Reviews Archives - Page 2 of 615

SHORT BUT SWEET: DESPERATE CRY / PRIVATE PRISONS / SILURIAN

Aug 062026

(Andy Synn offers up three bite-sized bursts of brutal flavour for you to sink your teeth into)

No matter how big of a music lover you are there are always going to be times when you’re just “not feeling it”.

Case in point, I’ve been circling the idea of doing another edition of the “Best of British”, as well as a Death Metal-centric collection, but just haven’t found the right albums/artists yet to fill up a full article of either (a minimum of three is always preferred, and in both cases I’m struggling to find that third band or record that really inspires me to write about them).

Thankfully all it took was a quick shift in focus – away from considering full-length albums towards a trio of recent short-form releases – to get my proverbial juices flowing, so let’s stop wasting time and dig into today’s hand-picked selection of EP-sized extremity, shally we?

CLEARING THE SLATE ISSUE TWO

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Aug 052026

(Our writer DGR has been playing catch-up on records released earlier this year when other distractions interfered with writing about them. In mid-July he delivered Issue One (which you can find here), and now we have Issue Two, encompassing reviews of four records released in March, May, June, and July.)

It is politics season here in California, which means that by living in proximity to the state’s capital (Sacramento) you get battered relentlessly with ads from all neck of the woods. Over thirty-five million people live within the boundaries of California, which means that this metro area consisting of a mere two-to-three million means fuck-all to anyone internationally and is barely important enough to list on a map. You have to zoom in two or three times on Google, for instance, before Sacramento is revealed unto the wider world and long after Los Angeles and San Francisco.

By virtue of growing up in the Bay Area I’ve found my wider allegiances between the two regions fairly split, such that I kind of equally care for both even though my current residence will forever suffer from a generationally-instilled case of short-man’s syndrome. It’s why politics season tends to be annoying, because you get to hear your city’s name with the same sort of thin-mouthed sneer that is usually reserved for the scum of the Earth, such that even when filling up your gas tank you get greeted with banners pointing to the price of fuel and a notice that “Sacramento policies did this”.

Which I guess is nice, because at least the rest of the country is finally acknowledging that California is the real capital of this country, and clearly, we’re the ones who decided to start bombing the Middle East again and start a new forever war. It’s a fucked up way of finding that sort of thing out, but I guess anything to mask your consistent rape of the consumer wherein your prices don’t line up at all with what you claim, and by virtue of this state having more drivers than most anywhere else, is most often used to goose your profit margins so that we end up paying way more than “Sacramento policies” might’ve caused. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XXX: VIVA ESPAÑA

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Aug 042026

(Below you will find Daniel Barkasi’s latest monthly collection of reviews for NCS. This one includes enthusiastic recommendations for six albums released in July 2026.)

No, we’re not going to make a bunch of Vin Diesel references, and this month won’t be filled with so-called “dirty words” – though George Carlin is by far my favorite comedian of all-time, but a small milestone of this being the 30th edition of this column is a small thing that makes me smile a bit. It’s been fun sharing all kinds of music in these exalted halls, and we won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

The World Cup wrapped up, with good ole FIFA making an absolute ass of themselves – what else is new? It’s wild when the previous FIFA president (who was as corrupt as can be) looks trustworthy in comparison to the current one, and with the recent developments of trying to sell off stakes in the tournament to “investors” who have no interest in the game, the man who already had gone too far has managed to overstep even further.

However, despite the seediness of the organizing body, the football itself for the most part was edge-of-your-seat stuff. I enjoyed the games thoroughly, and congrats to Spain, who were unbreakable throughout the entire tournament and absolutely earned their victory. Cabo Verde’s unbelievable performance was also something that sticks out as special – seeing such a small nation push the eventual champions and runners-up Argentina to the edge was a great story. It would have been cool to have gone to a game, but there wasn’t a chance that we were going to plunk down over $1k per ticket. Hopefully the pricing out of a lot of people gets fixed one of these years, but we’re not counting on it. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews No Responses »

Aug 032026

(Andy Synn has four more recommendations from last month that you may not have checked out yet)

They say one of the most important thing an artist has to learn is not just what it put in to their work… but what to leave out.

And, let me tell you… I am no artist, so having to leave so many artists/albums out each month is more something I’ve learned to accept begrudgingly rather than making it a part of my process.

Still, as disappointing as it may have been to have to leave so many potential reviews on the cutting room floor, I can’t help but be excited to (hopefully) introduce you all to these four records from July which may have flown under your radar.

DEATHGRAVE: “HELL IS EVIL”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Aug 032026

(This is Wil Cifer’s review of a new album by Bay Area grindcore fanatics Deathgrave. It’s set for release on August 21st via Tankcrimes.)

2023’s It’s Only Midnight was pretty decent, but Deathgrave have perfected the kind of thrashing chaos they kick up with Hell Is Evil.

The title track that opens the album finds their songwriting falling into place with an organic yet polished sound that emerged from their most recent trip into the studio, having expanded into writing three-minute songs that give them more time here to develop the song rather than just dealing in angry bursts. “Hard to Swallow” has a dark, deliberate, doomy riff arising to lumber over things, due in part to the fact this band features ex-members of Graves at Sea . At times the vocals sound like they could be from a Carnivore album thanks to the way they are shouted. “I Am Here” runs death metal fury through a grindcore filter, while solidifying the punk attitude.

It only takes the first three songs to convince you that they have made songwriting more of a priority. Continue reading »

SABERTOOTH – BLESSING RAGE

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jul 302026

(Andy Synn is back with a recommendation from the Indonesian underground today)

It’s perhaps not entirely surprising to note that the majority of bands we write about tend to be located on one of two continents, Europe or North America.

That’s not to say we don’t try our best to cover bands from other locales – though, as of yet, I don’t think we’ve ever written about any bands from Antarctica – but the fact that two of the three core members of the NCS crew are based in the USA, and the other one (me) is based in the UK (which are also the two places we get most of our audience from), means these are the areas which we get the most exposure to.

Of course, the counterpoint to that is we probably should be making more of an effort to cover bands from further afield – and, all credit to him, Islander already does a pretty damn good job with all his various round-ups of new releases from around the globe – which is why today we’re travelling to Indonesia to take in the sights and sounds and savage riffery of Metallic Hardcore crew Sabertooth.

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ORBSTRUCT — “A DECADE OF TRANSCENDENCE”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Jul 292026

(written by Islander)

This is the tenth year of existence for Orbstruct, the blackened death metal band founded in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and later driven by war to a new home in Poland. During that decade Orbstruct has released three albums, the most recent of which (Ostracism) dropped last year.

To mark this year’s milestone anniversary, Orbstruct performed a live show this past May at the Hype Park Club in Kraków, a show that featured nine songs selected by the band from across their three albums, creating a convergence of their past and present.

Orbstruct’s performance was captured in a recording that will be digitally released under the title A Decade of Transcendence on July 30. It was also captured on film — and today we present that video of this commemorative show. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KRALLICE, BEASTLOR, SEKTION VASORÉ

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Jul 282026

(written by Islander)

I only had one song premiere to prepare for today and nothing else for us to share with you besides the review from Andy that opened our day. So I impetuously decided to pull together this roundup of new music.

The first two choices attracted my attention because their overlapping lineups include people who I think it’s fair to say are luminaries among discerning metal listeners, those of us who search for more than “the same old, same old”. These artists’ creative interests and impulses also often lead them in unexpected directions, so there was an important intrigue factor in making the choices.

The third choice was much more impulsive. I just decided to listen to the music of the last band to e-mail us yesterday, a band with no reputation I knew of, and only two demo songs to their name. I’m so glad I yielded to that impulse, and I hope you will be too. Continue reading »

VULGARITY – BECKONED BEYOND

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jul 282026

(Andy Synn wants you to stop what you’re doing and play this one as loud, and as often, as you can)

We’ve been accused of being “pretentious” here at NCS a few times… which is actually pretty funny if you really know any of us.

True, we do have a lot of love for weird, proggy music, and we certainly have a lot of fun playing around with language and using some of those “big” words certain people find so frightening, but you know what we also love?

Big riffs, big hooks, and bands that just put out banger after banger after banger.

Which is why I’ve been jamming the new album from Missouri Metalcore menaces Vulgarity over and over again recently.

ALTARAGE – COGWHEEL

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jul 272026

(Andy Synn returns to the darkness with a revitalised Altarage and their new album, out Friday)

There’s an excellent question that Sir Michael Caine once asked, and answered… “why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

And, make no mistake about it, there’s certainly a pretty decent (and vocal) number of Altarage fans who will be happy – well, not exactly happy – to tell you all about how much the band fell off after their opening salvo of three killer albums (Nihl, Endinghent, and The Approaching Roar) in a row.

Don’t get me wrong, I have some sympathy with this view – as much as I loved the band’s initial trilogy of terror, I was willing to go on record with how disappointed (and disjointed) I felt 2021’s Succumb to be (a position I still stand by), and while I appreciated 2022’s Sol Corrupto a little more than most it definitely still fell short of the band’s usual high standards – but I’m also the sort of person who believes that it’s important for bands to take chances, and that a few experimental misses can sometimes lead to even bigger hits down the line.

Which may well be what we have here, as while 2023’s Worst Case Scenario was clearly informed by the lessons learned from the Succumb/Sol Corrupto sessions, it’s only with the upcoming release of Cogwheel that Altarage seem to have really managed to pick themselves back up again and become the same terrifying force they used to be.

Batman begin.

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