AN NCS PREMIERE: BURNING DEATH — “DEATH IS SALVATION”

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Nov 102025
 

(written by Islander)

You’re about to imagine what it would be like to catch fire and cavort with devils, to throw caution to the winds and spin like a tornado of flame while bouncing off demon bodies in Hell’s own mosh pit.

That’s one way of trying to capture the experience of “Death In Salvation,” an absolutely electrifying and evil-minded song off the self-titled debut album of Burning Death, an infernal thrash outfit from Nashville, Tennessee, which is now set for release on December 5th by Caligari Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAGETISSE — “TO WITHER BENEATH THY RADIANCE”

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Nov 102025
 

(written by Islander)

For approximately 35 years the Dutch artist Maurice de Jong (aka Mories) has been churning out music as if his life depended on it (and we can infer that it probably does). This morning a count of his endeavors at Metal-Archives shows 45 current or past bands through which he has released music over that span of years.

The ones best known from that list are probably Gnaw Their Tongues, Cloak of Altering, and De Magia Veterum, but we should not lose sight of Hagetisse, one of the arguably more “traditional” of his musical vehicles, the tradition being strains of black metal rooted in the ’90s — witness the fact that Void Wanderer Productions recommends the newest Hagetisse album for fans of Ulver, Emperor, and Obtained Enslavement.

That new album, an 8-song affair, is titled To Wither Beneath Thy Radiance, and to help spread the word about it we’re premiering its title song today. Continue reading »

ASTRONOID – STARGOD

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Nov 102025
 

(Andy Synn continues our unexpected love affair with Astronoid on their new album, out now)

It’s funny to think about it – especially given the name of our site (which, again, should be taken with at least a pinch of salt and tongue firmly planted in cheek) but we’ve been supporters of whatever it is that Astronoid do (Post-Rock? Post-Metal? Prog-Pop?) for a long time now.

Heck, if you go all the way back to their time as Vattnet (formerly Vattnet Viskar) then our shared history goes back even further… and while that history hasn’t always been smooth sailing (I still stand by my opinion that their 2019 self-titled was a big let-down after their absolutely stunning first album) we’ve always tried to encourage our readers to give the band’s distinct, yet oddly divisive, sound a chance.

That being said, there’s a couple of things you need to bear in mind before giving Stargod a listen.

The first of which is that Stargod is not Air, and shouldn’t be judged as such (in fact one of the biggest mistakes you can make, whether as a reviewer or just as a listener, is to judge an album based entirely on what it’s not, rather than what it actually is… or, at the very least, what it’s trying to be).

And the second is that if you weren’t a fan of Astronoid prior to this, well, there’s a pretty good chance that Stargod won’t change your mind about that… in fact, if anything, the band’s decision to not only double-down on certain aspects of their sound (their self-appellated brand of “Dream Thrash” always been more Coheed and Cambria than Carcass and Coroner, and that’s even more apparent this time around) but to also give their early 80s Synth-Pop influences (think Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, etc) even more prominence will probably be a deal-breaker for anyone of a more musically “conservative” bent.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give the album a try if you’re curious… I just want to make sure you’re in the right headspace to appreciate it, and aren’t caught by surprise by what you’re going to hear.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PSICOSFERA, VARMIA, KREYLL, FLOWERS OF RUST, VACUA, HAKLA

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Nov 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Like yesterday, I got a late start on today’s column, due to festivities with spouse and some new friends last night. Like yesterday’s column, this one includes more full-length releases than normal (alternating with some single songs), and I only have time enough to offer some impressionistic thoughts about them rather than carefully thought-out reviews.

My overarching impression is that most of what you’re about to hear sounds… possessed. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, ZADISM, ZAKAZ, ZEIT, ZMEY GORYNICH, JOROGUMO, CHRIS GEBAUER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 082025
 

(written by Islander)

Welp, I got another very late start on this Saturday. Of course, for most well-adjusted people Saturday is made for getting late starts. Not being well-adjusted, I get anxious when it happens, nervously staring at the clock and realizing I have to hurry or I won’t get roundups like this one finished in time for anyone in quadrants east of here to pay attention before sundown.

Enough of that. I should use my diminishing time to introduce the large handful of things I picked for today’s recommendations, including the semi-usual curveball at the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MIND PRISONER — “GRADIENT”

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Nov 072025
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to premiere a song from Mind Prisoner, a PDX-launched band (now divided between Oregon and South Carolina) that continues to seize our attention around here, and should seize yours. But first, a bit of history for those of you who might be encountering their music for the first time.

Following a handful of demos and an EP, the band released their debut album The Color of Ruin about 11 months ago. Our Andy Synn wrote that it “made one hell of an impression” on him after finally hearing it, using “an array of Black Metal, Post-Black Metal, and Blackened Doom influences” to create experiences that were “dark and desolate,” “bleak yet beautiful,” “bitter” and “biting,” “terrifying” and “tormented.” He closed by suggesting “that Mind Prisoner haven’t even reached the peak of their powers yet, and we should all make sure to watch this Portland-based pair very closely in the future!”

What the future then brought was a new single released on October 1st this year named “Years Gone,” the first excerpt from Mind Prisoner’s forthcoming second album Less Faith. It signaled a shift in the band’s stylistic ingredients, previewed by their label as “post-black metal with elements of doom, post-punk, and gothic rock.” It hooked this writer right damned fast. Allow me to repeat what I banged out very soon after hearing it (as if you had a choice in the matter!): Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KAOSOPHIA — “FUNERAL OF THE GODS”

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Nov 072025
 

(written by Islander)

The Ukrainian black metal band Kaosophia released their last album, Serpenti Vortex, a long eight-plus years ago. In attempting to describe the music here, we used such words and phrases as “tyrannical and magisterial, doom-shrouded and savage, hallucinatory and harrowing,” a union of “blood-rushing energy and brain-twisting psychosis” but music that was also capable of creating “an atmosphere of mythic, warlike grandeur”.

At last, Kaosophia are now returning, with a new album named Beyond the Black Horizon that’s set for release on December 12th by the UK label Serpent Sun Records. The first single from the album, “Funeral of the Gods“, is the subject of the video we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

VAELRAVYN: “THE VEIL” AND “SUN GOD”

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 072025
 

(In this feature our friend Vizzah Harri shares his thoughts about two singles this year released by the Tennessee collective Vaelravyn.)

Wikipedia lists nearly 150 sun gods throughout human history, roughly 17%, or 26 of them, are Filipino in origin. Interesting fact number one, The Philippines have around 1000 deities listed on the page for Filipino mythological figures. Way more water gods than lords of light, wonder why? Must be wet there or something, perhaps they don’t even have a word for drought? They do, it’s ‘tagtuyot’. Absent father jokes aside, I lost count at around 981 seeing, as I refuse to use LLM’s, and Wikipedia lists both mortals and immortals in their mythological figures of The Philippines article, and quite a few of the gods like Diwati aka D’wata and Kabunyan aka Kabunian crossbred across islands and waterways putting Zeus to shame, so the actual number of gods is hard to count.

Fact number two, if your name is Alan, I have only known two in my life and they both left impressions on me of being pure souls that took life by the horns and lived it to the full, but if your first or last name is Alan, you might want to go read that Wikipedia article up there cos you might get some weird looks if you ever decide to visit the wonderful country of The Philippines. Of the two gods with that name I spotted, one was a shapeshifting corpse thief and the other one a cannibal; someone needed to do the honest work of scouring the internet to make a weirdly adjacent point after all.

I’ve been in Vietnam too long, and one complaint I’ve often heard from students when they bemoan one of their most hated subjects, literature, is that the authors always had this wild-goose-chase tactic in their storylines, going all around the forest to come back to the tree of import. Guess it rubbed off on me. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE GLOOMY RADIANCE OF THE MOON — “TO SURRENDER TO THE ETERNAL”

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Nov 062025
 

(written by Islander)

The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon is a Dutch solo project whose third album in three years will be released tomorrow (November 7th) by the Dusktone label, which introduces it with these words:

With its extremely long, descriptive track and album titles, with the mystery surrounding the identity of the creator but most of all with a new, cosmic, symphonic and pensive black metal album called As The Stars Shatter in Agony. Once again, The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon delivers a powerful, overtly theatrical and keyboard-driven take on black metal demonstrating the Nineties have not been forgotten at all.

The album consists of eight songs, and what we have for you today in advance of the album’s release is its second single, “To Surrender To the Eternal” — a song that manages to be both magnificent and mystical, violent and harrowing, heart-broken and haunting, and perhaps unexpectedly but undeniably poignant. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ØRB — “GHOST KEY”

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Nov 062025
 

(written by Islander)

Ørb is the melodic death metal project of English/Danish solo artist Karl Koch. Ørb’s debut album is a concept record wrapped around a dystopian sci-fi theme that focuses on a very real and urgent phenomenon, described by Ørb as follows:

The full-length album follows a lone resistance figure in a dystopian future where humanity teeters on the brink of extinction under the omnipotent grasp of The Nexus – an advanced AI network that has reduced humanity to obedient cogs in a machine-driven existence. Armed only with unwavering principles and the history of humankind, this stoic survivor embarks on a perilous journey to challenge the AI overlord.

The album’s narrative arc traces a revolt that may be liberation—or only another loop in the machine. Central questions drive the work: Can fate be overcome? What remains of human identity when autonomy is stripped away? Does a belief in determinism empower or limit us? These aren’t abstract philosophical exercises—they’re survival questions in an age where AI increasingly shapes human experience.

The project stands with one boot in tomorrow’s wasteland and one in the world we already feel tightening around us, creating a parable about resistance that resonates beyond the boundaries of extreme metal.

What we have for you today is the premiere of the first single from this forthcoming album, a song named “Ghost Key“. Here is how the song fits into the album’s narrative arc: Continue reading »

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