NO CLEAN SINGING

THRONE OF ROACHES: “CHRYSALIS”

Mar 282025

(Straight outta Malmö, Sweden, Throne of Roaches released their debut album Chrysalis last month, and today our writer DGR gives it an extensive review… after some extensive thoughts about what’s going on with death metal in the modern era.)

For those who’ve been paying attention to the recent spate of reviews the site has run – and those by yours truly – ever-observant as you are, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had a recent string of album arts in which the predominant color has been blue. Well enough of that bullshit, it’s time for a change. Now, we’re going with the color green for an album or two.

Every year tends to bring with it some sort of theme – other than usual overarching abject misery – that picks at the brain until it finally unclasps like a louse killed and rots away into dust. This year in particular has been poking the cortex with ideas of how metal has grown and evolved each year, and its myriad changes and how newer groups must navigate a landscape that isn’t just shifting so much as it is turbulent enough that even the FAA these days might detect that there’s something happening with a particular plane before it hits the ground. They don’t have enough coffee in the world to keep that one guy fueled.

Metal has blended many times over its generations and death metal especially has time and time again found itself bisected, dissected, vivisected, septrisected, and intersected to the point of unrecognizability. Pantheons and towers erected and destroyed in one fell swoop and just as many merged together to resemble the security guard cenobite from Hellraiser: Bloodline. What is and isn’t has proven fertile ground for those who wish to engage in perpetual argument. The concept of death of the author becomes hilarious in this regard when dealing with a genre obsessed with the actual physical undertaking and not the philosophical aspect. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SIJJIN — “DAKHMA CURSE”

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Mar 272025

(written by Islander)

Following up on their debut album Sumerian Promises, the German/Basque trio Sijjin are storming back this year with a new album named Helljjin Combat that Sepulchral Voice has marketed for release on April 25th. It is described (and accurately so) as an amalgamation of “the most antediluvian variety of death metal” and “a derivative of evil thrash with utmost evil intent,” conjuring “its own life of Satanic imagery, diabolical debauchery, and biblical fatalism.”

The album was recorded live, with a cutting sound that brings to mind ’80s analog-produced records, which is part of what links the songcraft on the new album to such hellish names as Infernäl Mäjesty, Nasty Savage, Possessed, and very early Slayer or Megadeth.

What you’ll also discover on the new album are songs that are not only diabolical in mood but also diabolical in their arrangements, with constant and technically impressive twists and turns that are a big part of why the album is going to keep listeners pumped up and right on the edge of their seats (or toes). You’ll understand that for yourselves when you hear the song “Dakhma Curse” that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SVNTH — “NARROW, NARROW”

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Mar 272025

SVNTH – Pink Noise Conception

(written by Islander)

In case you’ve forgotten or never knew, the Roman experimental metal band SVNTH pronounce their name “Seventh”, a connection to their former name Seventh Genocide. Their last album, 2020’s Spring in Blue, was an hour-long double-LP and part of a planned trilogy of colors based on emotions in different phases of human life. Almost five years later the plan evolves with a new album named Pink Noise Youth that will be released on April 18th by These Hands Melt.

SVNTH explain about this second part of the trilogy: “If the previous record Spring in Blue was about facing life’s struggles on a childhood perspective, the upcoming Pink Noise Youth will be based on exploring awareness as an adult in late youth, trying to give a voice to a generation emotionally unstable and chaotic as pink noise.” The album’s cover image by Tryfar is in line with that conception.

But not only has the subject matter moved into a different phase of life, the music has moved too. SVNTH have already established themselves as a band interested in bringing together a wide variety of musical colors — as varied as black and post-metal, shoegaze, art pop, and cinematic post-rock. The new album is equally transcendent of genre boundaries, combining elements of hardcore, metal, shoegaze, and post-rock with some new instrumental choices — incorporating an electric Indian sitar, classical and 12-string guitars, and (gasp!) clean singing. It is also the work of a lineup that has changed significantly since the last record.

As a hint of what the album brings, it’s recommended for fans of Deafheaven, Alcest, Brutus, Svalbard, and Agalloch. As a more concrete hint, today we premiere an official video for the third single from the album released so far, a song called “Narrow, Narrow.” Continue reading »

THY KINGDOM WILL BURN: “THE LOSS AND REDEMPTION”

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Mar 272025

(As of late our writer DGR has been leaning into melodic death metal, and that tilted him into the new album by Finland’s Thy Kingdom Will Burn, released in January by Scarlet Records.)

Any long-standing musical genre will develop its own regional flavorings over time. Many of them are echoes of the first handful of groups to break through in that particular style, later to become ingrained in the blood of any following acts. The tower of influences effectively comes crashing down to be compacted into a simple statement ‘this is recognizable as having come from…’ and so on.

This is how people end up specializing in styles from certain countries, and with a practiced ear and enough familiarity, you can conjure the basic tenets of a certain region simply by seeing it referenced in front of a genre listing. Some are way more prominent than others and those that fly under the metal detection sphere instead feel like an undercurrent and noticeable pattern.

Finland has been a fun country in this respect because the one genre they truly seem to dominate is the folk-metal and folk-song-inspired genre-sphere. There’s a plethora of groups all specializing in music that sways with the rhythm of drinking songs and veers hard on the edge of feeling like an extreme take on power-metal’s sugar-laden hooks. Were Finland to wear crowns, that would be one of a scant handful teetering precariously upon its head.

No shock then, that many of those melodic sensibilities – and even particular recognizable motifs – seem to have bled through into the country’s other musical aspirations, including what seems to be a recent revitilization of its melodeath sphere. Continue reading »

EUPHROSYNE – MORUS

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Mar 262025

(Andy Synn explores the depths of grief with the debut album from Greece’s Euphrosyne)

As someone who was a big fan of Euphrosyne‘s debut EP, Keres, back in 2022 – so much that it took a spot in my “Top Ten EPs of 2022” (and arguably would have climbed even higher had it been released a little earlier) – it was a given that I was going to be the one to write about their much anticipated first full-length, Morus.

Unfortunately, time and tide (and other things beginning with “t”) worked against me a little bit last week, so I wasn’t able to cover the record prior to release.

But, hopefully the band will forgive me for the delay once they read what I’m about to write.

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VISCERAL — “LOATHE”

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Mar 262025

(written by Islander)

Time has flown, two years and almost five months since we last premiered music from the Portuguese death metal band Visceral. Back then the occasion was the impending release of Visceral‘s debut album The Tree of Venomous Fruit. Back then, the band’s veteran mastermind Bruno Joel Correia was accompanied by members of such bands as Enthroned, Lucifyre, Grog, Earth Electric, Gaerea, and Oak.

And now, at last, Visceral return with their second album, Eyes, Teeth and Bones, which has been set for release on April 4th by Raging Planet Records. The label accurately describes the music as a “blistering, high-speed death metal onslaught”, but it is also more than that, and we have an eye-opening, jaw-dropping example of how much more it brings through our premiere of a frightening lyric video for the song “Loathe“. Continue reading »

clipping. — “DEAD CHANNEL SKY”

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Mar 262025

(This is our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth‘s review of the latest album by the clipping. trio from L.A. and their guests, which has been out on the Sub Pop label since March 14th. And it’s actually the second mention of them in our pages; the first time, almost six years ago, was here.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. There’s a very good chance that you’re not familiar with the noise hip-hop trio clipping., or if you are you may be wondering why they’re being discussed here on No Clean Singing. The answer to that question is because Islander said I could review their new album, mostly, but also because their music is uncompromising and esoteric and has plenty to offer to metal fans who are a little more open-minded.

The trio, comprised of multi-hyphenate rapper-actor-Broadway star Daveed Diggs (best known for filling the roles of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in the original stage production of Hamilton and the Snowpiercer TV series) and producers William Hutson (Rale) and Jonathan Snipes (Captain Ahab), recently released their fifth full-length album Dead Channel Sky, the album I am here to discuss. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CONAN

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Mar 262025

(Lured by the impending release of a new Conan album on Heavy Psych Sounds, our Comrade Aleks got in touch with band leader Jon Davis, and below you’ll find their discussion — and the three singles released so far from Violence Dimension.)

The UK’s heaviest band strikes back with all the power of the gargantuan barbarian sword. The name itself fit well for the music that Jon Davis and his companions played from the start – dirty, ugly, and damn heavy sludge-doom with a hypnotizing stoner vibe. Conan honed their skills with each new album and made a huge leap onward from the point where they started to their current firm position in the global extreme metal scene.

Conan built the legend on their own, but moreover they somehow managed to develop their sound further with the new album Violence Dimension, a masterpiece of heaviness and brutality. Somehow we caught Jon for a while during the band’s current tour and here’s what we were able to learn from him:

ALLEGAEON – THE OSSUARY LENS

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Mar 252025

(Andy Synn takes a look at the new album from Allegaeon, where everything old is new again)

To misquote Oscar Wilde:

“…to lose one singer may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.“

Now, of course, I’m not blaming Allegaeon or saying they’ve done anything wrong, as the departures of both vocalists – with original screamer Ezra Haynes submitting his resignation in 2015 and his replacement, Riley McShane, handing in his marching papers in 2022 – seemed to be pretty amicable, all things considered.

But it’s certainly true that their vocal issues have a tendency to come at inconvenient times, just as the band are really hitting their stride (both creatively and commercially)… which is precisely why it’s understandable that the band would choose to bring Haynes back into the fold for another ride, as his instantly-recognisable voice and distinctive delivery definitely played a big part in putting the band on the map in their early years.

Of course, as we all know, trying to rekindle any sort of relationship after time spent separated is always a risk – what if you’ve simply grown too far apart to ever reconnect? – so the biggest question which The Ossuary Lens (out next week) has to answer is… is the chemistry still there, or is this rekindled romance doomed to fizzle out?

AN NCS PREMIERE: OPUS EST SANARE — “AXIS OF REGENERATION”

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Mar 252025

(written by Islander)

Searching through our site’s vast archive, I confirmed what I knew, which is that I’ve been following and writing about the musical activities of the cellist Kakophonix (Christopher Edward Brown) for a long time — since the fall of 2017, to be precise.

Over these last 7+ years, most of the attention has been paid to the Kakophonix solo project Hvile I Kaos (articles collected here), most recently in the context of premiering and reviewing the album Lower Order Manifestations, released last summer by Eisenwald and House of Inkantation. However, I and others here at NCS have also covered songs and records by other bands and performers in which Kakophonix performed as a guest musician (and there have been many of those).

As I explained in that album premiere last summer, Kakophonix has decided to lay Hvile I Kaos to rest; Lower Order Manifestations was the final work of that project, whose music Kakophonix labeled as “Cellistic Black Metal” or “Black Ritual Chamber Musick.” Although closing that book, however, Kakophonix has begun a new chapter under a new name — Opus Est Sanare — and has shared with us this “Mission Statement” for the new endeavor: Continue reading »

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