AN NCS PREMIERE: DÉTRESSE — “DIE RUHE TRÄGT”

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May 012025
 

(written by Islander)

The names of the people in Détresse should draw attention among ardent listeners of black metal whose appreciation for the art goes much deeper than merely skimming the big names at the surface:

Guitars + vocals: S.P. (Lebenssucht, Einst)
Bass: C.S. (Gevurah – live)
Drums: L.S. (Anomalie)

Well, initials rather than names, but with a bit of searching you can learn who they are. What these three have done together from their locations in Austria and Québec is manifested in a debut Détresse album named Pessimismes that will be released by Vendetta Records on May 17th. The words offered in preview on behalf of the label are worth sharing: Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 182): INOCULATION

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
May 012025
 

Recommended for fans of: Ulthar, Mithras, Cryptopsy

It honestly amazes me that we’ve never written about Inoculation before, outside of a few passing mentions here and there.

But with the recent release of their third album, Actuality, a few weeks ago now seems like the perfect time to address this terrible injustice.

You see, while the majority of the US Death Metal scene is currently (and, perhaps understandably) obsessed with the “New Wave of American Death Metal” (the most prominent names of which I’m sure you’re all aware) that updates and upgrades the classic OSDM sound for more modern ears, this crushing Cleveland trio – who firmed up and finalised their line-up in 2016, and released their first full-length in 2018 – draw just as much (if not more) influence from the late 90s/early 00s explosion of Brutal/Technical Death Metal bands.

That’s not to say that keen ears won’t be able to detect the influence of the likes of Death and Deicide here and there, but I’d argue that its bands like Demilich and Deeds of Flesh whose DNA has the most dominant impact on the band’s ultimate sound (especially after they shook off those early growing pains after their debut).

But don’t just take my word for it… give the band’s collective output a listen below and hear for yourselves (and, if you’re of a mind to, check out what else I’ve written too).

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROPHETIC SUFFERING — “FOUL”

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Apr 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Here’s part of how the Sentient Ruin label attempts to prepare its victims listeners for Rivalry of Thy Self, the debut album of Prophetic Suffering:

We’re extremely proud to announce the sanguinary return of Edmonton-based bestial death metal sadists Prophetic Suffering. In under a half hour the Canadian horde bring forth a violent and dark monstrosity forged by an abysmal convergence between Blasphemy’s war-torn black metal terror with the gruesome and gore-infested death metal of Cannibal Corpse albums like The Bleeding and Tomb of the Mutilated.

But wait, there’s more: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELLCRASH — “MARK OF THE BEAST”

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Apr 302025
 

(written by Islander)

We had an album review earlier today that compared the band’s music to a dish prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. What’s coming next is like a horde of exultant demons blasting through those restaurant doors on full-throttle Harleys and blow-torching all the diners for the greater glory of Satan.

Sedate and sophisticated or inventively avant-garde, this is is not. It’s hell-raising heavy metal, evil and electrifying to the core, pure-grade adrenaline served through the ears. But that doesn’t mean this sulfurous song is slap-dash or sloppy — far from it. It deserves its own chef’s kiss (along with a fuckload of horns thrown to the sky).

What we’re talking about, as you can see, is a song named “Mark of the Beast” from the devil-spawned Italian rampagers in Hellcrash. It’s off their third album Inferno Crematörio, which is set for release on May 23rd by Dying Victims Productions, and we’re presenting it through a lyric video. Continue reading »

HATE: “BELLUM REGIIS”

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Apr 302025
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the newest album from the Polish titans Hate, which is set for release this coming Friday, May 2nd, by
Metal Blade Records.)

Poland’s Hate have been a musical monolith for blackened death metal for over two decades now. They’ve become a lighthouse by which you can orient yourself, ever fixed upon land and as steady as the world could allow it to be. With thirteen albums in their arsenal, Adam and the crew of the machine named Hate have been one of, if not the most reliable sources of extreme metal around for a long time. While erecting an unscalable wall of imperial riffs and relentless double-bass drumming, they have also become a gateway into the wider expanse of the dark arts.

Hate have stayed rigidly true to their formula, such that you could pull any album post-Anaclasis from their discography and use it as a guide into blackened death metal for anyone willing to take the plunge. Few have ever attempted the sort of fiery riff work that Hate build their music out of, and because of that there’s been little reason for the group to ever shift. Hate don’t do massive artistic evolution: the Hate you see now was a Hate set in stone a while ago, already concrete and recognizable. What Hate do now is to iterate on their sound, such that there’ve been a few distinct three-to-four album arcs over the course of their career. Continue reading »

POINT MORT – LE POINT DE NON-RETOUR

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Apr 302025
 

(Andy Synn decides to shake things up a little with the genre-blending new album from Point Mort)

Whenever you’re writing about a band like Parisian “post-genre” provocateurs Point Mort – whose sound combines elements and influences from (Post) Metal, (Post) Hardcore, Alt-Pop, Rap, Electronica, and more – it’s often hard to know quite where to begin.

After all, while comparisons and references to the likes of The Ocean and Oathbreaker, Leprous and Latitudes, Rolo Tomassi and Refused are certainly valid (though by no means exhaustive) they’re never going to really capture just how defiantly – and potentially divisively – the French quartet resist easy categorisation.

But, much as an expert chef is capable of taking a concoction of ingredients that wouldn’t normally work together and turning them into a Michelin-starred meal, so too have Point Mort taken an array of sounds and styles and combined them into a delicious seven song smorgasbord named Le point de non-retour.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WALD KRYPTA — “OF DISENCHANTMENT”

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Apr 292025
 

(written by Islander)

On May 30th the Eternal Death label will release a new album by the Canadian/American duo Wald Krypta. Entitled Disenchantment, it’s the band’s fourth full-length.

Around here, this has been an eagerly anticipated album, because in their previous releases Wald Krypta have found for themselves an intriguing musical intersection. They are rightly known for the “raw” lo-fi aesthetics of their sound, but their songwriting really doesn’t fit the current template of “raw black metal”.

Whereas that songwriting template often seems calculated to be willfully abusive of listeners… and therefore often dull and uninspiring… Wald Krypta electrify the imagination, even when what their songs might cause us to imagine are very dark and dangerous visions. Their music has compelling emotional power, which the organic rawness of their sound just makes more authentic.

They show this again within Disenchantment, and we have two vivid signs of that so far, one song that has already been revealed and another we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PUTRIDITY — “MORS MATER NOSTRA”

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Apr 292025
 

(written by Islander)

Today we’re facilitating an event that’s the sonic equivalent of detonating a dirty bomb in a crowded downtown thoroughfare. But instead of radioactive material, this bomb is packed with nails, viscera, and bone fragments, all expanding at the pace of a blast front.

What we’re presenting is the first song to be violently discharged from Morbid Ataraxia, a no-holds-barred new album by the Italian brutal death metal band Putridity in advance of its June 27 release by Willowtip Records. As you can see, we’re also revealing the album’s ghastly cover painting, prepared by the fiendishly talented Paolo Girardi. Continue reading »

DESERTED FEAR: “VEINS OF FIRE”

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Apr 292025
 

(Below you will find DGR‘s review of the newest album by Deserted Fear, released late last week by Testimony Records.)

Germany’s Deserted Fear have been the engine that could over the course of six albums now. A compact project that has been a three-piece for a large course of their career, the band have been a consistent mark within the world of heavy metal.

Since 2012’s My Empire, Deserted Fear have proven themselves reliable, with releases hitting like clockwork on about the two-to-three-year mark. Their artistic evolution has seen the group change over the years from a very groove-inspired and influence-worshiping branch of death metal – the classic one-two thump of swede-death and Bolt Thrower‘s primal hammering filtered through the modern era’s taste for ruthless efficiency – to something akin to a current-day melodic death metal band since the days of 2019’s Drowned By Humanity.

While the logo or their taste for artwork has remained suitably corpse-obsessed, Deserted Fear have embraced a surgical attack that has made the three-piece sound so much larger than they actually are and one that has also made them fairly easy to understand and get into a groove of your own with.

While the melodeath genre has seen its fair share of revivalism across multiple eras and numerous “influenced by the influenced by the influenced by” crews, Deserted Fear have grown more naturally into a role that could just as easily have been built for late 90’s/early 00’s era In Flames and Soilwork. Deserted Fear‘s newest album Veins Of Fire puts a big spotlight on that fact and also shows that the band have comfortably settled in as being vanguards for doing so. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXCOMMUNICATIO — “KONFINATION – DISCIPLES OF THE LIGHT”

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Apr 282025
 

(written by Islander)

With phenomenal cover art by Eliran Kantor paving the way, on May 2nd Vendetta Records will release a split entitled MANDATUM by two striking black metal bands — Excommunicatio (Germany) and Beenkerver (Netherlands). The split includes three new songs by each band, and today we’re premiering a lyric video for one of the three by Excommunicatio.

For Excommunicatio the split follows up their 2023 debut album Kodex Luzifer, which we reviewed here. The review included these thoughts:

To be sure, the album is relentlessly hellish, just as the vocals are relentlessly spine-tingling in their demonic intensity, but the album takes us on a tour — because this vision of hell is not all one place. As rendered in these songs, it is ruled by magisterial haughtiness and cold cruelty, but the lords also exult in their un-ruled excesses and their displays of burning glory, and they war on heaven too. In this infernal pageant we also tour ghettos of suffering and the wandering of lost souls in desolation.

What new hells do the Excommunicatio duo open for us on the split? We envision one of them through “Konfination – Disciples of the Light.” Continue reading »

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