Album Reviews Archives - Page 5 of 556

ROSA FAENSKAP – INGENTING FORBLIR

Feb 242026

(Andy Synn recommends the new album from one of the most vital new voices in the underground)

If you’ve been in this game for a while, like I have, chances are you’ll have come across quite a few sites/zines/writers who only really cover “big” name bands (usually signed to well-known labels) in the hope of receiving some reciprocal attention and/or access in return.

And while we’ll occasionally cover some “bigger” (relatively speaking) names here at NCS – no-one’s going to be accusing Kreator of being “underground” any time soon, after all – that’s never been our primary focus.

I’ll grant you, in the past we’ve occasionally had a guest writer or two who’ve crossed the line from honest advocacy into outright sycophancy, but when it comes to the core cadre – myself, Islander, and DGR – we at least try to provide some context and justification for our recommendations, rather than just regurgitating the provided press-release materials and calling it a day.

But, let me tell you, as hard as we may try to maintain this self-imposed sense of pseudo-objectivity, it’s not always easy to do so, especially when it comes to an album like Ingenting Forblir… but I’ll try my best.

BEST OF BRITISH: CRYPTIC SHIFT / GOOD TIGER / SIDIOUS

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Feb 232026

(Andy Synn serves up three more examples of high-quality British beef for your ears)

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating all the same… the UK Metal scene is as vital and as vibrant and as varied right now as it’s ever been.

And one of the reasons this particular column exists is to help highlight that variety – and today’s post is particularly diverse in its stylistic scope – beyond the borders of this green and pleasant (though currently quite wet) land.

Obviously I can’t cover everything that issues from these shores every year – for one thing, there’s some albums that I just don’t want or feel the need to cover – but hopefully I can help out at least a few of my fellows by exposing their music to a more international audience.

So, without further ado, let’s get to it… shall we?

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XXIV: NEW YEAR, NEW METAL

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Feb 202026

(Daniel Barkasi is back with us from chilly West Virginia, presenting another monthly roundup of reviews and recommendations, this time focusing on releases from January of this year.)

Howdy, and hope everyone had a great holiday season! If you had some quality downtime, the envy is immense. We finished our move a few days before Christmas, which made for a hectic time. We’re settled now, thankfully. I go more into it on my year-end list, so we’ll avoid repetition – hope you all checked it out and found something good that you may have missed.

With all of that considered, we have finally returned. Continue reading »

SLAUGHTERDAY: “DREAD EMPEROR”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 202026

(Our Norway-based correspondent Chile sent in the following revel of a review for the new album by Germany’s Slaughterday, which was released last week by Testimony Records.)

Some bands are the epitome of working class heroes. You know, somebody who just goes about doing their thing and doing it great, but not really getting the kind of appreciation and attention needed, yet every time the need arises, they come through and become the heroes we both needed and deserved.

German band Slaughterday are exactly that band. Wearing their influences on their proverbial sleeves (they are named after an Autopsy song, after all), they have been doing their own thing for over fifteen years now in a career that has already spawned several great albums.

Last time we met Slaughterday was just a couple of months back when the NCS writer Zoltar did an interview with the band’s bassist/guitarist Jens Finger, with the occasion being them signing to Testimony Records and the first release on the new label being a step away from their usual brand of death metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PRISON OF MIRRORS — “DE SEPULCHRIS OCCULTIS ET IGNE PROFANATIONIS”

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Feb 192026

(written by Islander)

De Sepulchris Occultis et Igne Profanationis (Of Hidden Tombs and the Fire of Profanation) is the second album (or EP if you prefer, since it’s on the borderline) from the Italian band Prison of Mirrors. It consists of two very long songs — “Chants Beneath the Shunned Shrines” and “The Devouring Fire of Demonic Doctrine“. It will be released by ATMF on February 24th. And you can listen to it today through our full streaming premiere.

While making references to “the desolate lines traced by the darkest Blut Aus Nord and Akhlys,” ATMF describes the record as “a work that is bleak, profound, suffocating, and all-encompassing: a sonic ritual that grants no respite and, like a slow-acting poison, will wound its listeners, consuming both mind and senses” — “a journey into the core of an abyss with no bottom, where every step drags you deeper, until nothing remains of former memories — only the faint echo of a consciousness undone.”

After that, you’ll be happy to know that the record is survivable, but the mental wounds it leaves won’t heal quickly. The experience is hallucinatory and labyrinthine, and around all of the many strangely curling corners something very unsettling and intense awaits, though the intensity manifests in different ways, leaving different scars. Continue reading »

INGRINA – NÅVÆRENDE LYSS

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 192026

(Andy Synn is here to encourage you to lose yourselves in the new album from French Post-Metal collective Ingrina)

Here’s a funny story for you.

Recently, quite out of the blue, we received an email asking us – and I swear I’m not making this up – to stop using so many words in our reviews and to just boil things down to a score out of 10 at the end of each article so that they were more “useful”.

And while you almost have to admire the sheer gall it takes to contact us directly and ask us to change who we are and what we do purely for someone else’s convenience – as if that was ever going to elicit a positive response – it got me thinking about the power of expectations (particularly the wrong expectations) and how important it is to approach things on their own terms.

Which brings us, nice and neatly, to the new album from Ingrina.

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, JANUARY 2026

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Feb 192026

(Join us in congratulating NCS writer Gonzo on his engagement! Also join us in enjoying his reviews of four recommended January releases.)

I’ve yelled about how February is a useless fucking month at least once in the past, but this year feels a little different. For me personally, anyway.

Yes, you may have noticed that this column is hilariously late compared to my usual cadence, but since I’ve last posted here, I have:

Gotten engaged
Taken a last-minute trip to New York (I had the advanced notice of 24 hours in business days)
Had my byline in Decibel for the first time

Suffice to say some curveballs have thrown themselves into my schedule, but it’s not unwelcome. Despite living in a rapidly declining christofascist empire, life is largely good. It’s a very weird time to be happy in your personal life, if nothing else, and that alone is worth something. I also have the privilege of making my return to Roadburn this April, and with the recent announcement of Cult of Luna playing two sets there, I’ll have a hard time thinking about much else for the next two months.

God, where was I?

Oh, right. Here are another four albums you should really drop everything you’re doing and listen to. Yes, right now. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “THE NEW FLESH”

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Feb 182026

(We welcome back one of our early writers, TheMadIsraeli, and his review of a new album by Sylosis that’s due for release on February 20th by Nuclear Blast.)

It’s been a long while hasn’t it? More than six years by my count and I’ve been checked out as a music enthusiast for most of it. I won’t go into why, but I’m ready to come back and talk about some sick metal records, and starting my return to NCS with a Sylosis record feels about as appropriate for me as it gets. Before we get to talking about The New Flesh we ought to talk about my history with this band.

I discovered them all the way back when their debut full-length Conclusion Of An Age had just come out, and it blew me away. The commitment to mixing modern metalcore conventions and melodic vocal hooks with an extremely technical and precise thrash approach in the vein of Forbidden, Metallica, Testament, and the like really spoke to me, and it kept me hooked.

Sylosis is an all-time favorite band of mine. Edge Of The Earth is one of modern metal’s ALL TIME GREATEST records. I am a fanboy for this band, a simp, and an admirer as a guitarist of Josh Middleton and his commitment as a composer to keeping things melodic, technical, and deep. UNTIL that is, Cycle Of Suffering. Continue reading »

KILLING PACE – HCPM

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 182026

(Andy Synn burns down genre boundaries with the new album from Killing Pace)

Did you know that I did my disseration on the concept of “categorical perception”?

In particular I was looking at the ways in which your (for want of a better term) perspective – dictated by your social, cultural, and even geographical, influences – affects your perception of things like language (specifically speech sounds), colour, and more.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, it’s because the way we categorise sub-genres also seems to follow a lot of the rules of “categorical perception”

Let’s face it, Death Metal that becomes increasingly more “blackened” until turns into “Blackened Death Metal” can easily just tip over into straight up Black Metal (and vice versa)… Hardcore combined with Metal becomes “Metallic Hardcore”, which in turn, at some point, becomes “Metalcore” (a term which itself means different things to different people, depending on their background and history), and so on…- to the point where even if the sonic spectrum appears pretty continuous we generally choose to draw some pretty hard lines and separate it into discrete little areas, if only to help us more easily manage the sheer wealth of music we’re exposed to.

But what’s really interesting about all that – to me, anyway – is the fact that while these sub-genre categories can be a useful tool, sometimes how you choose to categorise a band says more about you than them.

Which, of course, brings us to the new album from self-declared “Hardcore Punk Metal” crew Killing Pace.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STRUP — “ABYSSURGE”

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Feb 172026

(written by Islander)

The labels Rotted Life and Gurgling Gore have joined forces for the first time in a collaborative release of a debut album named Abyssurge by the Ukrainian band Strup, with a street date of February 20th. They describe the band as “a death grind assault unit blending the surgical brutality of death metal with the speed, chaos, and ferocity of grindcore”.

That description is true, but doesn’t completely capture all the musical ingredients of Abyssurge. Most prominently, Strup’s music is also hideously foul and abysmal as well as maniacally furious and brutally bludgeoning.

But you’ll soon see this for yourselves, because today we’re premiering a full stream of this Kyiv band’s debut — preceded (of course) by our own more detailed thoughts about what you’re about to encounter. Continue reading »

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