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 EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VANISHING EARTH — “THE BOUNDLESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 162025
 

(written by Islander)

Anyone who was even a semi-regular visitor to our site from 2011 through 2023 will recognize the name Oak Pantheon. Over that period we wrote 24 articles about this Minneapolis band’s music, dating back to their first single and continuing through our review of their last album, 2023’s The Absence.

And yes, it did turn out to be their last album, because this past February Oak Pantheon announced that they were amicably splitting up. They explained on social media: “Drifting motivations and musical interests have made it difficult to agree on a cohesive path forward. We will likely work together again, just in different forms.”

Throughout the entirety of their existence and their quite varied musical expressions Oak Pantheon was principally a collaboration between Sami Sati and Tanner Swenson. Since the dissolution of Oak Pantheon neither of them has abandoned music-making. In the case of Sami Sati, we are happily announcing today that he has a new project called Vanishing Earth that serves as a continuation of his efforts and ambitions in Oak Pantheon.

And today we are also very happily hosting the premiere of Vanishing Earth‘s musical debut, a two-song EP named The Boundless that will be released on June 17th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: UKHU PACHA, VAITARANA, IANTHIN, SUMERIAN TOMBS, LYUAOIEN, JORDFÄST

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 082025
 

(written by Islander)

Welcome to another Sunday column focused (mainly) on black metal. This one goes pretty deep underground, with music from four debut releases, leavened with songs from two bands whose discography is more extensive.

I’m going to start with reviews of an album and an EP, to make sure I have time to say what I want to say about them, and then turn to a group of individual songs and videos. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP AND VIDEO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STORTREGN — “ONE ETERNAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 052025
 

(Today we help announce, and premiere a video playthrough, of a new EP by the Swiss metal band Stortregn, preceded by DGR‘s review of this very interesting and hair-raising new work on the eve of its release.)

Given the length of Stortregn‘s career it is impressive that they’ve been able to keep to such a consistent clip. Even while slowly metamorphosizing into a different genre from where they started, Stortregn have been a on a strong two-to-three-year cycle of quality releases. They even managed to land one well enough with 2023’s Finitude that it wound up ranking pretty highly at this here website’s year-end celebrations. If nothing else, we were certainly ready to throw down in defense of the one-two punch of “Xeno Chaos” and “Cold Void” in the early part of the album.

Stortregn specialize in a form of compositional chaos that is tightly controlled but still just off the map enough that they pleasantly surprise. Each song is a musical showpiece on its own without devolving into instrumental demo work, and that they do this at such a high speed for the majority of their last few releases has been stunning. Without ever letting their extremity become milquetoast, Stortregn have put in a valiant effort in the tech-death world. 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 »

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 »

VADER: “HUMANIHILITY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
May 212025
 

(The Polish titans Vader have bestowed upon us a new EP named Humanihility that will be sprung free by Nuclear Blast on May 30th. Below is our writer DGR‘s take on what it offers.)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s that time of year in which Vader drops a new EP on us that will no doubt offer a solid preview of things forthcoming from the now three-guitarist-armed band. Vader have done this like clockwork for years now, in between full-length albums offering up a two- or three-song EP that shows where their headspace is at, usually as a tight enough package on its own that it can hold people over for the extended wait that some album cycles tend to require.

They’re also a pretty good preview of what sort of Vader you’ll likely be getting on whatever upcoming full-length the titans have in store. Will it be death metal heavy Vader? Will it be thrashier Vader? Will Vader buck all trends and finally go full avante-garde and unleash some sort of blackened folk swing with extra emphasis on tuba? Will we get another fun cover song in the mix? Will we finally figure out how to work the word “lugubrious” into a review without calling attention to it beforehand?

Schrödinger’s Vader exists in multiple forms in the lead-up to the first spin of a new Vader EP and the sheer potential of it all is enough to keep things exciting. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WAIDELOTTE, HÆRESIS, HELL, CAVE, FUNERAL BAPTISM, TEARDRINKER

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 182025
 

(written by Islander)

For reasons explained yesterday I’ve had less than the usual amount of time this week to explore new music from the blacker realms of extreme music. I’ll fall behind again next week due to MDFing and will likely leave a void in this column’s place next Sunday.

Bereft of the time needed to make a more complete survey this week, I randomly threw a couple handfuls of mental darts at all the tabs I’d opened for new songs and albums. There were misses, but enough solid hits to furnish the following collection, which I hope will both darken and immolate your day. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HSPDN — “HEYDAY’S RUIN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In this feature we are taking a few large steps off the various beaten, broken, and thorn-shrouded paths we usually follow in our musical meanderings around here. The connections to those paths, such as they are, derive in part from the person who made the music you’re about to hear.

That person goes by the name “twi” in this new project, but we can disclose that the person is the Slovakian musician and vocalist also known as Twisted in the experimental industrial doom/death metal band 0n0, whose music we’ve written about repeatedly over the last nine years (here’s the proof of that).

The name of the new project is hspdn. hspdn‘s first release is Heyday’s Ruin, a four-song, 18-minute work set for release open May 23rd and self-described as “an EP about climate and personal crises”. What we have for you today is the premiere of its title song. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE: VEIA — “TUCHULCHA / IL RITORNO DI TUCHULCHA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Frequent visitors to our site (and other people equally intelligent and tasteful) will know the names Thecodontion and Clactonian. If you don’t know those names, you can find out why I think you should know them by plowing through the volumes of words we’ve spilled about their music (collected here and here, respectively). Both bands are the brainchildren of Italian musician G.E.F., joined with other very talented friends in each group.

Now we have another name you need to know, another brainchild of G.E.F. This one is Veia. Under the banner of Veia G.E.F. is the vocalist and lyricist, joined here by bassist extraordinaire G.D. (also from Thecodontion) and exceptionally talented people from Svart Vinter and Veil of Conspiracy on drums and guitars.

Unlike Thecodontion and Clactonian, Veia is predominantly a vehicle for black metal. The band’s members have been at work on a debut album to be entitled Vacal, and they expect the recording sessions to be completed later this year. But to help introduce Veia to listeners, G.E.F. decided to release two “raw excerpts” from the album this month through his new-ish label Prehistoric Sounds, and we have premiere streams of both songs for you today. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries