(oclast)s Heaven Shall Burn, who would go on to have a major influence on his music tastes for the foreseeable future.

That same year he also encountered an outstanding (some might even say seminal) piece of cinema named 28 Days Later, from director Danny Boyle, which would also have a huge impact on the media he would choose to consume going forwards and set the standard for what home-grown Horror could be.

And now, here we are in 2025 with new releases from both band and director demanding our attention once more… but while one of those has proven to be a crushing disappointment, let’s hope that the other one lives up to its legacy, shall we?

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AKVAN, ESKAPISM, PIT OF DESPAIR, IDOLOS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Jun 222025
 

(written by Islander)

I got a call last night from an anxiety-prone Millennial family member asking whether I thought World War III had just begun. He said he couldn’t bear to read very much about what had just happened but knew that I would have done so quickly.

I did my best to calm him down, tried to explain why I thought this won’t turn into WWIII and to assure him we’re all safe in Seattle (I didn’t mention the funding cuts to programs that combat domestic terrorism or the 22-year-old intern who was put in charge of the main DHS hub for that).

But yes, I’ve been reading a lot. I can’t help it, even though I know it’s pointless, even though no one really knows where this is headed but every pundit has an opinion (the smart ones tick off discouraging possibilities but then acknowledge that no one knows). It seems like an odd time to be thinking about music, but as usual on days like this the music becomes something of a refuge (NCS as a sanctuary city!). And so, on we go… but where to begin? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MALTHUSIAN, UPON STONE, BEFORE THE DAWN, CASTRATOR, ENTRAILS, A CAT IN THE BRAIN, LOMMI, BOMBUS, GLUED MOUTH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 212025
 

(written by Islander)

This Saturday selection of new songs and videos provides a lot to take in, and lots of twists and turns in the musical path as you move from one to the next (which is what I hope you’ll do).

Fair warning: I’ve included a pair of songs that feature entirely clean singing, and another where singing trades off with harsher expressions. Today’s collection is also a mix of well-known bands (at least well-known to yours truly) and others that have scoured my ears for the first time this week. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MROME — “BONEYARD TWIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 202025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band MROME have been making music since the mid-’90s, first under the name Kingdom and then as MROME. Under the latter name they’ve released four albums so far, most of which we’ve paid attention to (as you can see here), and on June 23rd they’ll release a fifth one.

Entitled Boneyard Twist, the new one includes 9 tracks recorded live in the studio, and the band have described it to us as “a kind of return to our dark roots from the early ’90s, inspired deeply by the first wave black metal.” Lyrically, they tell us, the songs deal “with grave residents, disabilities of body and mind, necromancy and… monks exploding!”

What we have for you today is a full stream of the new record, preceded (of course) by some thoughts about it. Continue reading »

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