AGABAS: “HARD ANGER”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 022025
 

(We present Didrik Mešiček‘s vivid review of a new album by the Norwegian “deathjazz” band Agabas, which will be released on June 13th.)

Have you ever been so sick you’ve hallucinated things that made absolutely no sense when your fever dropped and you got better? Something so surreal it’s actually not possible to put it into words? Or perhaps you’ve done an incredible cocktail of drugs and went on an amazing trip, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that can never be repeated?

Well, Agabas have, to my knowledge, done neither of those two things, yet they’ve invented deathjazz. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s jazz. Mixed with death metal. Lots of yelling and lots of sax. And today we’re gonna delve into this mess(?) and see what their new album, Hard Anger, which will be released on June 13th, is really about. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SIGH, AMIENSUS, HELHEIM, THOMAS BEL, VARHARA, ÙNA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 012025
 

(written by Islander)

I’m no Cinderella but on days like this I do turn into a pumpkin (charred black).

After missing two Sundays due to festival-ing in May I had grand plans to partially make up for those absences in a larger-than-usual column today. But I forgot about plans my spouse had made for us this morning that will take me away from home and computer.

So the grand plan has been trashed. Rather than rack my brain trying to figure out what to save, I decided instead just to start and to keep going until time runs out (and I turn into a pumpkin). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KVSKET — “HOT GRIP”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Maybe it’s because the second season of Last of Us is on my mind, but today I’m thinking of our site like a fungal node, a dense mass of nasty and nightmarish extreme metal from which creeping tendrils reach out into more remote underground territories. This imagery is on my mind because we’re about to premiere a video for a band and a song that are outside the core of our usual churning and blood-congealing musical infections, though they do have tendril-like connections to the infections we usually spotlight.

The band is kvsket (pronounced “casket”). They’re from Minnesota, they include a member of the death metal band Graveslave (that’s one tendril), and they describe themselves as “four friends who, all looking for something more outside of their former bands and projects,” concocted music they describe as sounding like, or for fans of, Deftones, Gojira, My Chemical Romance, Turnstile, and The Cure.

Those results are currently collected in an album named Patiently Awaiting Your Arrival that was released this past February. The video you’re about to see is for a song off that album named “Hot Grip“. Continue reading »

LUCIFER’S CHILD: “THE ILLUMINANT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 302025
 

(Here is DGR‘s evocative review of a new album released through Agonia Records in late March by the Greek black metal band Lucifer’s Child.)

The myths of black metal cast their subjects in many forms – conjurers, infernal priests, sorcerers, wizards, a whole barrel full of nihilistic entities. The evolution of the black metal show into ritualistic form has been an interesting – if obvious – evolution for a genre in which theatricality can be an important aspect. Over the years we’ve even archived many regional splits in the overall style, which has also made for fascinating subject matter to delve into on its own.

Exploring the anthopological and cultural aspects of the music is sometimes more interesting than the abyssal ablutions being dispensed for those who are seeking it. The genre has become almost synonymous with the cold and dense forests of a Scandinavian north, its ritualistic aspects becoming syncretic with Luciferian worship, magickal exploration, and melodramatic movement, to an effect that obviously speaks to so many people around the world – sometimes in reaction to an overbearing religious aspect of their daily cultural lives.

Where the regional splits have arisen is the equally interesting subject matter to speak of, because one of the more well-known yet still underrated ones is the black metal scene born out of Greece and its hellenic purveyors. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 292025
 

(Andy Synn continues to play catch-up with everything he missed this month)

Oddly, but pleasingly, one thing which has come up a few times over the last few weeks is how much many people – from our regular readers to the bands we cover to various people in the industry – appreciate what we do here as, and I quote, a more “curated” experience than what some of the larger and more (in)famous sites provide.

And while I don’t disagree with this, it does slightly overestimate things… after all (and I hope I’m not giving away any trade secrets here) there’s definitely a degree of randomness (you might even call it “chaos”) to what we do here, since we only cover the things we like and which catch our ear(s) – regardless of any external pressures or inducements – each month.

Sure, sometimes there’s a bit of forward planning involved, but what you see and what you get here is most often the result of a spontaneous reaction to new music… which, I suppose, is how we like it!

Continue reading »

NEKRODEUS: “RUAß”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 292025
 

(Here we present Didrik Mešiček‘s review of a new album by the Austrian band Nekrodeus, recently released by FDA Records.)

“Gott ist tot,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest people in German history. And now over a hundred years later we have Austrians bringing us the same idea through a more modern medium. A contemporary form of philosophy, if you will. Nekrodeus is another one of those black metal (ish) bands from the Graz scene and they’ve released their third album, Ruaß, on May 16th, 2025, through F.D.A. Records.

Despite Nekrodeus being labeled as simply death metal on Metal Archives, this is a band that keeps changing their sound and have definitely leaned a bit into black metal at some points. Having seen them last summer, I remember them as being a bit blackened and also a bit punkish and that’s the side that hits us from the start with this release. There’s a very aggressive note coming from the vocals combined with a rather dissonant sound that acts almost like an alarm and furious drumming. “Abgrudmensch” is certainly a song that gets your attention and wakes you up. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PUTERAEON — “MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 282025
 

(written by Islander)

We should begin this album-premiere feature with what the great Dan Swanö has said about Puteraeon‘s forthcoming fifth album, Mountains of Madness:

“I have had the pleasure to work with Puteraeon since 2017 and their releases have always been solid, but the quality of this new album completely took me by surprise. It is just so damn good it’s hard to fathom! It’s like they thought about every little detail on how to make the album brutal as hell, yet memorable and extremely epic. I dare to say this one will go down in the history books as one of the best Swe-Death releases ever.”

If that doesn’t make you sit up straight and pay attention, probably nothing will — though the name of the album and Ola Larsson‘s cover art should also seize your attention. Continue reading »

MARTWA AURA: “LAMENT”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 282025
 

(Barely one week ago the Malignant Voices label released a new album from the Polish black metal band Martwa Aura, and our Norway-based writer Chile was tremendously impressed by it, as you’ll see from his review below.)

Once in a while, instead of devising some cute, little introductory story about how my childhood formed my adulthood listening habits, or how my lifestyle determines my deathstyle, or something, we could just go straight to the point, the good old in medias res. So this time, we dive head first into the deep, black end of the pool.

Not surprisingly, some metal bands just don’t care about matters of publicity or marketing and they’re just in it for the sake of their art, or so they say. Those in the black metal genre seem especially culpable of this by doing the bare minimum, dropping albums without any kind of big announcements or follow-ups, seemingly having no interest whatsoever to deviate from that path.

Anyway, Martwa Aura. Just by saying that they are a Polish black metal outfit should pique the interest of anybody even tangentially interested in the genre itself, as Poland has been a hot spot of black metal for a number of decades already and has produced some of the most magnificent music in existence during that period, as mentioned recently in the Wędrowcy~Tułacze~Zbiegi interview published on this very site.

You guessed it right by now, Martwa Aura dropped to minimal fanfare a new album called Lament on May 19th through the Polish label Malignant Voices, five years after their previous one Morbus Animus. This being their third full-length should make them an established name on the Polish scene, but the feeling is they’re still being a well-kept secret just waiting to explode like an atom bomb onto an unsuspecting population.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LOATHFINDER — “BROKEN BRANCHES AND TORN ROOTS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 272025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band Loathfinder made their recording debut with a 2017 EP (deliciously titled The Great Tired Ones), and then followed that two years later with the Aspects of Oblation split with Alaska-based Druj. Now at last they are on the verge of releasing their first album, Broken Branches and Torn Roots, through Godz Ov War Productions.

Our own Andy Synn reviewed that 2017 debut EP and described it as “hideously heavy and gloriously grim Blackened Death/Doom,” offering up “four tracks of bone-grinding riffs, putrid vocals, and suppurating, suffocating grooves, which seem purposefully designed to ruin your day.” He also wrote:

Yet as disgustingly dirty (love that guitar tone) and remorselessly gloomy as the band are, there’s a real method to their madness, above and beyond the compulsion to simply wallow in sonic filth…. All in all this is one hell of a nasty piece of work, and one which thoroughly deserves your time and attention.

But roughly 8 years have passed between the EP and the forthcoming album, long enough that even early fans of the band may wonder whether, and if so how, their music has changed over the interim. You’ll get your answers today as we premiere a full stream of Loathfinder‘s full-length debut. Continue reading »

CARNAL FORGE: “THE FRACTURED PROCESS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 272025
 

(This is DGR‘s review of a new EP by the Swedish band Carnal Forge, released in March by ViciSolum Productions.)

Much as it is tempting to turn every review into a tome that could challenge Webster’s Dictionary in terms of pages, sometimes something shorter and sweeter is the order of the day. Carnal Forge have been kicking about since the late ’90s, with one real lengthy gap between releases in that time. Their 2019 album Gun To Mouth Salvation was their first full-length in close to twelve years so it’s not too hard to believe that in an age of ever-shifting lineups a near-six-year gap would then follow before we heard from the guys again.

March 2025 offered us a peak behind the curtain of what the band still have in the tank with a three-song EP entitled The Fractured Process, and judging by the near-eleven or so minutes of material that this EP is offering up, they’re not looking to rock the boat too hard. Carnal Forge are continuing the walk the pathway of some very sinister melodeath and thrash music, effectively kicking the machine back into motion right where it left off from Gun To Mouth Salvation. Continue reading »

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