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 »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE MUNSENS, LAMP OF MURMUUR, AN ABSTRACT ILLUSION, NIPHREDIL

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Sep 182025
 

(written by Islander)

As I write this I am in Nottingham, England, and eagerly looking forward to attending Andy Synn‘s wedding on Saturday. An overnight flight brought me from Seattle to London with an early arrival yesterday, and I didn’t feel too much the worse for wear despite only napping for an hour on the 8-hour flight. Then came a car ride to Nottingham and a lunch there with Andy, his bride-to-be, and some other American friends (including DGR) who have also come over for the event.

By the end of our long lunch and a post-prandial drink at another spot, I was hitting the wall. I fought to stay up until 6 pm and then crashed hard. But I woke up early this morning after 12 1/2 hours of sleep feeling great, and now I’m quite happy with my jet-lag solution!

Of course it’s still weird being on UK time, weird in the sense that I decided to pull this round-up together with something like 7 hours to go before it will magically appear in line with our normal daily posting schedule, instead of just minutes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ONE OF NINE, WALDGEFLÜSTER, KALEŽ, ARROWS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Aug 312025
 

(written by Islander)

Today I decided to focus on four selections: two songs from forthcoming albums, a debut EP, and a debut full-length. The two songs are tragic but breathtaking. The EP and the album are also stunning, in different ways.

The world often seems like it’s either burning or devolving into a deep and disgusting pool of glop (“shit” is an overused word), but if you immerse yourself in what I’ve chosen today I wager you’ll forget all about that, even if it will all eventually come back to you. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NO RAZA, EGOCIDE, THEMATA, VILE APPARITION, VÍGLJÓS, JUNEAU, WSTRĘT, HETEROPSY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 302025
 

(written by Islander)

This Saturday roundup is larger than usual — one new music video, seven songs from records due for release over the next couple of months, and an EP released a week ago.

Once again, I fell down a rabbit hole of high-powered musical intensity expressed in differing ways, from brutal and bludgeoning to mind-lacerating. I’m also going to give myself a pat on the back (because you’re too far away to do it) for arranging the songs in a way that I think provides a coherent flow (flow really isn’t the right word for the movements from song to song, but I haven’t thought of a better one).

P.S. In the U.S. this is Labor Day Weekend, a three-day break from work for a lot of people (but not everyone). As is our habit around here, we’re not taking a break. As usual for us during holidays, we’re just going to ignore this one and continue fouling the airwaves straight through Monday. Of course we hope you’ll come back to see what we have in store tomorrow and the next day, but even if you aren’t here we will be. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET – ANTI RITUAL / BACKSTABBED / HARROWIST

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 262025
 

(Andy Synn highlights three more short-but-sweet releases for you to sink your teeth into)

Between work, band, and my personal life I’m not going to have much time to write this week, hence this is likely to be one of only two articles you’ll be seeing from me.

Which means I’m going to have to do my best to make them both count… and what better way than by trying to stick to my ongoing (and continually failing) promise to try and cover more EPs?

So, without further ado, here’s three “short but sweet” bursts of Hardcore-inspired venom and vigour from Anti Ritual (Denmark), Backstabbed (Germany), and Harrowist (Austria).

Continue reading »

AVERSIONS CROWN: “A VOICE FROM THE OUTER DARK”

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Aug 192025
 

(On August 5th Nuclear Blast released a new three-song EP by Aversions Crown, and below you’ll find DGR‘s review of the beast.)

The story of Australian deathcore group Aversions Crown‘s career is going to be a fascinating one to dive into when they call it a day. They may eventually find a modicum of stability before things wrap up just yet, but for now Aversions Crown are a band who have four full-lengths and a smattering of EPs to their name, and ever since the release of their album Tyrant, have had a different vocalist in each one.

Whether it is by virtue of the frontman shuffle that tends to happen to many a deathcore group or the recruitment of one into a more popular group, Aversions Crown have had a different talent behind the microphone for the requisite nigh-unintelligible sounds nearly every time. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ANTIVERSUM, PORENUT, VÖRNIR, BÁL, YMBEROPHILIA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 172025
 

(written by Islander)

About half an hour after I finished yesterday’s roundup I left home with my wife and didn’t return until nightfall. Waking up later than usual today, I immediately got diverted from anything musical by reading a long discussion by two really smart people about a harrowing political and economic subject. By the time I finally re-oriented myself to the column you’re now reading, my clock for this thing was winding down, so it’s shorter than I had hoped it would be.

In deciding what I’d need to leave on the cutting room floor, I found myself focusing on music that in different ways is unorthodox, at least in how I think about black metal orthodoxies. But you can be the judge of that, as I hope you will be. Of course, to judge, you need to listen. Continue reading »

STARLIT PYRE: “VEINS OF SULFUR”

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Aug 132025
 

(We present DGR‘s review of Veins of Sulfur, a debut EP by the French band Starlit Pyre that was released last month.)

Observing the changes and outside perspectives people bring to melodeath has often been as interesting as the permutations people make of the music itself. It’s a long-been-known quantity, and as we’ve witnessed cycles upon cycles of retrograde nostalgia and the ‘influenced by the influenced by’ crowd slowly becoming crowd-becoming forces of their own, so too does the genre change. Not necessarily evolving, but new strains are born or echo outwards into the wider metalsphere.

Given melodeath’s already pretty blatant mass-market trappings, the chosen aesthetic for some groups to approach the genre’s two-step-heavy guitar leads and thrashier rhythms to make it appear ‘refined’ qualifies for a certain amount of sense. We have grown older, so too does the genre. We’re past the days of snot-nosed kids sticking the middle finger up at a bunch of old folks in favor of an ambitious wildness and an ear for the catchy.

The calling cards that we’re following down that path are pretty recognizable as well, one being an ever-present keyboard layer in the band’s music… and the other? Well, sometimes that other one is uniforms, and French melodeath group Starlit Pyre seem to have both in spades with their July EP Veins Of Sulfur, a solid seventeen-minute block of melodeath that goes on a whirlwind tour through the genre before quietly sneaking out of the back of the room. Continue reading »

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