(Andy Synn goes all in on the unforgettable new album from Monosphere, out Friday)
If yesterday was all about turning OFF your brain and cranking UP the volume (and the violence) – check out my review of the new album from Acranius for more info on that – then today is all about getting those synapses firing on all cylinders again with the latest slab of cerebral-yet-crushing Prog Metal from Monosphere.
(written by Islander)
Atlantic Ridge is the brainchild of Italian artist Giuseppe Emanuele Frisone, who will be known to our site’s visitors (and many others) as the person behind such heavy musical projects as Thecodontion and Clactonian. We’re told that the ideas for Atlantic Ridge came to him as long ago as 2019, and then took shape through years of work, with the help of the band’s second member instrumentalist Jacopo Gianmaria Pepe (from the progressive rock/death metal outfit Bedsore).
At last, Atlantic Ridge will have their self-titled debut album co-released in April by Void Wanderer Productions and Dusktone. The labels describe the music as “blending elements of atmospheric black metal and funeral doom metal passages”, evoking “alternatively rich atmospheres and desolate soundscapes”, and recalling “the immersive spirit of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room or Altar of Plagues, combined with the majestic heaviness of early Ahab.”
The album’s conceptual framework is also intriguing. Each of the six songs as we received them includes a parenthetical subtitle which points to a far-flung and mysterious locale on the Earth’s surface, which is consistent with the labels’ further description of the album as one that “represents both a physical and spiritual journey: a descent into the unknown, chasing the idea of reaching to the world’s farthest edges.”
What we’re bringing you today is the premiere of the first song to be revealed from Atlantic Ridge, “Our Faith Is Our Strength (Tristan Da Cunha)“. Continue reading »
(Prepare for a fascinating interview by our Comrade Aleks of one or more members of the Italian duo Diespnea, focusing on their also-fascinating album of avant-garde black metal that was released last month.)
Anonymous avant-garde black metal entity Diespnea, based in Southern Italy, is here with their new full-length album Radici (Roots). Released by code666/Aural Music on the 13th of February, this work is based on traditional black metal concepts mixed with universal “southern” atmosphere. These specific features appear in many forms, starting from a distinctive tribal chant and atmosphere of Amazonian beliefs and finishing with the authentic atmosphere of trance-inducing Mescaline rituals.
This anthropological black metal is grim, mysterious, and psychedelic to some degree, and Diespnea seems to found their unique identity. But let’s let Diespnea speak for themselves — here’s an interview with the band’s member(s). Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
I always relish the opportunity to brandish the often bizarre and blood-curdling artwork of Paolo Girardi at the top of our site, and as you can see, we’ve seized the opportunity to do that again today.
This ghastly painting also happens to be a literal representation of the title of the album that it adorns — Rotting on a Golden Throne. That album is the fourth full-length from the German high-octane neck-wreckers Zerre, which is now set for release by Dying Victims Productions on March 27th.
What we have for you today is an official video for the new album’s explosive title song. But before we get to it, here’s the label’s preview of what the new album brings us: Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
We are now about to present a song that’s furious and frightening, a beastly manifestation whose formidable sonic and emotional powers are compulsive at a visceral level.
This song, “He Keeps Forgetting“, is the first to be revealed from a new album named Entangled by the Swedish band Since The Death, which existed as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Oscar Rask since beginning in 2016 (joined by various guest musicians on different releases) but has now expanded in a way that will bring Since The Death on stage for the first time this year.
Entangled also marks the band’s first record on the Norwegian label Nordic Mission Records, which has set Entangled for release on April 24th. As the label describes, “Musically, Since The Death operate at a fierce intersection of death metal, thrash, and black metal, fusing aggression with precision and atmosphere while maintaining a careful balance between cohesion and contrast.” Continue reading »
(Andy Synn says get ready to turn off your brains and turn up the volume with Acranius)
It’s pretty well-established that we tend to favour music of the more cerebral and artistic type… while still, for the most part, being heavy as hell… here at NCS.
In fact, it’s almost become something of a running joke (just take a glance at any handful of my most recent reviews, such as the artful blackened beauty of Miserere Luminis, the abrasive, pitch-black anarchism of Trespasser, or the complex Prog-Tech contortions of Cryptic Shift) that the older we get the more “progressive” (or “pretentious”) our tastes are getting.
But there’s a time and a place for proggy pretensions and artsy indulgence… and this is not one of those times.
(Here we have DGR’s review of the latest album from Exhumed, which is out now on Relapse Records.)
When you start writing you assume you won’t ever be on the journalistic “beat” of some bands, yet somehow you seem to fall into a routine and over time wind up covering their releases far more than you’d expect. For this writer, Bay Area death metal veterans Exhumed are one such band. Such a long-running hallmark of an act isn’t one you’d expect to be continually checking in with, as they’ve been able to develop a large enough catalogue of music that they could coast for a lifetime bouncing between albums they put out up to a decade ago.
Yet the crew behind Exhumed remain fiercely creative and infected with an inability to sit still for even a second, spreading themselves far and wide among a baker’s dozen of projects and even then still finding time to launch the occasional new one, and then somehow after all of that… loop back around to Exhumed. Even when they share lineups among other different projects, it seems that the foundational spirit of the band still calls to them as something to be unified around. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
“Hailing from Jølster, Norway, Nifrost return with a masterful display of melodic and epic black metal. Following the well-received Blykrone and Orkja, it is now time for Briseld. Once again, the legacy of Windir and the seeds planted by Enslaved and Borknagar have borne fruit in a new collection of songs.”
And that is how the Dusktone label begins to introduce Briseld, which is now set for release on March 20th. As a truly soul-stirring example of what the album brings listeners, today we premiere its second single, “Livskraft”. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
On April 17th Transcending Obscurity Records will release the third album by the doom-laden Mexican black metal band Muerto. Its evocative name is Eclipsed Realms — evocative because the music itself seems to transport listeners into un-real realms of perpetual shadow, there to be overcome by an array of harrowing and haunting experiences.
Two songs from the album have been previously revealed, and today we bring you a third one — “Wilderness“. Continue reading »
photo by Lars Gunnar Liestøl
(On April 3rd Season of Mist will release a new album by Norway’s Green Carnation as the second installment in a three-album trilogy. Our Comrade Aleks discussed the first installment with vocalist Kjetil Nordhus last fall, and now we present a second more recent discussion between them which focuses on the new record — and includes lots more news, as well as a stream of a brand new second single from the new album, “I Am Time“, that’s premiering today.)
As you remember, the Norwegian veteran progressive band Green Carnation returned after a significant hiatus in autumn 2025 with an announcement of the trilogy A Dark Poem. As A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia was discussed in our interview here with the band’s vocalist Kjetil Nordhus four months ago, we sequentially follow the plan and provide a new one focused on the trilogy’s second part, A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis.
The band’s initial plan was to create three different albums which would complement each other, and until now it seems like everything goes according the plan. At least Sanguis follows closely to The Shores of Melancholia and yet provides some new ideas and quite a refreshing experience. Continue reading »