SHORT BUT SWEET: HEAD OF THE BAPTIST / THEMATA / UNDERNEATH

 SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 162025
 

(Andy Synn encourages you to check out three of his favourite EPs from the last month)

As always I’ve been a little lax in covering the various EPs and related short-form releases which have been put out over the last 10-ish months.

But I’ll hopefully be able to sneak a few more in before the end of the year (when, as always, I’ll be putting together a round-up of all the things I’ve listened to, including those I didn’t get to write about), beginning with today’s trifecta of auditory abuse from Head of the Baptist (Belgium), Themata (Finland), and Underneath (USA).

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SHADES OF BLACK: DIMHOLT, POKUTA, EMBRACED BY DARKNESS, HAMMERFILOSOFI, HUBRIS, POGARDA

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Oct 122025
 


Dimholt

(written by Islander)

In compiling this Sunday’s column I can’t say that I intentionally searched for unsettling music, but that’s where the listening trail led me — in directions that were chilling, depressive, and enraged.

Time being limited (as always), I left a few discoveries behind that were especially raw and abusive, in addition to being unsettling. I hope to get back to them later. One thing that struck me about what I didn’t leave behind is that all the music that follows turned out to be more multi-faceted than first impressions might suggest. Continue reading »

MASTIFF: “FOR ALL THE DEAD DREAMS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 082025
 

(This is DGR‘s vivid review of a new Mastiff EP that’s set for release on October 24th by Church Road Records.)

Have you ever had a band that were perfect for ruining what would otherwise be a good day? A band that could drag you down into the depths of anger, violence, and misery no matter what in the world was happening outside? You could wake up and have everything be sunshine and rainbows, birds landing on your windowsill, all the animals of the forest resting kindly on your shoulder, and your beloved waiting just out of frame – only to put on a release by said group and have the whole feeling be annihilated and the skies darken around you?

What if we pitched the idea that sometimes that actually feels good in its own right? A weird sort of audio-masochism that works inversely to how your personality actually works? That we take this ugly music and it somehow gets us through the day no matter the situation. Propelled by either the sheer force of anger or the more nebulous ‘force of dumb’. That sometimes the artistic expulsion that helps them exorcise whatever demons might be bothering them works equally for us, calming anxiety and settling nerves.

No? Have you ever listened to the UK’s Mastiff, whose brand of sludge-infused hardcore is perfect for bullrushing whatever room you’re in and declaring, “Oh you thought things were going to be good today? Well, not on my watch!” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHFUCKINGWOUND — “VOID MMXXV”

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Oct 062025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to premiere the debut EP of a Finnish duo who call themselves DEATHFUCKINGWOUND. To introduce it, we begin with the band’s own statement of intent:

“While the world is currently being courted by flames ignited by weak men wielding unfathomable power only paralleled by their insatiable greed and corrupt lust for land and wealth that isn’t theirs, art can be used as a bridge between the oppressed and the beaten, to be then deployed as a weapon against the aforementioned flaccid figures hiding in their ivory towers. Those towers burn, too. Everything burns.

“Our objective is to harness our own strengths into a tangible aural form that is equally unyielding and full of rage as the free spirits craving for the flesh of the sovereigns poisoning this world. VOID MMXXV is a documented moment in time that hopefully reaches many minds alike, representing merely the firsts steps taken towards our own caustic annihilation.”

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SHADES OF BLACK: AMIENSUS, ELLENDE, HOLOGRAMAH, CAGED BASTARD

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Oct 052025
 

(written by Islander)

When I finished writing the SEEN AND HEARD column yesterday and scheduled it for automatic appearance this morning I really didn’t think I would be awake or clear-headed enough to prepare a SHADES OF BLACK thing for today, which is why I said there wouldn’t be one. But even though I didn’t get to sleep after my spouse’s Saturday night birthday party until 1:30 am, I woke up at 7 am — amazingly not hungover, only weary.

I still thought about not trying to do put this column together, but I really hate leaving holes in our regular schedule, so here we are. Fewer selections than usual, but (I hope you’ll agree) very good ones. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY: GALUNDO TENVULANCE, MIND PRISONER, BEASTWARS, MAUDITS, QRIXKUOR, CATHEDRAL

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 032025
 


(written by Islander)

It is another Bandcamp Friday. You will already have many suggestions and discoveries that point you toward how you might spend your music-oriented money today. Poor you, here are some more. (And I’ll have more tomorrow, so you can start complicating your life in advance of the final Bandcamp Friday of 2025 on December 5th.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AFSKY, DEADLAND, VEIL LIFTER, BAALBERITH

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Sep 282025
 

(written by Islander)

As was true with yesterday’s SEEN AND HEARD roundup, 21 days have passed since I was able to compile one of these SHADES OF BLACK collections. Unlike yesterday’s roundup, I’m not able to make up for the lapses with a mega-sized assembly today, due to… baseball. It’s the last game of the regular season for my hometown team, and I’m going.

I know that confession damages my kvlt credentials, yet I’ll try to repair the damage with the following five selections. Stylistically they’re not in the same vein, and yet I do think there are some connections, including a certain classical elegance and immensity among some of them, and a certain dark and even depressive cast common to some, which seemed fitting for the day — roughly one week into the Fall season, with The Big Dark looming here in the Pacific Northwest. Continue reading »

CARACH ANGREN: “THE CULT OF KARIBA”

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Sep 262025
 

(NCS writer DGR has long-established his bona fides as a Carach Angren fan, and so it’s no surprise that he would focus on this Dutch group’s evil new EP The Cult of Kariba that will be released on October 17th by Season of Mist. He seems very happy with what he found there.)

Five years is a mighty long walk between an album and an EP for an active band but such is the case for the black metal storytellers of Carach Angren and their newest EP The Cult Of Kariba.

The distance between the group’s newest EP and their album Frankensteina Strataemontanus has been pretty sizeable. Granted, some of this was due to the pandemic years in which many bands saw the brakes effectively slammed on any sort of performance or touring plans, and for those who had literally just released an album and weren’t planning on being at home so soon, you can see in many different group timelines how it might’ve affected them.

For some, the need to create was immediate and you saw periods of intense activity while bands would hammer out singles and covers for lack of anything else to do. Others, probably a quiet sort of frustration. No two approaches could be deemed correct and creativity certainly doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not a switch to be thrown on and off, and seeking inspiration so soon after you’ve just put out an opus to a ghoulish take on the Frankenstein story could freeze anyone’s mind for a while. That and an ever-fluid drummer situation not helping much either, having now reduced Carach Angren down to two core members, effectively transforming them into two studio-dwelling ghosts haunting the boards when they get the chance. Continue reading »

SYNESTIA: “PREMONITIONS”

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Sep 242025
 

(This is DGR‘s lavish review of a new EP released earlier this month by Minneapolis-based Synestia.)

Symphonic deathcore group Synestia have had an interesting arc to their career. Existing by pure force of technology with members initially spread far and wide around the world, the group have been generally consistent with their release timeframes.

However, despite being something of an undercurrent on their own in the particular branch of the immensely spastic, adhd-inflected branch of the deathcore tree, the band themselves are just as known for multiple collaborations with musician/producer Blake Mullens who performs under the name Disembodied Tyrant.

This in itself means the band are part of a much larger orbit of surgical and synthetic-feeling and symphonics-reliant deathcore groups that all seem to both appear, contribute, and feature on one another’s works. It has to be difficult to break out on your own in such a way, when your logos all seem to be blurring together into one old script and sharpened stylized mass of words, and so a new EP from the group with a now more localized lineup and mostly them on their own is an interesting proposition. Continue reading »

LUNAR BLOOD: “ANOR” & “ITHIL”

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Sep 232025
 

(In this article DGR vividly reviews the two EPs released this year (so far) by the New Jersey extremists Lunar Blood.)

The initial plan for tackling New Jersey-based Lunar Blood’s newest EP Anor was to do so soon after I had returned from the May festival run. Anor was released on May 2nd, 2025 and was swept up in the great content maw that is my dragnet, but the opportunity to tackle its three songs wouldn’t present itself until after I returned home closer to the end of the month.

However, like many reviews, best laid plans are often laid to waste instead, and so Anor – alongside a few other victims that I keep swearing up and down that I’ll get to goddamnit – found itself backburnered up until Thursday, September 11th, when I finally found the time post-work – as nothing else important had happened that day other than me taking my team out for breakfast for clearing 1,000 days safe at work – to dive headfirst into its three songs and really come to grips with what the Lunar Blood crew were attempting to create here… only to discover that they had released a follow-up four song EP that same day entitled Ithil. Continue reading »

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