NO CLEAN SINGING

DARVAZA: “WE ARE HIM”

Dec 102025

(We present Daniel Barkasi’s review of. new album by the international black metal band Darvaza, released last week by Terratur Possessions. Band photography by Necroshorns.)

When attempting to think of an active band who embodies the essence of what black metal is, can, and should be, the name Darvaza should be at the forefront of thought.

Harnessing the tried-and-true of the genre’s originators, while imposing their own devilish defiance and musical ideals, the two-piece has blazed their own path since their 2015 EP The Downward Descent, and since have steadily cemented their place in the pantheon of darkness. Ascending into Perdition in 2022 set a high marker for the band, especially impressive with that being their first full-length – a release that even the most skeptical approve of without hesitation.

At long last, the wait for the eagerly anticipated album number two is at an end, with We are Him ready to be unleashed. With the weight of expectation hanging overhead, the question is if Darvaza can continue delivering as they have. No pressure.

2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GOOD

LISTMANIA 2025 13 Responses »

Dec 092025

(Today we have Andy Synn‘s mammoth second article rounding up the year that was 2025)

As we get into the real meat of “List Week” it’s probably worth stating a few things up front, for the sake of clarity if nothing else.

First off, none of these lists are a traditional “Best Of…” (the only one that’s actually ranked is my “Personal Top Ten” and that’s solely an issue of personal preference), rather they’re meant to be viewed, and used, as a curated catalogue of links and recommendations designed to help our readers catch up on some of what they may have otherwise missed over the last twelve-ish months.

Secondly, note that I said “some“, because that’s a pretty important point that might need re-affirming… since these lists (the “Disappointing”, the “Good”, and the “Great”) are neither definitive nor comprehensive in any way.

In fact, if anything, it feels like my listening habits have diverged even further from what’s “on trend” than usual since January, meaning that – either due to a lack of time or a lack of interest – you won’t be seeing some of the bigger names that have appeared elsewhere (Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration, Lonely People With Power, Viribus Unitis, Hideous Aftermath, The Hardest Thing About Being God…, etc) on any of my lists this year.

To be clear, I’m not trying to say that I have the most eclectic/esoteric tastes in the world – there’s more than enough other writers out there claiming to have listened to 500 different albums every month that I wouldn’t dare try and compete with them – nor am I trying to “show off” how much I’ve listened to this year (I think I actually ended up hearing fewer full-length releases in 2025 than I did in 2024).

But I do think that you’re probably going to find at least some stuff here you won’t have seen featured much elsewhere (not by the bigger sites, anyway) and while I’m not saying everything here is “great” (that is what tomorrow’s “Great” list is for, after all) it’s all worth checking out, at least, because you never know what sorts of hidden gems you might uncover.

PS – as always, I’ve tried to break up the list into distinct/discreet sections, highlighting a few releases here and there which I think are deserving of specific attention, and have provided links for every album here!!

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE SECOND FOVEA — “CLAWS OF BENGAL”

Premieres No Responses »

Dec 092025

(written by Islander)

Today we’re touching base again (for the seventh time in the last four years) with The Second Fovea, a band originally birthed in India but whose members are currently spread among the U.S., India, and Canada.

Two of their previous singles which were the subject of all those previous writings focused upon wildlife — manta rays and snakes – but all of their songs, including those two, have carried socio-political messages, and most directly in the song “Headshot”, which was a potent condemnation of racism and hate crimes across the globe.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for a new single from the group, and as you can see, it’s devoted to Bengal tigers, and more specifically (as the band tell us), it’s “dedicated to the legendary Bengal Tigers of the Sundarbans in India — the world’s largest mangrove forest and one of the last remaining strongholds for this endangered species.” Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE PART TWO: BRUTALITY

Album Reviews No Responses »

Dec 092025

(This is the second Part of what projects to be four record-review collections by DGR — collections of multiple reviews that are shorter by his standards than what you usually see from him — all of them intended to clear his slate in preparation for year-end lists to come.)

Part Two of this completely out of control yet still well-intentioned slate clearing comes to us as the result of yours truly realizing that a lot of his review collective consisted of some pretty overwhelming death metal albums.

On top of this, there’s still more but they’re being shuffled around as best I can because even then there were still one or two “surprise motherfucker!” late additions to the list that, in this case, served as good balance to the meteor impact albums that otherwise comprise this fucking monster of a collection. Knuckle dragging and neck snapping walk hand in hand among this collection, save for one surprisingly introspective battering in the middle, and it only clears the way for an even more steady pile of music to follow… and we haven’t even descended into the year end list depravity yet.

Send help. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FOSSILIZATION — “CREMATION OF A SERAPH”

Premieres No Responses »

Dec 082025

(written by Islander)

It is with terrible delight today that we help announce a new album by the tremendous Brasilian death/doom band Fossilization. It bears the name Advent of Wounds, and it’s set for release on February 13th by the ever-tasteful Everlasting Spew Records. The label rightly describes it as “a work of sheer ferocity and oppressive gloom” — “bleak, crushing and claustrophobic”, “a summoning of despair that drags the listener into a chasm where brutality and anguish entwine.”

In its current configuration, Fozzilization is still principally the work of V. (voices, guitars, bass) from the sludge/death/doom metal band Jupiterian, but now joined by guitarist Z. Before we get to the main subject of this post — our premiere of the first advance song from Advent of Wounds — we want to share a statement by V. about this new album: Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE PART I: THE ADVENTUROUS (DESSIDERIUM, OMNIVIDE, MECHINA)

Album Reviews No Responses »

Dec 082025

(This is the first Part of what projects to be four record-review collections by DGR — collections of multiple reviews that are shorter by his standards than what you usually see from him — all of them intended to clear his slate in preparation for year-end lists to come.)

Here’s how this happens: Inevitably at some point in November, year-end lists start dropping and the reality of the fact that the year is ending suddenly feels more “real”. The compulsion to cover everything begins to vanish and the compulsion to grid everything instead becomes stronger, yet the same imagined debts to bands that you’ve been listening to throughout the year remains.

I swore up and down this year that I wouldn’t do many articles like this and I like to pretend I held to that promise. If I intended to review a band, they received the full investment and treatment, rarely broken out into these articles where the reviews are a little more freeform, freeflowing, and more casually written. It was meant to reflect that I was taking time with these bands, which is why articles like this one tend to frustrate me. For the reader they’re an obvious blessing, given that it’s a much quicker series of recommendations, but it’s a gap I can’t mentally jump just yet. Continue reading »

2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE DISAPPOINTING

LISTMANIA 2025 17 Responses »

Dec 082025

(Andy Synn kicks off his annual week-long take-over of the site with a round-up of albums that he couldn’t, in good conscience, include in either his “Good” or “Great” lists)

Webster’s Dictionary defines “disappointing” as “failing to meet expectations“… and that’s what we’re here to talk about today, not the albums we don’t like, not the artists we hate (there’s more than enough room for that sort of negativity elsewhere on the internet, I’m sure), but those releases from 2025 which just didn’t quite make the cut this year.

And let me be clear about something, every one of these artists/albums featured here today is one that I was either already a fan of, or was hoping to become a fan of, prior to each of these releases, so what I’m not looking for is for people to use this as an excuse simply to bash bands, or their fans, just because they’ve got some weird grudge against them.

Rather, this is a place for us to express our sense of disappointment, to air our feelings about those artists/albums who failed to live up to our standards (or, indeed, their own), so that we can move on to better, brighter things over the next few days as I round-up all the “Good” and “Great” albums I’d like you all to check out (if you haven’t done so already).

Before then, however, prepare yourselves… the only way out is through!

SHADES OF BLACK: SODALITY, GORRCH, THE RUINS OF BEVERAST, SAINTE OBYANA DU FROID

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

Dec 072025

(written by Islander)

Greetings on another Sunday morning. As you can see, I have only four selections to recommend for today, but that’s mainly because two of them are complete albums just released on Friday, and thus it took me some time to get immersed in those and try to wrestle my thoughts about them into some kind of order. I’ve positioned those two as bookends around singles from two forthcoming albums.

I can’t say these choices were the kind that put me in a fugue state. Each one is very different from the others, and the shifts are pretty dramatic, maybe especially the changes wrought by the last one, the debut release of a band I knew nothing about before listening (unlike the first three). But I think you’ll also discover a kind of through-line that ties all four selections together, and I’ll touch on that as we go.

As always, I hope at least one of the four, if not all four, will resonate with you in some powerful way. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NECROFIER, CONSUMPTION, EXIMPERITUS, DER ROTE MILAN, SMEARING, MARTIRIO

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

Dec 062025

(written by Islander)

For you music lovers out there who just crawled out from under a rock, yesterday was a Bandcamp Friday, the last one of 2025. During those 24 hours we received more than 300 e-mails in the NCS in-box, at least half of them Bandcamp alerts, and that’s not counting the flood of digital traffic that rolled in the day before. Many of the messages were about music that had just been released.

I figure I have about a 50/50 success rate in getting new-music roundups posted on Bandcamp Fridays, which for obvious reasons would be an ideal time for them. Yesterday goes in the failure column. Just couldn’t get it done yesterday, what with other distractions getting in the way and the desirability of allowing Andy Synn’s list-week pre-launch to be our last post of the work-week.

I do feel guilty, but would have felt guilty anyway: Even rounding up a handful of new songs yesterday wouldn’t have made a very big dent in the wall of new tracks that slammed down this past week. Today’s roundup is just a modest dent too, but hopefully sufficient to start your weekend off with a dented skull. As usual, I’ll attempt to do additional cranial denting (of a more consistently blackened variety) tomorrow. Continue reading »

2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): SHORT BUT SWEET

LISTMANIA 2025 2 Responses »

Dec 052025

(Andy Synn kicks off “List Week” a little early with a round-up of all the EPs he’s checked out this year)

All going to plan today is Friday 05 December, which means that tomorrow I’m heading to Switzerland for a mini-honeymoon (the proper one will be sometime next year).

Don’t fret though, as while I won’t be “physically” around the site as much I’ll still be taking over NCS entirely next week to publish my annual lists of everything I’ve listened to (enough to have formed a solid opinion, at least) this year, beginning with the “Disappointing” albums on Monday, then the “Good”, “Great”, “Critical Top Ten”, and “Personal Top Ten” (in that order).

Before then, however, I wanted to round-up all the various EPs (and related short-form releases) I managed to get in my ears this year (more than last year, I think, which is always nice), which also includes – at the end of the article – my personal favourites of the year.

As always you’ll find links to stream every single release here – which, I suppose I need to stress, is not in any way a definitive list! – so hopefully at least some of you will have the good sense to bookmark this page and spend some time over the next couple of weeks checking out some very deserving bands!

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