NO CLEAN SINGING

BEST OF BRITISH: DOWNPOUR / OFNUS / SACRED NOOSE

Mar 202025

(Andy Synn recommends a trio of recent releases for your listening pleasure)

I originally intended to publish this piece a while ago… only I couldn’t quite lock down exactly which three albums I was going to write about.

For a while I considered including the new Abduction album, only to realise that since we share a drummer these days that probably crosses a few ethical boundaries (I don’t have many, it’s true, but I do have some).

And though I initially intended to include the new one from Wren as my third choice (I’ve written about them before after all) some crossed-wires here at NCS Central meant that one of our regular guest-writers ended up including them in one of his articles… which meant I had to go back to the drawing board again.

Thankfully, however, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed by the three artists/albums I’ve chosen to cover – two of whom are making their official debuts here at the site – as they’re all more than deserving of your time and attention on their own merits and in different ways.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GALVORNHATHOL — “III”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Mar 202025

(written by Islander)

Today, on the eve of its release, we present a full stream of a new album by the one-person German band Galvornhathol, whose name (we are told) “is derived from Tolkien’s Sindarin script and can probably translated to ‘(dark) metal axe'”. That is intended to draw a contrast between the man-made world of iron and axe and the band’s lyrical themes, which connect to spiritualism (non-religious) and nature.

With respect to those themes, we’ll begin by sharing Galvornhathol‘s description of the new album:

“III” concludes the trilogy that started with the conveniently titled “I“. A journey from the earth, to below the clouds and now to the stellar realm of stars and galaxies. Tinged with metaphors for the facets of human life, encased in an interstellar poem of the matter, dark and light, all round us, that we call “nature”. Providing an uneducated guess of what our future might hold; providing we keep living our present, the listener might come to the conclusion that, while we are able to observe objects that are millions of lightyears away, we refrain from looking ahead into our own time to come. Whatever the future might hold; onwards. Ad Astra. Continue reading »

PREVIEWING FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS 2025: AN EXCLUSIVE NCS INTERVIEW

Interviews, Metal News 1 Response »

Mar 202025

(This coming July the Fire in the Mountains festival will take place at the Red Eagle Campground in the Blackfeet Nation in northwest Montana, with a spectacular lineup of performers and many other attractions. In the following exclusive interview, our man Gonzo talked with festival organizers Jeremy Walker and Shane McCarthy about how FITM got connected with its new location, what inspires the event, and a lot more.)

It was a clear, calm day in Denver. A cloudless sky left plenty of room for the Colorado sun to focus its fiery wrath directly onto my bare head. Sometimes putting on a hat is all but necessary when living up here. Today, I was woefully unprepared.

While walking down Broadway, one couldn’t be blamed for questioning whether spring had come a week or two early. At this elevation, Mother Nature tends to be especially fickle, and any Denverite knows you should probably dress like you’re going skiing at the beach before going outside during this time of year. It’s a decidedly weird aesthetic, but I don’t make the rules.

I was on my way to the dark depths of Trve Brewing, my usual haunt for getting a midday beer and hiding from the sun’s persistent wrath, especially in summer. I am no stranger to this place, and it’s one of my favorite dark corridors in which to lurk and drink.

Today’s visit would be different, though. I’d be meeting up with Jeremy Walker and Shane McCarthy, two of the gentlemen behind the curtain of the Fire in the Mountains festival, to talk about the event’s long-anticipated comeback, where that journey has taken them since its last appearance in 2022, and how in the hell they managed to get Old Man’s Child to play their first-ever US show as a headliner.

I was fortunate enough to have experienced this festival in ’22, when Enslaved and Wolves in the Throne Room were featured, and I can say without exaggeration that it was a life-changing weekend. It became very clear to me back then that this was more than just a music festival. This was something special.

With all that in mind, I’d been looking forward to today’s conversation with Jeremy and Shane for weeks. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “FOUR SORROWS” — A SPLIT BY STARER, MYVANDRER, AMBERGAZE, AND MISTRAL

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Mar 192025

(written by Islander)

On March 21st Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records will co-release Four Sorrows, a four-way split among bands around the world who deserve your close attention. Those bands, who are carving their own path through the realms of black metal, are Starer (USA), Myrvandrer (Norway), Ambergaze (Mexico), and Mistral (Poland). As an explanation of how the split came to be, we’ve seen this statement by the person behind Starer (and Snow Wolf):

I have been a huge fan of Mistral since both our debut albums released together on Folkvangr Records back in January 2021. Janek has become a good friend and I’m thrilled to be working together. All credit to him for introducing me to two amazing bands Ambergaze and Myrvandrer and convincing them to share their incredible music with us.

What we have for you today is a premiere stream of this new split, which includes one new song from each band, preceded by a bit of background about the artists and some thoughts about what you will hear. (Here’s a hint: the music is quite diverse and mostly beyond the bounds of traditional/conventional black metal.) Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORBIFIC — “CRUSADING NECROTIZATION”

Premieres No Responses »

Mar 192025

(written by Islander)

We have some previous experience with the Finnish death metal band Morbific. In considering music (which we premiered) from their second album Squirm Beyond the Mortal Realm, we described it as “undeniably raw and foul, well-calculated to channel sensations of disease, putrefaction, and madness while giving your bones a brutal beating — and creating an atmosphere of supernatural horror while they do all that.” We added that Morbific were also “ridiculously good at making their creations head-moving and ‘catchy’ as well as hideous.”

More recently our contributor Chile caught their performance at the 2024 edition of Oslo Deathfest and wrote this vivid description of what ensued:

…the crowd goes wild in a fantastic display of great chemistry between the band and audience, turning the bar area into a warfield of bodies strewn on filthy riffs stretching as far as the eye can see…. Bursting through the abdomen of the stage like some kind of extraterrestrial, Morbific are all teeth and snarl in a seemingly simple, yet very effective display of putrid brutality.

And now this rotten-to-the-core death metal band are upon us again, with a third album entitled Bloom of Abnormal Flesh set for co-release on April 21st by Memento Mori and Me Saco un Ojo (who also co-released the band’s last album), again adorned with blood-congealing cover art by Chase Slaker. And again, we have a song premiere off the album. The name says it all: “Crusading Necrotization“. Continue reading »

GREY AURA – ZWART VIERKANT: SLOTSTUK

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 192025

(Andy Synn may not understand “art”, but he knows what he likes… and he likes Grey Aura)

They say that you can’t spell “Avant-Garde” without the letters “A”, “R”, and “T”… and it turns out they – whoever they are – were right!

Of course, Grey Aura have known that for a long time, as both of their previous albums – 2014’s double-disc debut Waerachtighe beschryvinghe van drie seylagien, ter werelt noyt soo vreemt ghehoort (which chronicled the final exploits of Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz) and 2021’s equally ambitious, but considerably more concise, Zwart Vierkant (which retold and reinterpreted the first half of a story of obsession and insanity written by the band’s own Ruben Wijlacker) – more than qualify as true expressions of avant-garde “art”.

So it should come as little surprise that Slotstuk (as I’ll be referring to it) – which picks up, thematically speaking, where its predecessor left off, unravelling the tale of “a 20th-century Modernist painter whose attempt to dismantle physical reality through abstraction leads him to the brink of madness” – continues to push the boundaries, further blurring the lines between not just the various different genres which comprise the band’s creative palette… but also the lines between sanity and insanity as well.

AN NCS PREMIERE: SILVER KNIFE — “RESTLESS BLIGHT”

Premieres No Responses »

Mar 182025

(written by Islander)

It’s fair to say that the forward-thinking European black metal band Silver Knife have underplayed their pedigree. They don’t seem to draw attention to the fact that the four-person lineup collectively includes members of some of the most formidable Belgian, French, and Dutch bands orbiting the sphere of black metal. Though Metal-Archives will tell you what’s on their resumes if you’re curious, they don’t trumpet those achievements, preferring to let their music do the talking.

That kind of confidence is merited, given the very impressive nature of Silver Knife‘s past releases — their debut album Unyielding/Unseeing in 2020, and their follow-on EP Ring in 2022. Their self-confidence is evident again in the epic nature of the six songs on their forthcoming second album, which is simply self-titled and is timed for release by Amor Fati Productions and Extraconscious Recordings to roughly coincide with the band’s second appearance at Roadburn Festival.

What we have for you today is a premiere stream of one of those songs (the second to be revealed from the album so far), a heart-bursting experience called “Restless Blight“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DORMANT ORDEAL — “SOLVENT”

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Mar 182025

(written by Islander)

No one tells anyone at our humble site what to write about. Everyone makes their own choices based on what appeals to them. Serendipitously, this produces a fairly wide span of musical coverage because the tastes of our writers don’t completely overlap, and sometimes diverge dramatically.

This divergence holds true among the three most senior NCS writers (Andy Synn, DGR, and myself), but there are some bands whose music all three of us whole-heartedly and enthusiastically endorse, and the Polish band Dormant Ordeal is one of those. All three of us have been loudly banging the drum for this band in our writing, going back to 2016 when they released their second album, We Had It Coming.

This year we get to renew our drum-banging because Dormant Ordeal are now set to release Tooth and Nail, their fourth album overall and their first for Willowtip Records, on April 18th. Our raucous hammering began as soon as the first single from the album was revealed, and continues today as we present a second one. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XIV: DARK CHASMS OF BLACK METAL AND STUPIDITY

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 182025

(Once again, we welcome Daniel Barkasi and his latest monthly roundup of recommended albums. These were released in February.)

We’re back! Yup, the ole’ brain hasn’t completely capitulated upon itself yet, but the year is young! The country is a fucking laughing stock, but the punchline is to the level of a petulant toddler throwing their toys about. If you didn’t know what a tariff is, you probably do now. Check out this feature from Last Week Tonight from six years ago. I’m no economist, but broad tariffs are stupid, and it’s not hard to figure out. Even worse, trade wars are even stupider. We pay the cost increases, nobody else. But screw Canada, eh? I never thought that Canadian Bacon would become some sort of reality. David Dunning and Justin Kruger were really onto something, am I right?

While we try to survive the insanity, my beloved Liverpool Football Club have sorrowfully exited the exalted Champions League in the cruelest of fashions – the dreaded penalty shootout. Even worse – it was against PSG, a team whose ownership group is exceedingly morally bankrupt, to put it kindly. They also lost the Carabao Cup as I’m writing this, to another face of sportswashing in Newcastle. However, the Premier League title is a realistic possibility, which would be an incredible achievement, in the first year of who has thus far been a brilliant new manager after the departure of an absolute club legend in Jürgen Klopp – now starring in a Trivago ad. Life is weird. Continue reading »

EMBRIUM – TIMEKEEPER

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 172025

(Andy Synn dedicates some of his precious time to the recently-released debut album from Embrium)

While we’re not averse to covering some of the “bigger” names – relatively speaking – in Metal now and then (we’ve recently written about new releases from the likes of Whitechapel and Septic Flesh, for example, and will be saying a few things about the new Allegaeon pretty soon) our primary focus is, and has always been, on covering artists and albums who don’t receive as much attention and exposure as they probably deserve.

Case in point, today we’re taking a look (and a listen) at the debut album from San Francisco-based Blackgaze crew Embrium, a band so underground they don’t even have an entry on the Encyclopaedia Metallum yet!

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