AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GJALLARHORN’S WRATH — “A SILENT SCREAM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 012025
 

(written by Islander)

The Barcelona-based extreme metal band Gjallarhorn’s Wrath trace their roots to the Spanish atmospheric black metal band Oblivion, which was founded in 2001. After making a strong mark, that earlier group disbanded, but in time the core members reunited. With the addition of vocalist Alex, Lord Ashler moved to bass, Javi Iron returned to handle drums, keys, and composition, and Arash continued as lead guitarist.

Under the name Gjallarhorn’s Wrath, they have recorded a debut album entitled The Silver Key that’s set for release by Non Serviam Records on September 5th. As the label explains, the album blends “the raw aggression of blackened death metal with the grandeur of orchestral and cinematic elements”.

Last month we hosted the premiere of a transfixing video for a sonic spectacle from The Silver Key named “Wiccan Wyrd“, and today we follow that with another riveting video. This one presents the album’s second single, “A Silent Scream“. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 185): AZURE EMOTE

 THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Aug 012025
 

Recommended for fans of: The Monolith Deathcult, Sigh, The Project Hate

Some people get a little mad when you make too many (or, in some cases, any) references to other bands when writing an article like this.

But when you’re dealing with a group whose creative palette is as wide as this one – the band themselves cite, in addition to the artists mentioned above, the likes of Arcturus, Atheist, Edge of Sanity, Thy Catafalque, and many more, as influences – it’s pretty much unavoidable.

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the Avant-Garde/Progressive “Death Metal” of Azure Emote, a band whose main songwriter is actually their vocalist/keyboardist (Mike Hrubovcak, ex-Monstrosity) which perhaps goes some way towards explaining their more unusual and unorthodox approach to extremity!

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RINTRAH — “THE TORRID CLIME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 312025
 

(written by Islander)

This coming Bandcamp Friday will bring the release by Fiadh Productions of the debut album from an unusual musical collaboration that has taken the name Rintrah. That album, The Torrid Clime, pays tribute to Romantic period art, poetry, and music (circa 1798-1837). It does that in part by drawing the songs’ lyrics from classical pieces by Romantic era poets, presented unaltered and unabridged. The themes include “finding the true God in nature, the sense of the primordial as channeled through the self, nostalgia for the past, and using fantasy as a tool to reshape dissatisfactions with reality”.

The participants in Rintrah include Otrebor (Botanist, ex-Lotus Thief) on drums and vocals, Arsenio Santos (Howling Sycamore) on bass, and William DuPlain (aka Cynoxylon, ex-Botanist) on lead vocals — and guitars were composed and recorded by classical musician Justin Collins.

Yesterday we published an interview with Justin about how Rintrah and the music became a reality. We’ll use parts of that interview as reference points again today, but the main subject now is the music itself, a genre-bending and time-traveling experience that you’ll now be able to enjoy in its entirety. Continue reading »

THE ABCs OF REPRESSION — TWO SINGLES AND AN EP BY ZNOUS AND TRANSGRESSIVE

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 312025
 

(The following essay and its Appendix were written by our South Africa-born and Vietnam-located contributor Vizzah Harri.)

This is not going to be an easy read. If you are triggered by words that end in -isms, especially abstract concepts that have real-world consequences on the life and liquidation of innocents, you know, the ignorant kind, then you won’t get further than the next paragraph.

Abusive, brainwashed, callous.

Archaic bellicose construct.

Avaricious bloodsucking cowards.

Abhorrently bootlicking chauvinists.

The ABCs of Repression Fascism

“كانت يديه تضفر أحشاء الكاهن

، إذا لم يكن لديه حبل ، لخنق الملوك”

“וידיו היו קולעות את מעי הכהן,

בהיעדר חבל, לחנוק מלכים”

“And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails,

For want of a rope, to strangle kings.”

 – alternative translations of the infamous Denis Diderot quote. Continue reading »

CTHULUMINATI: “TENTACULA”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 312025
 

(In March of this year the Dutch avant-garde metal band Cthuluminati released Tentacula, a Faustian concept album about Thomas, an illusionist who was granted his power through a most nefarious deal with the ancient deity Tentacula, and Thomas’ subsequent (and unsuccessful) efforts to expose the truth and make amends. Our writer DGR developed a “weird fascination” for the record, and he attempts to explain why in the following review.)

Waste Of Space Orchestra‘s one full-length album Syntheosis came out six years ago, yet I think about it constantly. Syntheosis is an album that I think serves as a prime personal example of being fascinating while at the same time it is so far either ahead of me or just off the beaten path of my musical sphere that I just don’t fully get it. It challenges me on a listening level but at the same time I’m not sure after listening to it that I’ve ever enjoyed myself – yet I am happy that it exists as a reflection of heavy metal’s ambition as well as its mark on the overall art of the genre.

For every painting of recognizable pop art and soup cans, we need our avant-garde weirdos whose ambition far outstrips either the listener’s abilities or the musicians’ own. With no one willing to poke and prod at musical boundaries we’re left with nothing but an already well-laid-out playground and recognizable throughways. Eventually, everything becomes musical suburbia with the same nuclear family and picket fence, with nothing left for us to discuss other than who is fucking who.

The Netherlands gifted us an album of a similar vein a few months back in the form of Cthuluminati and their newest release Tentacula. While far less meditative, psychedelics-obsessed, and psychosis-inducing than the aforementioned art-project (though not by much), I have found that I am weirdly fascinated with Tentacula for much the same reasons. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RINTRAH

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Rintrah is an unusual musical collaboration whose lineup consists of Otrebor (Botanist, ex-Lotus Thief) on drums and vocals, Arsenio Santos (Howling Sycamore) on bass, William DuPlain (aka Cynoxylon, ex-Botanist) on vocals, and acoustic classical guitarist Justin Collins. They describe Rintrah as a project “that pays tribute to Romantic period art, poetry, and music (circa 1798-1837),” in part by drawing their lyrics from “classical pieces by Romantic era poets, presented unaltered and unabridged.”

Last year we premiered Rintrah‘s debut demo (here), and we also wrote about another demo track that came out later in the year (here). Those were rough versions of four songs that will appear in their final form, along with seven more songs, on Rintrah‘s debut album The Torrid Clime.

That album will be released on this coming Bandcamp Friday, August 1st, via Fiadh Productions, and pre-orders by the label and the band are starting today. Tomorrow we will premiere a full stream of the album with a review, and we’re including one of the new songs (“In Tempests”) at the end of this article.

To help pave the way to these events, I interviewed Justin Collins to delve deeper into how Rintrah came to be, and how the music was made. That discussion follows, illustrated with paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and one by Julius von Leypold (excerpts of some of these appear in the booklet accompanying the album). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLACK ALTAR — “IN THE LABYRINTHS OF SITRA ACHRA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 302025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish black metal band Black Altar, spearheaded by its leader Shadow, have been releasing music since 1998, assembling a discography that now includes two albums, a large assortment of splits, EPs, and singles, and two compilation records. Their most recent release is a three-way split named Drakonian Elitism from January 2024 that also includes music by Ofermod and Acherontas.

Black Altar contributed four tracks to that nearly hour-long release, including “In the Labyrinths of Sitra Achra“, which is the subject of the lyric video we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

FERAL LORD – WUNJO

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 302025
 

(Andy Synn takes a look at the new album from Feral Lord, out this Friday)

As you may know, it’s a common complaint of ours that there’s just so much music released each and every week/month/year that it’s impossible for us to keep up with it all, not matter how hard we try.

What you may not know, however, is that Jared Moran (aka Plaguehammer, aka Cave Ritual, aka Ionnonnisssz, etc) has been more responsible than most for us falling ever further behind the curve, such is the frequency and profligacy of his output.

Sure, we’ve covered a number of his projects before – including, but not limited to, the likes of Zvylpwkua, Acausal Intrusion, Hierarchies (whose debut album was released earlier this year), Vertebrae Fetish Totem (whose new record was also released a few months back, though we haven’t covered it yet), Out of the Mouth of Graves, and, of course, Feral Lord – but we’ve still barely scratched the surface of his discography.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying though… and with the upcoming release of Wunjo (though you can stream and purchase it right now) we’re able to add another successful review to our catalogue of criticism.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OCCULSED — “HEINOUS PULSE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 292025
 

(written by Islander)

This makes our sixth premiere of music from the Atlanta-area death metal band Occulsed since the start of 2021. In those past features we’ve described their music as “a filthy discharge of clobbering and eviscerating madness.” We’ve called it “grotesque,” “putrid,” “abysmal,” and “abhorrent.” We’ve highlighted the band’s talent “for creating electrifying visions of horror and disease, of madness and mayhem, and of blood-freezing intrusions from spectral realms.”

We’ve also asserted that the music is “is both predatory and hopeless, noxious and deranged, horrifyingly imperious and seemingly gleeful in its deviant revels,” but “so well-constructed and maliciously well-realized that it becomes addictive (as well as foul).”

Now we get a chance to try to cook up further ways of describing just how punishing and paranormal the music of Occulsed really is. They have a new album named Antegnosis coming our way in September via Everlasting Spew Records, and we have a song from it coming your way right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HUMANITY ZERO — “FORGIVENESS DEVOURED”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jul 292025
 

(written by Islander)

The musical evolution of the Greek band Humanity Zero continues. In its early phases and continuing through many albums the band embraced death metal in the vein of such bands as Death, Hypocrisy, Unleashed, Nile, and Immolation. By the time of the 2017 album Withered In Isolation, the reference points included My Dying Bride, Tiamat, Amorphis, Katatonia, and Ophis. The movement in a doomed direction was even more pronounced on the following album Proselytism as the music became slower still and even more nightmarish.

And now Humanity Zero brings us their sixth album, Cursed Be The Gift Of Life. It comes almost seven years after Proselytism. Think of what has happened to the world during those seven years, and maybe you can begin to guess about the direction of this band’s new music.

But there’s no need for guesswork: As a tangible sign of what those long intervening years have wrought in Humanity Zero‘s increasingly frightening and doomed musical interests, today we premiere a song from the new album named “Forgiveness Devoured“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries