NO CLEAN SINGING

CARONTE – SPIRITVS

Apr 092025

(Andy Synn wants you all to help him make Caronte a much, much bigger deal)

In light of the increasing success of bands like Unto Others and Tribulation, as well as the massive popularity of a little band you may have heard of called Ghost, it’s surprising that occult Doom coven Caronte haven’t received a similar amount of love and attention.

Maybe it’s because they’re still – despite their love of infectiously psilocybic melodies and gloomily gothic grooves – a little too dark, or a little too rough and rugged (though to me that’s actually part of their appeal) to appeal to a more “mainstream” audience quite as much, or maybe they’re just hanging out with “the wrong crowd” (they’re still very much associated with the Black Metal scene to some people… heck, it was at Inferno Festival that I first encountered them myself).

Whatever the reason, however, I’m making it my mission to give the band’s profile a bit of a boost… especially since their new album, Spiritvs (which comes out this week), might just be their most artfully accessible yet!

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MORBIFIC

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Apr 092025

(On April 21st a group of labels will release a new album by the Finnish death metal band Morbific, and that induced our contributor Zoltar to reach out for an interview, which now follows.)

Samples of forgotten horror flicks, a crude-as-fuck production, distorted bass breaks one hasn’t heard since Impetigo‘s debut album back in 1990, dual vocals and lyrics about mutilating a corpse or draining into a tub various secretions of a putrefied body… You can’t really blame Finnish youngsters Morbific for beating around the (dead) bush can you?

Various splits and an EP plus three albums, including the soon-to-be-released Bloom Of The Abnormal Flesh, in, the trio stick to what they do best: old-school, primitive, and ghastly death metal, yet surprisingly catchy thanks to its underlining groove and straight-to-the-point attitude. Next to other rather ‘new’ European acts like Stockholm’s Repuked or Copenhagen’s Undergang, their undeniable faith in a certain deeply underground and untouched-by-modernism definition of what death metal stands for is undeniable.

And yes, based on their bass player and vocalist Jusa‘s not quite extensive answers, they don’t seem to give a fuck about anything, but it’s probably because at the end of the day, it’s just all about playing freakin’ death metal and celebrating gore, nothing less nothing more. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FINAL DOSE — “UNDER THE ETERNAL SHADOW”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Apr 082025

(written by Islander)

Like other genres of extreme metal, a good case can be made that black metal in its earliest stages evolved from punk rock. But black metal continued to evolve in ways that essentially left punk behind. Some bands did not completely cut the tie, but many did, and so the fundamental tropes of subversive “second wave” black metal as they took shape in the early ’90s, and which persist to this day, bear little resemblance to where things started.

Yet in more recent times, maybe most notably over the last decade I’d say, we’ve seen a new emergence of punk influence in black metal, not really a rolling back of the clock to the earliest days but a hybridization of punk, hardcore, or crust and second wave Scandinavian black metal.

Many bands have embraced that hybrid form, and Final Dose from the UK are one of them, and one of the best. But they have also evolved, bringing other stylistic ingredients into their mix besides those two main ones in order to better express the emotional torrents that fuel their work.

The results are vividly on display in their viscerally powerful new album Under The Eternal Shadow, which we’re premiering and reviewing today in advance of its release on April 11th by Wolves of Hades. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Apr 082025

(It may be April, but Andy Synn is still catching up on March’s bumper crop of releases)

Like I said last week (and also yesterday) it’s patently impossible for anyone to keep up with everything that’s released each month… so the best move is to not even try.

Of course, I’m immediately going to contradict that by covering another quartet of releases from March, but the point still stands.

After all, despite my best efforts here (and last week) I’m still not going to be able to write about the new ones from Cult of Fire (Czechia) or Cthuluminati (Netherlands) in full, or talk about the immersive Post-Metal intensity of Båkü (France) or Druma (Germany), or give hefty death-dealers Nothing (Australia) and Thanatophobia (Russia) their due.

On top of that, while I’m really liking the new Gates to Hell album the fact that they’re already signed to a big label and getting a lot of coverage means that it’s probably best for me to focus my efforts elsewhere (same for the vicious, visceral – yet slightly too long and drawn-out for its own good – new one from This Gift Is A Curse).

And even though I’ve been loving the new Teitanblood (unsurprisingly) I feel like our good buddies at AMG already said everything that needed saying about that one, so make sure you go and read their review for some cool insight into that one.

But, anyway, enough of all my that… let’s get to the music, shall we?

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PYRE

Exceptions to the Rule No Responses »

Apr 082025

(Today we share Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Dmitry “Dym Nox”, the drummer, bassist, and vocalist of the Russian death metal band Pyre, whose latest album has been out for a couple of months on the Osmose label.)

Pyre is probably the most powerful and recognized Russian death metal band, and the release of their third album Where Obscurity Sways at the end of January on Osmose Productions was an event.

The previous album Chained to Ossuaries was recorded five years ago by Dmitry “Dym Nox” (drums, bass, vocals), Roman Rotten (guitars), and Fred Obsinner (guitars). It was a strange experience for the band: Pyre were then on a tight deadline, there were problems with the drummer, and they, as never before, wrote and recorded all the material in a year, and it was immediately released. And Dmitry considers Where Obscurity Sways as a spontaneous continuation of its predecessor, but on a different level both in general and in production.

According to him, the band is currently euphoric about the result, especially since the new material was recorded with drummer Oleg “Malleus”, with whom Pyre had been playing together for a long time and testing out ideas. The result is impressive. I interviewed Dmitry for the Dark City magazine, and as soon as the current issue is released, I’d like to share this interview with you.

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAMIARUS — “CRUSHED BY INFERIOR”

Premieres No Responses »

Apr 072025

(written by Islander)

Samiarus took shape in the SF Bay Area among current and past members of Abnutivum, Meth Sores, Flesh Dungeon, Doomsday, Slaughteruin, Abstracter, and Mentor. The name they chose was intended as a reference to “the Arabic name of the leader of the Watchers in apocryphal abrahamic scriptures, a rebel angel who shared knowledge with men and birthed the Nephilim, becoming a danger to divine power and law and turning into the absolute usurper.”

First impressions of their black/death terrors arose from their Demonstration demo, released in January of this year, which included one original song, a cover of Absu‘s “Descent to Acheron”, and a recording of a live rehearsal. It brought to mind full-blown war zones, episodes of unhinged violence and splintering sanity, but infiltrated by ingredients not wholly dependent on antecedents like Blasphemy and Archgoat.

Now we have a Samiarus EP looming ahead of us, a 23-minute onslaught named Reign Destroyer that will be released by Sentient Ruin on April 25th. What we have for you today is the premiere of one of its 7 tracks, “Crushed By Inferior“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PYROMANCER — “VOLCANIC RAPTURE”

Premieres 1 Response »

Apr 072025

(written by Islander)

The name Pyromancer rang bells around here when news of their forthcoming debut album broke, but they were distant bells, even though their resonance was ruinous. Looking back, we had a burst of posts in 2015 about Pyromancer‘s debut demo and then Kaptain Carbon‘s review of their performance at the spring 2016 Blood of the Wolf Fest in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.

Almost a decade has passed since then, an almost incomprehensible amount of time given the rushing pace of changes in almost every aspect of life over those years. Pyromancer did finally re-surface last year with a pair of songs on a split with Detroit’s Perversion released by Godz Ov War, and now comes the debut album, aptly named Absolute Dominion By Fire, set for release next month by Adirondack Black Mass.

The same two terrorizing dominators are still in charge — Master of Graveyard Torment (drums, vocals) and Conqueror Horus (guitars, vocals) — and as you’ll learn from the album track we’re premiering today, they haven’t backed off or backed down from igniting black/death conflagrations – bizarre black/death conflagrations. Continue reading »

ZEOLITE – L’APPEL DU VIDE

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Apr 072025

(Andy Synn kicks off his week with a bit of down-under Deathcore violence courtesy of Zeolite)

People often ask me – well, not so much “often” as “occasionally” – how I keep up with everything that’s released each week.

And my answer is… I don’t!

Oh, I used to run myself ragged trying to have an opinion on every album or EP that came out, but I soon realised that a) this wasn’t good for me (and was stopping me from actually enjoying my life), and b) every single one of these releases actually deserved more of my time and attention if I wanted to do them justice (which is why I’m so sceptical/scornful when people claim to have listened to 100+ albums every month… as they’re clearly more concerned with showing off the quantity, rather than the quality, of their listening).

And so I made the decision (the healthy decision, I think) to work smarter, rather than harder, going forwards, and to focus more on just covering whatever I felt most enthusiastic about – whatever I felt I had some insight into or that I had an interesting angle on – so that I could dedicate more time to fewer albums overall.

Which brings me to L’Appel Du Vide, the recently-released second album from Australian Brutal/Technical Deathcore/Death Metal crew Zeolite.

SHADES OF BLACK: AEONYZHAR, VEIA, FØSPHENE

SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Apr 062025

(written by Islander)

I spent yesterday marching and rallying. It felt good. I spent last night (way deep into the night) consuming a gallon of good whisky with friends who were like a hybrid of rabbits and wolverines, cautious and nimble but also fanged and fierce. This morning I woke up feeling like a crippled turtle.

I thought about not doing anything for this column, just leaving a gap between yesterday and tomorrow. But what might people think? Stroke? Heart attack? Pneumonia? Burst appendix? Going off the road and into a pylon? Is he dead, injured, sick, or what?

Reading what I just wrote, that sure sounds egotistical. More likely, few people would give even a passing thought to why this column never arrived. But more than momentarily, I’d feel like I’d fallen down on the job, in addition to being barely able to stand up this morning. Better something than nothing, so here are three very good somethings. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MIDNIGHT, ALIGN, FURNACE, STREGA, ARV, FLUISTERAARS

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Apr 052025

(written by Islander)

I don’t have a “physically active lifestyle” these days, yet some nights my body acts like I just ran a marathon. Last night was one of those. I conked out and woke up more than 9 hours later. Not even the part of my brain that always nags me, even asleep, about the need to get this Saturday column in shape could resist the bear-like compulsion to hibernate.

So, a very late start today, made later by the time needed to overcome grogginess. Still groggy, even after reading godawful global news stories while inhaling a cocktail of caffeine and nicotine, I glanced at the godawful big NCS in-box. Here’s the first message I saw:

Please take a moment out of your day to listen to the new track from Casa Mondo “Same Words.” It is a taste of Afro Reggae Summer Niceness and would give your followers a warm fuzzy feeling 🙂

I nearly wrote back to ask how in the world we got on this person’s list. We must be on many lists that have zero to do with what we do, because I see dozens of e-mails like this every day from musically remote planets (remote from our own ugly little asteroid).

Of course I didn’t write back, but I thought, the only warm fuzzy feeling our followers might want from music at NCS would be a feeling of fungal infection. And “niceness”? I think our definition of “nice” is not what Casa Mondo had in mind. Continue reading »

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