AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VANISHING EARTH — “THE BOUNDLESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 162025
 

(written by Islander)

Anyone who was even a semi-regular visitor to our site from 2011 through 2023 will recognize the name Oak Pantheon. Over that period we wrote 24 articles about this Minneapolis band’s music, dating back to their first single and continuing through our review of their last album, 2023’s The Absence.

And yes, it did turn out to be their last album, because this past February Oak Pantheon announced that they were amicably splitting up. They explained on social media: “Drifting motivations and musical interests have made it difficult to agree on a cohesive path forward. We will likely work together again, just in different forms.”

Throughout the entirety of their existence and their quite varied musical expressions Oak Pantheon was principally a collaboration between Sami Sati and Tanner Swenson. Since the dissolution of Oak Pantheon neither of them has abandoned music-making. In the case of Sami Sati, we are happily announcing today that he has a new project called Vanishing Earth that serves as a continuation of his efforts and ambitions in Oak Pantheon.

And today we are also very happily hosting the premiere of Vanishing Earth‘s musical debut, a two-song EP named The Boundless that will be released on June 17th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NORILSK — “LA FONTE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 162025
 

(written by Islander)

In February of this year Hypnotic Dirge Records released a new album named Antipole by the Canadian death/doom metal band Norilsk. Originally a duo consisting of Nic Miquelon and Nick Richer, the band had expanded by then to include guitarists Tom Hansen and Matt MacIvor, who joined in 2016 and 2017 respectively. But Antipole was the first album to be recorded by all four members, after extensive rehearsals and work among them on the arrangements.

The results of this collaboration, as captured on Antipole, really represent a significant step forward for the band (every band says that about each new release, but in this case it’s really true). The music isn’t conventional death/doom by any means, but encompasses intriguing and surprising stylistic interplays and contrasts.

Moreover, the music’s changing shades of light and dark, of beauty and tragedy, of granitic weight and ethereal evanescence, reflect its thematic interests (sometimes rooted in literature) in expressing duality. As an example of this, today we have a compelling lyric video for a very compelling song off Antipode called “La Fonte“. Continue reading »

CRYPTOPSY – AN INSATIABLE VIOLENCE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 162025
 

(Andy Synn is here to feed your insatiable hunger for more Cryptopsy whose new album is out Friday)

It’s generally understood, by our regular readers at least, that we tend to favour covering smaller, up-and-coming, or less well-exposed bands whenever and wherever we can, largely because – at our level, at least – those are the bands who will benefit the most from our coverage.

That doesn’t mean we won’t cover bigger bands or more notorious names when the opportunity presents itself to do so… it’s just that, after a band reaches a certain level of popularity (or notoriety) it’s easy for our voice to just get lost in the storm of acclaim (or criticism) that tends to follow most releases of a certain magnitude.

Case in point – do Cryptopsy really need us to review their new album? Well, they’re currently on the cover of Decibel which suggests that a) no, they really don’t, and b) the movers and shakers in the industry might finally be coming around to the fact that the band are (still) kind of a big deal.

But just because a band doesn’t need our help doesn’t mean we don’t want to write about them, and to be quite honest I’ve been itching to put my thoughts about An Insatiable Violence down on paper (or, at least, on the internet) for you all to read for quite some time.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: STYGIAN, OSMIUM, DEATHWINDS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jun 152025
 

(written by Islander)

Sad to say, this Sunday’s column is much shorter than usual. I got a late start on it, but the bigger explanation is that early tomorrow I’m flying to my former stomping grounds in Texas to be at a Tuesday memorial service for a close friend and vital mentor, with an even earlier flight back to Seattle the next day. That means I need to get a head-start today on premieres I had agreed to host over the next three days before my old friend’s passing following a long illness. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ORBIT CULTURE, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM, KONTUSION, CLAIRVOYANCE, KHNVM, HEAD OF CASSANDRA, SUN AFTER DARK, VENUS STAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 142025
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday we premiered a video for a song called “Welcome to Hell“. That title sums up the events that have dominated domestic and international news over the last few days. What fresh hell will today bring? It may be hard to foresee all the details this morning, but it’s already easy to smell the sulphur on the wind.

I picked new music and videos from 8 international bands to get our day started and help get us through it. I feel pretty confident this will all be better than tomorrow’s headlines. If you’re in the U.S. and out on the streets today, stay strong and try to stay safe. Hell, I hope you can stay safe wherever you are. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MROME — “ARISTOCRAT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 132025
 

(written by Islander)

The Polish band MROME have been making music since the mid-’90s, first under the name Kingdom. As MROME, they’ve released four albums so far, most of which we’ve paid attention to (as you can see here), and now we’re very happy to report that a fifth one is on the way.

The newest one, Boneyard Twist, includes 9 tracks recorded live in the studio, and the band have described it to us as “a kind of return to our dark roots from the early ’90s, inspired deeply by the first wave black metal.” Lyrically, they tell us the songs deal “with grave residents, disabilities of body and mind, necromancy and …monks exploding!”

As a sign of what the new album brings, today we premiere a lyric video for a song named “Aristocrat” — or at least we have tried to premiere it! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LAVA INVOCATOR — “WELCOME TO HELL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 132025
 

(written by Islander)

When the Ukrainian black metal band Lava Invocator released their debut album Mörk in March 2017 Russia had already illegally “annexed” Crimea, and pro-Russian “separatists” had declared “independence” in the eastern region of Donbas, leading to persistent fighting that had killed thousands. But at that time Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was still five years away. Now, of course it is a brutal reality.

It was in the midst of that brutal reality that Lava Invocator wrote and recorded their second album, released in April 2023, and gave it a name inspired by what was happening around them and in the world at large: Signs Of Apocalypse.

The war grinds on. There have been significant combat casualties on the Ukrainian side, and the thug in charge of Russia also continues to rain death in routine terror attacks on Ukrainian civilians. But according to this report yesterday in The Washington Post, since January 2024 Russian forces have seized less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory and “Russian fatalities in Ukraine now exceed the total number of Soviet and Russian soldiers killed in every war since World War II combined.” The report estimates that by this summer Russia will likely pass 1 million total military casualties.

It is in this context that today we premiere a lyric video for a song off Lava Invocator‘s last album, their greeting to invaders called “Welcome to Hell“. Continue reading »

RETURNING – NUMINOUS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 122025
 

(Andy Synn returns to nature with the new album from Returning, out 20 June)

Ah, “numinous”… referring to something that arouses or engenders a spiritual or religious experience… what a perfect name for the new album from Returning.

If you’re not familiar with the band, the duo’s previous album (2023’s Severance) introduced us to their moody, mesmeric blend of earthen Black Metal and ethereal ambience, resulting in a haunting, often hypnotic, sound situated somewhere between the visceral vibrancy of Wolves In The Throne Room and the shadowy shimmer of Treha Sektori, with a dash of the mournful melancholy of early Agalloch on the side.

And while I’m not suggesting that the duo have found god – if anything, the divinity they’re seeking to commune with is that of nature itself – there’s certainly a sense of religious awe, if not ecstasy, to their new album.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GROG — “SPHERE OF ATROCITIES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 122025
 

(written by Islander)

High-energy metal can make people pump their fists and bounce their bodies off each other. We see that, we do that. And although hell-raising music doesn’t really cause blood to boil or heads to spin (or Hell to be raised), sometimes that’s also a good way to describe the impact of a fist-pumping album like Grog‘s Sphere of Atrocities.

We’ve commented before about how unusual it is for this Portuguese band of brutal death/grinders, who’ve been plying their deadly craft since 1991, to hold together with 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.

It’s even more unusual that after such a long career they’re still pushing themselves musically, still sharpening their execution and still finding new ways of getting the blood of listeners rushing and their heads wildly spinning. You’ll realize this for yourselves when you dive into our premiere stream of their explosive new album today, in advance of its June 13 co-release by Helldprod Records and Murder Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MYSTIC CIRCLE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 122025
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Graf von Beelzebub from the long-running German black metal band Mystic Circle. They have been on a creative hot streak, with a just-released album named Kriegsgötter MMXXV following up 2023’s Erzdämon, and yet another album headed for release this coming Halloween. So, lot’s to talk about.)

Well, it’s a kind of an awkward situation, because the interview with one of the oldest German black metal bands Mystic Circle was initiated due to their new release Kriegsgötter MMXXV, which was scheduled on June 6th by Rock of Angels. Indeed it is a kind of compilation, and the band’s followers find there a lot of well-known covers and other stuff, and the band updated this material and you’ll read about it in the interview below.

But during the interview it was discovered that Graf von Beelzebub (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards) and A. Blackwar (drums, guitars, keyboards) had prepared new album, Hexenbrand 1486. And we’ve dug out a few facts about it as well. Continue reading »

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