AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAND CADAVER — “DARKENED APATHY”

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Jul 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Not long ago we were musing around here about the emergence of silver linings around the black clouds of death and dissociation that shrouded the world during the covid pandemic. The lockdowns were miserable for many and welcome for some but disruptive for all. They shut down certain species of communal creative activity but spawned others. They forced a suspension of many plans, but by the same token that gave people room to ruminate about how to fill the unexpected open time in their lives.

The Swedish band Grand Cadaver, forged during the 2020 lockdown, was one of those silver linings. It led five old friends from Gothenburg and Stockholm to collectively indulge their shared a love for old-school, HM-2-drenched Swedish death metal: vocalist Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect), guitarist Stefan Lagergren (The Grifted, ex-Treblinka/Tiamat), guitarist Alex Stjernfeldt (Novarupta, CHILD), bassist Christian Jansson (Pagandom, Dark Tranquillity), and drummer Daniel Liljekvist (Disrupted, Vorder, ex-Katatonia).

We’re told that their debut EP, Madness Comes, was recorded in just three days, and it was released in 2021 by Majestic Mountain Records. The band soon followed that with their debut album the same year, Into the Maw of Death. And fortunately for fans like us, Grand Cadaver still weren’t finished, even after the covid clouds passed.

More singles followed, along with a second album (Deities of Deathlike Sleep in 2023), and now Grand Cadaver have a new EP named The Rot Beneath due for release on August 15th via Majestic Mountain, giving us the occasion for the 10th (!) article/review we’ve written about Grand Cadaver since their spawning (the evidence is here). This time we’re premiering a song off the new EP named “Darkened Apathy“. Continue reading »

IN THE COMPANY OF SERPENTS – A CRACK IN EVERYTHING

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Jul 092025
 

(Andy Synn has thoughts to share about the new album from In The Company of Serpents, out Friday)

This genre that we call “Heavy Metal” (including its various more “extreme” and esoteric sub-genres) is a style of music often acutely aware of its own history and legacy (sometimes to its detriment… but that’s a whole other discussion we won’t be having here).

That doesn’t mean that other artists other genres aren’t just as knowledgeable about their past by any means, it’s just worth pointing out that – in my experience, at least – most Metal bands, and most Metal fans, tend to have a deep appreciation for the acts who went before them and paved the way.

What’s less-commonly talked about, however, is the variety of inspirations these self-same seminal names (you know the ones) took from all sorts of other different styles of music – since “Heavy Metal” itself had, of course, yet to be invented (and there’s still some discussion to this day about who really did it “first”) – and the ongoing role these ancestral, pre- or proto-Metal, influences continue to have on the genre to this day.

But this is something you can’t help but consider when listening to the latest album of sludgy, doom-laced grooves and moody, Americana-tinged melodies from In The Company of Serpents.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KRATORNAS — “EVIL AND PLUNDER”

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Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The last time we wrote about the music of the Filipino band Kratornas (here) was in the context of their third album Devoured By Damnation in 2016. In a nutshell, we described it as “an electrifying amalgam of grindcore, raw black metal, thrash, and death metal” that “pours sulfurous satanic hellfire down upon the damned (and everyone else) in a superheated torrent.” And while we summed it up as one of the most raw and wild thrill rides of that year, we also found “impressive intricacy and dynamism in the songs, as well as jaw-dropping technical skill and manifest blood lust.”

Now, more than eight years later, Kratornas is releasing another album. Bearing the name God of the Tribes, it was mastered by none other than Dan Swanö and is set for a CD and digital discharge by Grathila Records in August.

You will probably not guess what has happened to the music of Kratornas. You may also have difficulty stopping your head from spinning off your body as you listen to it. Continue reading »

DEFILED SERENITY: “WITHIN THE SLUMBER OF THE MIND”

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Jul 082025
 

(NCS writer DGR pays a debt today, finally reviewing a debut album released five months ago by Finland’s Defiled Serenity that he’s been enjoying since then.)

Just in time to be late enough for the bus tracks from the public transit we missed to not only fade away but also be paved over again as the street is resurfaced!

Just before we set off on our jet-setting lifestyles that had a block of this website traveling coast to coast in May to take in only the finest vintages of heavy metal on stage, yours truly set out with a machine to absorb an equally large block of the heavy metal that had been released throughout the year in order to queue up the website to always have something to chat about while we were off wandering venue to venue.

The result was a wide snapshot of the world of underground heavy metal as it had existed so far in 2025, a disorganized ball of chaos that didn’t really have much of a throughline existing in it so far. Some years become reflective of society at large, others take after more recent events, but 2025 has been as odd as your more avant-garde wings of an art museum — somewhat unnerving and almost surrealistic horror-movie in that sort of way. Whatever themes may be developing to define this year musically — not socially, we’ve already landed on “hell” there — they just haven’t congealed yet and are almost refusing to do so.

We have, however, landed within a realm of a few amusing statistical blobs for those who love themselves some numbers nerd-ery, such as how it seems a contingent of Finland decided that all of their projects should see a release in some form or another within the first half of this year. Granted, it’s a wide net to be casting but it’s a pattern I’ve been joking about for months now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARALLU — “SIERRA NEVADA”

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Jul 082025
 

(written by Islander)

The long-running Israeli black metal band Arallu has provided the following background information concerning the inspiration for their song “Sierra Nevada” that we’re premiering today through a video:

In September 2003, five hikers set out on a two-week expedition deep into the jungles of Colombia, in search of a mysterious place known as “The Lost City”, an ancient ruin on a jungle-covered mountain hidden high in the Sierra Nevada range.

But what began as an adventure soon turned into a nightmare. One night, while they were asleep in their camp, they were ambushed and kidnapped by the brutal guerrilla group ELN (the “National Liberation Front”). The five were taken from their tents at gunpoint and held hostage under harsh conditions, surrounded by the unforgiving wilderness and the constant threat of death. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FELL OMEN — “BORN TO SIEGE”

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Jul 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Near the very last day of 2024 we hosted the premiere of a song with an arresting (and peculiar) name — “Dungeon Metal Punks Besieging Digital Castles” — presented through a video in which the music was performed by a figure in a suit of medieval armor, who wielded a hurdy-gurdy in the song’s opening. “Bonkers” was one of the words we used to describe the experience. Other words included “wild,” “fantastical,” “sinister,” “something like a hybrid between a battle charge and an exhilarating folk dance, both of them time-traveled from the Middle Ages and envisioned through the lens of a black crystal.”

That song was from Invaded By a Dark Spirit, the debut album of the Greek band Fell Omen, the solo work of one Spider of Pnyx and his first official “metal” release after performing live in dark ambient, neofolk, and noise settings, after contributing to the music of Mystras and Spectral Lore, and after also gaining recognition for crafting intricate cover art under the alias Gilded Panoply for black metal and dungeon synth artists.

We might have speculated that Invaded By a Dark Spirit would be a one-and-done curiosity, but it was received with considerable enthusiasm among listeners and reviewers (including us), and so Fell Omen has thankfully forged onward. Today we happily spread the news that in August True Cult Records will release a second Fell Omen album, this one named Caelid Dog Summer.

And we also happily have for you today the premiere of another Fell Omen video for the album’s first advance track, “Born To Siege“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EMISSARY — “HOBB’S END”

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Jul 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Some emissaries are open about the powers they represent, others are secretive or deceptive or simply misunderstood. The biblical Gabriel made quite clear who he represented. “The prince of the power of the air” had agents who were more secretive about their fiendish missions. We all know that big wooden horse was filled with Greek soldiers, but the Trojans thought it was a parting gift.

The Barcelona band Emissary are open-faced about their musical mission. The name they chose for their debut album — Eldritch — further signifies where they want to lead us: In their music they act as agents of cosmic horrors, beckoning us into “a labyrinth of shadowed realms where the unknown reigns supreme,” guiding us toward “a descent into madness” that “blurs the lines between reality and nightmare”.

Those are among the words offered to listeners on behalf of Fetzner Death Records, which released Eldritch in March of this year. We have some words of our own to offer, along with our premiere of a video for a song off Eldritch called “Hobb’s End“, which we hope will help spread the word of this Emissary to new listeners. Continue reading »

PATRISTIC: “CATECHESIS”

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Jul 072025
 

(What follows is DGR‘s review of the stunning debut album from the Italian band Patristic, out now on Willowtip Records.)

The evolution of black metal as a genre remains as constant as ever. Its grasp is one that artists cannot seem to escape; there is an unholy draw to the offerings of the dramaticism, high-end shrieking, and outwardly reactionary and purposeful abrasiveness of the style. Each person approaches it as if they have something different to lay at its altar (offerings small or large) and thus the genre continues to find itself in a steady yet chaotic rate of high-speed metamorphosis. New ideas are interjected, rejected, stitched onto, and forced into place at times, but all creates this whirling sphere of metal that could eclipse galaxies in utter darkness.

Not every group is original or looking to change the book on things, which is how we’ve wound up with generational views of a genre that is also now well-aged. We’ve codified and crystalized certain styles — hell you could argue some have even ossified to the point of near parody. But the infernal harvest does remain forever fruitful, and whenever an artist you’ve been following for a while decides to take a crack at it, you can’t help but be intrigued.

How does a genre emerge once it is filtered through that particular creature’s viewpoint? Are there changes? Do they seek to just replicate and add to the pile of skulls already creating the throne or are they looking to adapt and bend it to their own ways? Is there a statement to be made in any regard that black metal becomes the only screen through which they push their own music? Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PESTILENTIAL SHADOWS, SEA MOSQUITO, PROFANE ELEGY, CRUENTATION, BEANNACHD LEIBH, MORTE TRIUNFANTE, ROUGAROU

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Jul 062025
 


Pestilential Shadows

(written by Islander)

I’ve been distracted by the tragic flooding in Central Texas, where I grew up. I still have a brother and sister-in-law in that area. Their property has been hit hard, but they are alive and whole, unlike a lot of other people. The rains continue, and so will the death count.

Nothing much I can do about this up here in the Pacific Northwest other than worry and grieve. The music provides a temporary distraction, and even some moments of catharsis. I hope what I picked today will do you some good too. The collection includes five individual songs, an EP, and an album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: JUDAS PRIEST, AMPHISBAENA, FAUNA, SUNKEN MONOLITH, MALPHAS, ABRAHAM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 052025
 


Black Sabbath, 1970, photo by Chris Walter

(written by Islander)

Post Fourth of July, I hope you all still have 10 fingers and are non-concussed. Way up here on the northern rim where the day takes its sweet time slipping away, I didn’t stay awake long enough for the sky to turn and finally become a black backdrop for fireworks. But I did do a modest amount of carousing with friends and family before punching out, so it’s another late start for this Saturday roundup.

I’m beginning with a big dose of nostalgia and then shifting into more current generational directions. In thinking about how I’m beginning and what follows that, the words of Isaac Newton come to mind: “If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (Though in this context what the successors are seeing is in further darkness.) Continue reading »

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