BLOOD ABSCISSION: “I I”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 172025
 

(Last Friday Debemur Morti Productions unveiled the second album from the shadowy black metal band Blood Abscission, and today we share thoughts about it written by our Norway-based contributor Chile.)

Everyone loves a good mystery story in their metal. It mesmerizes the listener, it heightens the experience, it pulls you in and makes you a part of something extraordinary. And certainly, a lot of metal music is no stranger to mystery, but black metal is the one genre where it all comes together, having a natural penchant for histrionics and lurking in the shadows. 

Mystery made many a band on the scene more interesting and more attractive to the audience, for theatricality and deception are powerful weapons. We needn’t look further than the last ten years of bands appearing in their hoodie-wearing, face-covered outfits, having only initials for identities. If we’re lucky that is, for there are those who opt for total anonymity.

And so the anonymous mystery streak continues with our guests today, of whom nothing is truly known, except that their name is Blood Abscission and that they make great black metal. Speculating on origin or any additional information would be just that, a speculation, and since I absolutely suck at lottery or guessing games, we’ll leave it at that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOXIA — “REVEL IN SIN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 162025
 

(written by Islander)

Unless you’re a medical professional or someone who’s been choked out you may not know that “anoxia” is a state of total oxygen deprivation within tissues or organs, an extreme form of “hypoxia” that can cause dizziness, disorientation, and permanent damage to the brain and other bodily organs.

You may have an idea why the Australian death metal band Anoxia chose that name if you heard their debut EP Languish in Suffering (the dizziness, the disorientation, the brain damage), though their music equally brings to mind the kind of organ damage caused by severe beatings.

But really, they were just getting warmed up, just beginning to explore their malevolent methods of inflicting punishment on listeners and audiences, methods that are now better perfected through their debut album Revel in Sin, as you’ll discover through today’s premiere stream in advance of the album’s April 17 co-release by Brilliant Emperor Records and Gutter Prince Cabal Records. Continue reading »

KARG: “MARODEUR”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 162025
 

(Below you will find Didrik Mešiček‘s review of the newest and soon-to-be-released album by the Austrian band Karg.)

Austria is not a name we typically associate with a thriving metal scene, but in the last decade or so quite a few new-ish bands have been popping up, generally delivering a fairly black metal sound, often depressive, sometimes hopelessly romantic. Karg is another one of those bands coming from the small Austrian scene where it seems most people know each other.  The band has had a nearly complete lineup change in 2018 and this will be their 9th full-length album already despite remaining fairly obscure. Marodeur will be released on AOP Records on the 18th of April.  Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME XV: LES GRANDES ÉQUIPES

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 162025
 

(With the merry month of March now in our rearview mirror, here we present Daniel Barkasi‘s lavish reviews of six noteworthy albums released during those 31 days.)

We’re going to start talking a bit about football, as I have in some of my previous entries. Not the American kind, but the one that’s actually played with feet. Much like music, it’s one of those things that’s always a constant in my life, bringing many highs and lows, with the deep passion and incredible history of so many clubs keeping me invested. Football in many ways can be a microcosm of the greater world that it’s so ingrained within. Didier Drogba and his Côte d’Ivoire teammates famously inspiring a halt to a civil war is an example of the unification that can happen due to this sporting endeavor. With the World Cup coming to the US next year, one can hope for it to be some kind of catalyst of togetherness as well.

As my beloved Liverpool FC (hopefully) move towards a second Premier League crown – three points in the bag at a tense affair against Steve Harris’ boyhood club West Ham United at time of writing – this is the time of the season where the stakes are so incredibly high. The Champions League is entering its final stages, and the intrigue is palpable as clubs rise and fall. To the uninitiated, this is the biggest club competition in the world, where the top European sides face off in a long and winding competition. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VETUS SANGUIS — “CAPÍTULO I – DIMENSÃO HORRENDA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 152025
 

(written by Islander)

First impressions do matter, even if our younger selves grew tired of hearing that stern advice from parental figures. In the case of how we spend our time around here, we see how bands and record labels choose singles to make first impressions of albums that the public can’t yet hear.

Sometimes those choices turn out to be misleading, like the strained politeness of a wild child being introduced to a stranger, or often like the forced and feigned wildness of someone who turns out to be really very dull. No wonder people usually wait to hear everything before making a purchase decision, unless it happens to be a band whose previous music they know well, but sometimes even then because even the best of us make mis-steps.

In the case of the Portuguese black metal band Vetus Sanguis, the first impression we had of its debut album Capítulo I – Dimensão Horrenda was “Trombetas Diabólicas,” a song that you won’t reach until nearly a third of the album has gone by. The impression it made was startling. When we premiered it, we advised listeners to take big gulps of air before listening. Continue reading »

DAUGHTER CHAOS – NOBLE ROT

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 152025
 

(Andy Synn has (almost) nothing but praise for the debut album from Daughter Chaos)

We’ve said it before, but it’s always worth stating again, that if it comes to a choice between writing about a “big name” band or an underrated underground artist nine times out of ten we’ll opt for the latter.

That doesn’t mean we’re averse to covering some of the more (in)famous artists now and then – there’s no doubt that doing so on occasion definitely helps raise our profile, which in turn (hopefully) brings more eyes to the smaller bands we cover – but our focus has always been on covering those groups who don’t receive the attention and exposure they deserve.

Case in point, if I had to choose between the latest chart-busting release from Arch Enemy or the long-anticipated debut album from Daughter Chaos… well, the latter was always going to win that battle.

Continue reading »

DORMANT ORDEAL: “TOOTH AND NAIL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 152025
 

(DGR provides the following extensive and evocative review of the new album by Poland’s Dormant Ordeal in advance of its April 18 release by Willowtip Records. At 3PM PDT today the entire album stream will premiere here.)

The idea of saving the best for last is something that is hammered into our psychology since early childhood. You must save the best for last, you must save the best for last, you must save the best for last, repeated over and over ad nauseum in mantra-like form until it eventually becomes unspoken sutrah to us as children growing up.

In the current age of instant gratification and the endless dopamine chase of modern society, however, saving the best for last is something that is long lost and a spectre of ages ago. Yet in a strange way it seems as if Poland’s Dormant Ordeal have taken the idea and run with it for their newest album Tooth And Nail because over the course of the album’s eight songs – barring one intro ambient bit – it isn’t so much the song itself that leaves the final impression but the way the song ends.

The final statement made for any particular song comes down to how you close out. Those last moments can prove to be integral to making a song live forever in a person’s mind. One of the things Dormant Ordeal demonstrate time and time again across Tooth And Nail is that one thing is certain: they know how to end a song. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELLEVAERDER — “HANDEN GEKETEND IN IJZER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 142025
 

(written by Islander)

Fighting their way forward since 2017, the Dutch black metal band Hellevaerder made their first large mark with a 2022 debut album (In de nevel van afgunst) and followed that with their appearance in Verloren vertellingen, a 2023 split with fellow members of the Zwotte Kring circle — Asgrauw, Schavot, and Duindwaler. And now they return again with a second full-length, Fakkeldragers (“Torchbearers”).

The album will be released on June 19th in a variety of formats by a triumvirate of labels — Void Wanderer Productions (NL), War Productions (PT), and Zwaertgevegt (NL) — and they recommend it for fans of Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, Emperor, Mayhem, and Sargeist.

What we have for you today, as a preview of the delirium and damnations the album brings, is a first listen to the album track “Handen geketend in ijzer” (which might be translated as “Hands chained in iron”). But first, here’s some background about the album’s thematic conception — which continues a narrative Hellevaerder began in their first album: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEXMAG — “SEXORCYZM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 142025
 

(written by Islander)

In an age when online porn is as easy to get as water from a faucet, the Silesian band Sexmag‘s name seems like an anachronism. Does anyone buy sex mag’s any more? Does anyone still publish them? Maybe there’s a museum for them somewhere?

It’s fair to say that the band’s music is also a throwback, in the sense that it summons the old spirits of bands like Sarcófago, Tormentor, Bulldozer, and Destruction. But don’t think listening is like wandering through a heavy metal museum or a museum of quaint publications with pinups in the centerfold. It’s more like being thrown into a filthy, blood-spraying orgy where the degenerate participants are vicious devils and demonesses.

But as you’ll already know if you threw yourselves into Sexmag‘s 2021 EP Sex Metal (which we gleefully premiered here), there’s more going on in their music than lewd and crude pentagram-draped romps, and that’s even more evident on their new album Sexorcyzm, whose title track we’re premiering through a video today.

And by the way, though we’re having fun with their name, they reportedly chose it in honor of an important old Polish heavy metal band named Kat (the Polish word for “executioner”), who recorded a song named… “Mag-Sex”. And based on that song’s lyrics, which tell a tale of a man raised by witches, its title might be better understood as… “magic sex“. Continue reading »

KIRITSIS: “KIRITSIS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 142025
 

(We begin a new week at NCS with Todd Manning‘s review of the self-titled debut album from Indianapolis-based Kiritsis, out now on Wise Blood Records and Pout Records.)

Metal and hardcore have provided us with many ways to portray the nastiness of everyday life. Indianapolis-based quartet Kiritsis takes a sludge template and injects it with some nasty hardcore at just the right moments, creating the soundtrack to the rage that is slowly consuming our broken psyches.

The opening riff for “Knuckles” sets the stage. It’s the kind of head-nodding sludge riff sure to bring an involuntary scowl to any metal connoisseur’s face. The sound is a bit reminiscent of Crowbar at their most aggressive, such as on “High-Rate Extinction”. Yet, Kiritsis sounds more epic; perhaps some Neurosis influence sneaking in as well. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries