AN NCS PREMIERE: IBEX ANGEL ORDER — “BELIAL INVOKED”

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May 202025
 

(written by Islander)

Contemplating new music from Ibex Angel Order is akin to contemplating the opening of a blast-furnace door to Hell, beyond which we will be blinded by enthroned Lucifer in his might and rage.

The last time we wrote about the music of this Dutch occult black metal band here (far too long ago) we described it as “cyclonic, dissonant, and berserk,” “a bewildering mix of toxicity and infernal majesty” that builds to “crescendos of catastrophe.”

That previous occasion was our premiere of a tremendous six-way split release named Ekstrophë in 2018. Ibex Angel Order returned the following year with a two-track EP, I.Ô. Creatôr / I.Ô. Destrôyer. Now, six years later, they’re returning again with their second full-length, II – Void Sermon.

The new album will be presented by Void Wanderer Productions on July 24th, and to help introduce it we’re premiering the album track “Belial Invoked.” Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XVI: SEASON OF PARKS AND FESTIVALS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 202025
 

(Here we have another monthly column of Daniel Barkasi‘s vivid reviews, this time focusing on six highly recommended albums released in April 2025.)

Sometimes, you need to savor the weird pastimes that make life grand. One of those things for me that I haven’t touched upon much in this space is theme parks. Ah, I love a good theme park. Disney does it best, and having been to every Disney park on the planet, we’re a tad invested – both emotionally and financially. No park is better than Tokyo DisneySea, and it’s not particularly close.

Recently, however, we attended a preview of the brand new Universal Epic Universe with KevinP (another theme park connoisseur) before it officially opens to the public on May 22. Everything wasn’t operational, as it’s in a testing phase, but what we experienced was pretty fantastic. We’ll be going again one more time before opening day, and hopefully we’ll get to do everything that we didn’t get to the first time. If you find yourself in the sweaty hellhole that is Orlando, I’d suggest giving it a whirl – especially fans of Universal Monsters and Frankenstein. That land – or “portal” as they’re calling it – is worth the price of admission itself.

More akin to the music subject, this time of year brings festival time. NCS’s beloved Northwest Terror Fest just wrapped up and looks like it was an amazing time. One of these years, I’ll make it out. We’ll be attending Maryland Deathfest, per tradition. Hopefully plenty of readers will be descending upon Baltimore, and if that’s you, don’t be shy and say hello! One of the best things about festivals is the awesome people, and we’re looking forward to seeing plenty of friends and making new ones. If you can make it out to a festival this year, definitely do so.

Whether or not a festival is in the cards, April was bountiful with new releases well worth your time. We could list well over ten that we really enjoyed, and we’d still feel like something is getting unjustly left out. We’ve got six slots, however, so kick back with me and slap on your best headphones. Continue reading »

SYMBIOTIC GROWTH: “BEYOND THE SLEEPLESS AETHER”

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May 202025
 

(Everyone here only writes about music they want to recommend, but as you’ll see from DGR‘s following review of Symbiotic Growth‘s new album, he is especially enthusiastic about what they’ve accomplished.)

As 2025 has wandered onward we’ve been afforded a few chances to dig backward through the pile of music that we missed. The compulsion to try and cover everything that you’ve been enjoying can sometimes be just as strong as the urge to constantly be at the forefront of the most recent music to hit. The battle of the two can sometimes turn ugly and the cuts made can be just as brutal as the music you’re listening to.

But sometimes you find stuff that’s so special you just can’t let it go, and the world be damned, you will make time to discuss it in one form or another. Thus, when we do get these chances to bring up releases that we’d been meaning to talk about for a while, we’re going to take it. And that brings us to Symbiotic Growth, a progressive black and death metal band hailing from Ontario, Canada. They share members with a few other projects we’ve written about, including the oppressively dense death metal act Fractal Generator, whom drummer Dan Favot has belonged to. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIGHTS OF VIMANA — “NOWHERE”

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May 192025
 

(written by Islander)

Lights of Vimana is a new multi-national band that unites three known talents from realms of extreme music: Riccardo Conforti from Italy (Void of Silence) on drums and synths, Jeremy Lewis from the U.S. (Mesmur, Pantheist) on guitars and bass, and Déhà from Belgium (Slow, Cult of Erinyes) on vocals. Their debut album Neopolis is now set for release by the Italian Dusktone label on June 13th.

In previewing the album, Dusktone has characterized the music as “atmospheric/progressive doom metal,” and as “a deeply cinematic and textural sound that diverges from the members’ heavier roots, instead weaving together influences from Hans Zimmer, Porcupine Tree, and My Dying Bride.” They add: “Déhà’s predominantly clean, expressive vocals lend a raw, human element to the album’s brooding, futuristic soundscapes, while Conforti’s ambient synth layers and Lewis’s expansive riffs create a dynamic interplay of beauty and desolation.”

And we’ll add one further quote from the previews offered on behalf of Dusktone, because it really rings true

The album paints a vivid portrait of a dystopian world – cold, vast, and haunting – where shimmering atmospheres meet the crushing weight of doom. It is a journey through collapse and transcendence, where every note feels like a flicker of light in the ruins of tomorrow.

One memorable song from the album has already been revealed, and today we present a second one: “Nowhere“. Continue reading »

GONZO GOES TO ROADBURN 2025

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May 192025
 

(Our Denver-based writer Gonzo went to Roadburn 2025 in April. Here’s his extensive report on the experience.)

For almost as long as I can recall, I’ve wanted to make the pilgrimage to Roadburn. The 4-day affair in Tilburg, Netherlands, has been one of the most consistently raved-about experiences in heavy music on the planet for the better part of two decades, and I’d been dead-set on getting my ass there for at least half that time.

As it turns out, 2025 would be the year I’d finally get to see if Roadburn lives up to the hype.

The short answer?

Yes. Fuck yes. And then some. Continue reading »

RIVERS OF NIHIL – RIVERS OF NIHIL

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 192025
 

(Andy Synn presents his thoughts on Rivers of Nihil‘s upcoming self-titled album, out 30 May.)

With Rivers of Nihil stating that their upcoming fifth album – which we’ll get to shortly – would involve a synthesis of ideas and elements from all four of their previous records (plus some new ones born from some significant line-up changes) I felt it might make sense to start this review off with a quick round-up of where I stand in relation to their discography so far.

Their underrated debut album, The Conscious Seed of Light, still holds a special place in my heart for the way it introduced me to the band and their nascent blend of rigid, biomechanical riffage and fluid, melodic embellishments, while the heavier, hookier, and more tightly-structured Monarchy remains, in my opinion at least, the most focussed and consistent release of their career (so far, anyway).

And while I understand the love a lot of people have for Where Owls Know My Name – which, with its proggier and more accessible vibes, was where a lot of fans fell in love with the band – to me it remains something of a mixed bag (half “killer”, half “filler”) with the more ambitious and even more progressive (not to mention divisive) approach of The Work representing a much bolder and more successful creative step in my opinion (even if a couple of tracks still didn’t quite… ahem… work).

So, with that in mind, here’s what I think of their eponymous fifth album, which comes out next week.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: WAIDELOTTE, HÆRESIS, HELL, CAVE, FUNERAL BAPTISM, TEARDRINKER

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May 182025
 

(written by Islander)

For reasons explained yesterday I’ve had less than the usual amount of time this week to explore new music from the blacker realms of extreme music. I’ll fall behind again next week due to MDFing and will likely leave a void in this column’s place next Sunday.

Bereft of the time needed to make a more complete survey this week, I randomly threw a couple handfuls of mental darts at all the tabs I’d opened for new songs and albums. There were misses, but enough solid hits to furnish the following collection, which I hope will both darken and immolate your day. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION, CRUST, DOMKRAFT, ANGEROT, MORDBEAR, BEAR MACE, OSI AND THE JUPITER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 172025
 

(written by Islander)

The last two weeks have been out of the ordinary here, and the next 10 days will be too. In the weeks now past I and a few of my NCS comrades joined forces with a lot of other terrific volunteers to help put on the 3-day Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. (See above, just after we finished last Saturday night.) The fest was fantastic, but it didn’t leave me enough clear-headed time to do the usual weekend posts for NCS.

During the past week I had some good post-fest outings in the Seattle area with DGR and Andy Synn. That put a crimp in my usual new-music listening. And now, beginning on Wednesday of this coming week, we’re all going to venture to Baltimore with other friends to take in Maryland Deathfest. That makes it highly unlikely I will be doing the usual NCS posts next weekend either.

The wall of possibilities for this roundup and the blacker one tomorrow is enormous. I scraped against it, sort of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption digging through the wall of his cell with a tiny rock hammer, except I don’t have 19 years to get the job done. Here’s what I chipped away for today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GROG — “VEGETATIVE TECHUMAN”

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May 162025
 

(written by Islander)

The battle-hardened Portuguese metal veterans in Grog have been plying their deadly craft since 1991, remarkably holding together the same lineup for the past 20 years despite the usual upheavals in personal life and the world at large, not to mention the constant upheavals in the realms of heavy music.

Grog aren’t trend-chasers, but they’ve not stood still like statues either. All those years of experience have fed into a notable precision of execution by these sonic executioners, and a twisted refinement of their songwriting — but without abandoning the mauling and bone-smashing brutality of their core death-grinding assaults.

Where all those years have led them is now captured in Sphere of Atrocities, Grog‘s fifth album and their first full-length in 8 years. It’s set for co-release on June 13th by Helldprod Records and Murder Records, and what we have for you today is a lyric video for the second song disclosed from the album so far — a weapon of extreme sonic destruction named “Vegetative Techuman“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HSPDN — “HEYDAY’S RUIN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In this feature we are taking a few large steps off the various beaten, broken, and thorn-shrouded paths we usually follow in our musical meanderings around here. The connections to those paths, such as they are, derive in part from the person who made the music you’re about to hear.

That person goes by the name “twi” in this new project, but we can disclose that the person is the Slovakian musician and vocalist also known as Twisted in the experimental industrial doom/death metal band 0n0, whose music we’ve written about repeatedly over the last nine years (here’s the proof of that).

The name of the new project is hspdn. hspdn‘s first release is Heyday’s Ruin, a four-song, 18-minute work set for release open May 23rd and self-described as “an EP about climate and personal crises”. What we have for you today is the premiere of its title song. Continue reading »

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