UMULAMAHRI AND SUFFERING HOUR: A TALE OF TWO EXTREMELY EXTREME EPs

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 272025
 

(Gonzo is busily thinking about what to cover in his next monthly review roundup for NCS, but in the meantime he’s pulled together some thoughts about a pair of EPs released in the early days of October by two U.S. bands.)

When you spend a significant amount of time bulldozing your way through new music discoveries, a lot can happen. For one, it eventually becomes a hell of a lot harder to be impressed at anything. Your brain starts to tune out anything formulaic or unimaginative. Quality will always triumph over quantity, you start to tell yourself, and surely you’ll find yourself immersed in the throes of a dopamine hit that can only be generated by the nastiest, vilest, and more extreme foray into sonic depravity the human mind can possibly conjure. Just keep searching.

Then, at long last, when your quest for heavy music fulfillment reaches a zenith, it leads you to the very edge of the abyss you were once so intent on finding… and you suddenly find yourself afraid to look down, fearing what lies below.

In the case of these two EPs, the abyss stares back. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BLUT AUS NORD, KRALLICE, THOKKIAN VORTEX, ETĚR, TEUFELNACHT, NATTRADIO

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 262025
 

(written by Islander)

This has been one of those rare weekends when, due to some other plans falling through, I had a ton of time to immerse myself in new metal and spew out a bunch of thoughts in print. Yesterday I compiled music from 8 bands, and today I’ve got 6 (I did have 8 but ran out of writing time). These bands, of course, exhibit their creativity through varying shades and phases of black metal — except the last one, a final curveball for you.

This collection includes three complete EPs as well as enticing excerpts from records not yet out. I hope you’ll give them all a chance. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HELLRIPPER, ABYSMAL DAWN, OMEGAVORTEX, OMNIVORTEX, SOULFLY, VALLETTA, ROTGUT, LOCUSTS AND HONEY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 252025
 

(written by Islander)

I spent more time than usual last night listening to heavy music and, unlike what often happens on Friday nights, I didn’t get destroyed (except by the music), so I felt pretty good upon awakening this Saturday. Which is why this roundup is as bulging as it is.

In my listening excursion I fell down a rabbit hole, not intending to, but that’s what falling down is about. Except this rabbit hole was like a steep and rapid descent (more jet-fueled than gravity usually powers), with a fuckload of fireworks and sharp edges on the way down, and who knew rabbits had such big teeth and vicious red eyes?

Or to put it more prosaically, there’s a ton of high-speed thrashing and vigorous battering ahead of you. At least until the end, when I indulged something very different, for people who don’t want to thrash their reproductive organs off today or otherwise get their craniums fractured and their grey matter whipped up in a centrifuge. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SHORES OF NULL — “AN EASY WAY” (AND A REVIEW OF “LATITUDES OF SORROW”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 222025
 

(written by Islander)

Latitudes of Sorrow is a new five-song split featuring the music of two bands whose past music has garnered substantial praise both here and elsewhere: Convocation from Helsinki and Shores of Null from Rome. The esteemed Everlasting Spew Records will release the split on November 21st.

At the beginning of this month we had the privilege of premiering one of Convocation’s compelling songs from the split, “Empty Room,” and now we’re following that with the premiere of “An Easy Way” by Shores of Null. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: THE STONE, NIMBIFER, SYLLOGOMANIA, RAAT, ANAGNEIA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 192025
 

(written by Islander)

Only five selections today, but there’s still a lot here — three EP-length records and a complete album, in addition to a lead-off song by a respected Balkan band from their next full-length. (Having more time to pursue my own perfidious activities is one silver lining to the personal cloud of enduring my wife’s absence while she’s off partying with one of her two sisters in Nevada this weekend.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WILD BEYOND, FELL RUIN, OF WOLVES, TENEBRIS, BELL WITCH & AERIAL RUIN, SOULFRACTURE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 182025
 

(written by Islander)

Life outside the doors of NCS reminded me again that there is life outside the doors of NCS. Which is to say that unforeseen occurrences pushed back the time I wanted to spend listening to and writing about new metal for this roundup, so I’m late finishing it. No need to go into detail but, well, a baseball playoff game last night and needing to get my wife to an early ferry boat this morning had something to do with it.

There’s no baseball playoff games today and my spouse is now out of town, just me and the cats holding down the homestead, so there’s a decent chance I’ll have a more on-time roundup of black(ish) metal ready for tomorrow. As for today’s selections, I think they’ll keep you off-balance as you move through them. Continue reading »

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).

Continue reading »

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

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

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
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.”

Continue reading »

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