LORN: “SEARING BLOOD”

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May 182026
 

(We begin a new week at NCS with our Norway-based contributor Chile and his compelling review of the first new album in more than 9 years from the Italian black metal band Lorn.)

Italy has been a hotspot for quality extreme metal for years now it seems, and it is still moving on an upward path. It is hard then to imagine a time when the scene was much smaller and only a handful of bands strived to make a mark for themselves.

Maybe somewhat overshadowed by the likes of Mortuary Drape, Bulldozer or Death SS, many other bands were holding their own in those early times and are still a worthy listen. All of this helped the new and upcoming bands in the years to come, and by the time the late ’90s came around is when things began to develop in different directions.

Out of that time immemorial comes Lorn. Starting their musical voyage around the turn of the century, they came into their own by releasing their debut in 2006. With their activities seemingly going up and down over the years, like the road to the mighty Dolomites out of their native city of Bolzano, the band maintained a string of quality releases culminating in the phenomenal Arrayed Claws from 2017.

Now, even if the name of that album doesn’t ring an immediate bell, the absolutely outstanding cover should. The intermingled, leering forms of teeth-baring wolves (or something like such animals) adorned in a shade of deep purple, captured perfectly the essence of one of the best metal albums to come out of the Italian scene. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DAUÞUZ, VYR MUK, GOD SHELL, EMBER VALE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 172026
 

(written by Islander)

I’m getting a very late start this morning. I wrote an explanation and then deleted it because my late start is the result of a level of stupidity that’s kind of embarrassing even for me. Better to just dive in.

What you’ll find below is a truncated version of what I originally planned. The collection begins with a single and then continues with three EPs, the last of which is a rehearsal demo that’s the band’s first release. Continue reading »

SUBMERGED: “RESURFACING NAUTICAL RUIN”

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May 152026
 

(We present DGR’s review of a new EP from the nautical brutal death metal band Submerged, which was released last month by New Standard Elite.)

We’ve been buried in an absolute gamut of albums over the past few months, and as is our usual tradition we have tried and failed to keep ourselves afloat in the flood of music. One day there will be maps drawn with shipwreck masts poking out of the water and one of them will just be the NoCleanSinging logo. Fitting then, given that today’s subjects are the San Diego, California brutal death metal group Submerged and their new EP Resurfacing Nautical Ruin.

A newer project of sorts, having been formed in 2023, Submerged were quick to break the dam on material, and after a demo in 2023, proceeded to pour out an album in 2024 titled Tortured At The Depths. Today’s EP Resurfacing Nautical Ruin – unleashed upon the world in mid-April via brutality merchants New Standard Elite – is the continued tale in Submerged’s torrent of music.

Gather up your diving gear then because we’re about to take a dip in the ocean of disgusting bass guitar tone, rattle-can snare, and vocals emerging from hydrothermal vents themselves for three songs and almost twelve minutes of singular violence and tremendous brutality. Continue reading »

WE FOLLOW THE EARTH – FOAMDRINKER

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May 142026
 

(Andy Synn dedicates his first post-NWTF review to the Post/Sludge/Doom stylings of We Follow the Earth)

Right now, in case you didn’t know. we’re in what’s called the “post Northwest Terror Fest slump”… which is where we’re largely reliant on DGR’s forethought in producing a bunch of reviews to cover for the fact that he and I are visiting Seattle and spending more of our time (which includes spending some much-needed face-to-face time with Islander) drinking and hanging out and explicitly not writing for the site.

That being said, I’m going to try and fit in a few reviews – starting with this one – between now and the end of our trip (which also involves a trip to Baltimore for Maryland Deathfest), so let’s cut to the chase, shall we, and get into it with the new album from North Carolina Sludge-slingers We Follow the Earth.

Continue reading »

AVERSIO HUMANITATIS: “TO BECOME THE ENDLESS STATIC”

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May 132026
 

(We present Daniel Barkasi’s review of a new album by the Spanish black metal band Aversio Humanitatis, which is out now on Debemur Morti Productions.)

The question of why we dedicate so much time and energy to this music isn’t one that pops up into this writer’s brain often; to the initiated, there’s a plethora of reasons, of course. Once in a great while, a band or an album does serve as a stark reminder of what makes this boiling underbelly of audible chaos so very special.

Enter Spain’s Aversio Humanitatis, a band who have regularly been a part of my admittedly expansive rotation. Most notably with the release of 2020’s Behold the Silent Dwellers – an album that made these ears perk up immediately, like our dog Jericho when we’re making salads (yes, our good boy loves romaine lettuce). There’s a discordance woven into that album that keeps it off-kilter enough to satiate my hunger for music that doesn’t stick to pre-defined genre guardrails. Moreover, the innate skill to compose truly intriguing black metal that’s equally enraged and impetuous is a combination that’s irresistible.

Six years have passed, and Aversio Humanitatis finally returned with To Become the Endless Static in tow, their third full-length effort via the always reliable Debemur Morti Productions, who are on a hot streak unlike any other label in 2026 for this fellow’s money. What was in store was beyond whatever one’s imagination could devise. Continue reading »

EPIGRAM: “OBSOLESCENT”

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May 122026
 

(This is DGR’s review of the debut album from Epigram, the SoCal-based project of musician Luis Echevarria, who is accompanied on the album by drummer and additional vocalist Mikey Wilson.)

Believe it or not, the album you see before you here is not the first time we have reached across the expanse of the internet to discuss Southern California death metal group Epigram. While it is tempting to act as if we made it on the ground floor of their newest release Obsolescent, in actuality we spoke of the band way back in the horse-drawn cart days of 2017, briefly mentioning them among an absolute wall of releases in our year-end roundup, in the segment we dedicate to writing about all the EPs of the year.

Eight and a half years is a long time though, enough that we can cycle back around to the exact same dogshit world state – and the people running it – and yet the band themselves had, up until early March, been radio silent. Their re-emergence in early March with Obsolescent is – thanks to time – almost a relaunch of the band. With only an EP to their name before, it can seem as if the Los Angeles based crew are fresh faces on the scene, but surprisingly, even with that vast expanse of time between releases it sounds as if Epigram have taken the route of natural maturity on their previous sound as opposed to full-blown relaunch, creating blackened death metal with a very, very light symphonic touch that could easily have fought blow for blow with the mid-2010’s releases from Hour Of Penance like Paradogma and Sedition. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES — VOLUME XXVII: A DREAM OF SPRING

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May 112026
 

(We present another monthly collection of reviews by Daniel Barkasi, who focuses his attention this time on albums released during April 2026.)

Spring – that lovely time when the cold goes away and I don’t need thermal undergarments to go outside. Alas, Mother Nature can’t seem to make up her mind – freezing one day, gorgeous the next. One day, we experienced the conditions of all four seasons in a single day. Those kinds of swings have been common all over – ask the poor iguanas in Florida – so we just have to push through it.

When titling this edition, yes, of course we’re parodying the A Song of Ice and Fire book series that’ll seemingly never finish, so with a lack of judgement in the humor department, this is where we landed. At least this column will be done before the next book comes out.

Also, totally unrelated – the horses are finally home! It’s good to have them back, and by the time we’re writing about May releases, we’ll hopefully be able to announce the arrival of our girl Naru’s foal.

The beginning of festival season is of course upon us, and NCS’s very own Northwest Terror Fest is literally days away as I write this. To all attending, have the absolute best time, and thanks for making it and this lovely place what it is. I’ll join the group someday. Maryland Deathfest follows, of course, with a lineup that’s difficult to imagine being real. For me, Fortress Festival immediately follows, so stay tuned for a documentation of my adventures in the town of Scarborough. Continue reading »

APOLAUSTIC: “NO PLENITUDE WITHOUT SUFFERING”

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May 112026
 

(We begin a new week at NCS with DGR’s review of the debut album from the Swiss band Apolaustic, which is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.)

Often when a band splits with a long-tenured vocalist it can feel like the group have hard-capped themselves at about eighty percent of their potential. While the reasons why long-time vocalist Romain Negro stepped down from Swiss tech-death group Stortregn are likely out there, that sort of muckracking – while amusing – has never been something we’ve been too interested in here. Instead, we exist in a series of zeroes and ones: is person in band? is person not in band? and we roll from there.

Sometimes, lineup changes can even be refreshing; a new perspective can recharge a band. But when you have a creature created already so strong, it can feel a bit like you’ve hobbled yourself on both fronts. and the respective projects that form afterwards always land at “pretty good” but never the “spectacular” heights of old. Thankfully, Stortregn’s One Eternal release went far in assuring us that would not be the case and now we also have Apolaustic, a new solo effort from Romain Negro handling all of the songwriting and vocals while recruiting Nicolas Muller on drums and Merlin Bogado for bass and guitar work for an album that is not all too dissimilar from the high-speed extremity of Stortregn, except for the much, much larger taste for melodic black metal. The result is in an eight-song, forty-minute release entitled No Plenitude Without Suffering, and thankfully Apolaustic have also dodged the eighty-percent potential cap with an absolutely killer album. Continue reading »

ARCHITECTURAL GENOCIDE: “MALIGNANT COGNITION”

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May 092026
 

(Because Islander is goofing off at the NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest this weekend, we won’t have his usual weekend columns, but we will have some reviews by DGR, including this one devoted to a new album by Houston-based Architectural Genocide.)

It took way too long to achieve this monk-like state of enlightenment but listening to Architectural Genocide’s newest release Malignant Cognition via Comatose Music all the way back in the middle of January, revealed that perhaps twenty-three minutes is the exact amount of this style of brutal death metal that you need in your life. Continue reading »

HANGING GARDEN: “ISLE OF BLISS”

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May 082026
 

(We present DGR’s review of the ninth album from Hanging Garden, released on March 20th by Agonia Records.)

I have struggled with how I wanted to start writing up Finland’s Hanging Garden and their newest album Isle Of Bliss. They’ve been “blessed” enough to join the club of groups whose opening review paragraphs have seen more rewrites each year than your standard superhero movie. It’s not any fault of their own either; the blame lies entirely at my feet.

I think a large part of the difficulty comes from the fact that although Hanging Garden have been active for the better part of two decades and have been very consistent in releasing albums or EPs (they seem to thrive on album-EP- album cycle with little breath in between), I haven’t been one to yell from the rooftops about them,  in spite of how much I’ve enjoyed everything they’ve done. So, in a roundabout way, it feels like any time I want to write about Hanging Garden I need to begin with an apology of sorts for not using my pulpit to preach their gospel to the masses.

Hanging Garden are one of the best out there in a saturated genre of melancholy-infused doom and goth-rock groups. Even when the band have been experimental – which surprisingly is where they first caught my attention with the very Paradise Lost-leaning Blackout/Whiteout in 2015 – before fully adopting a very melodramatic death and doom persona, their releases have been some of the most steady-footed, good-to-great collections you can find. There are athletes who would kill for Hanging Garden’s sort of batting average.

The even better part of all of this, now that the guilt of not being as loud about them as I could’ve been has been waylaid somewhat until their next release, is that the group’s newest album Isle Of Bliss – which saw release in late March via Agonia Records – is absolutely stunning and only reinforces the fact that the Hanging Garden collective are stealthily one of the best out there at this particular style. Continue reading »

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