An NCS INTERVIEW: ADE

 Interviews  1 Response »
Feb 112025
 

(In mid-March Time To Kill Records will release a new album by the Roman death metal band Ade, and that drew our Comrade Aleks into a very interesting discussion with the band’s founder Fabius and its vocalist Diocletianus. The interview provides excellent insights into the band’s ambitions and techniques, and of course the new album as well.)

For seventeen years the Italian band Ade has performed their own Ancient Roman Death Metal. It may sound ambitious, but they truly do their best to pave their own way, choosing original themes for their albums and integrating folk instruments in their riffs and mountain-splitting melodies.

They already had album dedicated to the Punic Wars (Carthago Delenda Est, 2016), and there’s the album Spartacus (2013) dedicated to the riot of Spartacus himself, for example. But the new album’s title Supplicium could be translated as “suffering”, and the idea behind it is a bit difficult to interpret.

This interview with the Ade’s founder Fabius (guitars) and his bandmate Diocletianus (vocals) will shed some light on the band’s history and the story of Suffering as well. Time To Kill Records is going to release the album on March 14th, but we just needed to forewarn you as soon as possible! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABOLISHMENT OF FLESH — “DISAVOWED”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 112025
 

As the calendar pages turn fast, as if riffled by a strong wind, we’re now 18 months past the release of Resurrecting Misanthropy, a decimating EP from Abolishment of Flesh, a band born in the panhandle of West Texas. It added to a discography that includes three albums and another EP dating back to 2008, and drove forward the band’s lyrical themes “shaped by war, violence, disease, corruption, and the systematic collapse of human civilization.”

That most recent EP also further evidenced the band’s musical evolution, which now draws freely from ingredients of death, black, and thrash metal and has found a place for melody and groove amidst the carnage of brutality. As a reminder of how good that last EP was, today we’re premiering a video for one of its three songs — “Disavowed“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HAIL CONJURER — “NEW ORDER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 112025
 

The Finnish black metal band Hail Conjurer has been following a year-after-year album release cycle since the first full-length (Dreams of Serpent) in 2018, with other releases in between. We’re now beginning a new calendar year, and so we will have a new Hail Conjurer album, the band’s ninth. The new one, which will be released by a triumvirate of labels, is named Order of Disgrace.

For those who might be encountering this band for the first time, it’s the solo endeavor of a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who is also a member of Hooded Menace, Horse Latitudes, Ride For Revenge, and Regere Sinister (among others), but Hail Conjurer seems to be his most personal project, and a vehicle he always goes back to.

As you can see, today we’re bringing you a song from the new album named “New Order,” presented through a video. But before we get to it, we’ll share a bit of info about the new album and how it compares to the last one. Continue reading »

MORAST: “FENTANYL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 112025
 

(Below you will find Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the German black metal band Morast, which was released last week by Ván Records.)

I have an odd relationship with Black Metal. If you asked me what my favorite sub-genre of metal is I would have to say Black Metal. The caveat here is certain types. This German band Morast certainly captures what my type is.

When most people think of Black Metal they think of blast beats, tremolo-picked guitar, and the production quality of a room mic in a dank dungeon. That is the sound that bores me to death. It also feels odd that a genre dedicated to misanthropy and non-conformity to mainstream metal trends would repeatedly follow a formula because “that’s how Black Metal should sound”.

Morast do a wonderful job capturing the needed worship of darkness and misery to make me smile — anguish as depressive black metal. Yet they paint a sonic picture of a junkie’s despair in a manner we have not seen done with this kind of authenticity since mid-2000s Nachtmystium. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAVERNOUS MAW — “PRIMITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.

Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.

Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.

But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: REGICIDE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Feb 102025
 

(This is Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with the very thoughtful and articulate Vitaly “Gravementor” Galkin, one of the two members of the band Regicide from Siberian Russia, whose debut album Eternal Siege was released last October.)

Formed as a quartet in June 2016 by guitarist/vocalist Vitaly “Gravementor” Galkin, bassist Pavel Mor, drummer Alexander Sunz, and guitarist Michael, Regicide was one of the very few (or maybe only) sludge’n’stoner bands in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg. Their live album Live at Doomsday Haze Vol. 4 passed almost unnoticed back in 2021, and somehow the quartet turned into a duo, but Vitaly together with Stanislav Zhdanovsky (drums, cymbals, percussion) managed to focus and record the full-length album Eternal Siege.

And in spite of all my stereotypes regarding the genre’s primitivism, we had a very constructive conversation with Vitaly. Continue reading »

RETROMORPHOSIS – PSALMUS MORTIS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 102025
 

(Andy Synn discusses questions of legacy and rebirth while singing the praises of Retromorphosis)

Look, there’s no way to talk about Retromorphosis without also talking about the elephant in the room.

After all, a lot of people feel (with good reason) that Psalmus Mortis is basically the long-awaited 4th Spawn of Possession album in all but name, especially since four out of five of the people behind the recording are ex-Spawn alumni (although only guitarist Jonas Bryssling and vocalist Dennis Röndum are SoP originals).

This, however, creates two potential problems for any budding reviewer.

On one hand you’ve got the question of how to address the expectations of the group’s fanbase, some of whom have already declared it “Album of the Year”, while others are convinced there’s no way it can live up to the band’s legacy – both prior to actually hearing it, I might add – without pandering to or dismissing their concerns.

Then, on the other, there’s the issue of how to put the album in its proper context – after all, it’s been just under thirteen years since SoP‘s third (and final) album was released, and during that time the Technical Death Metal scene has mutated and metastisized so much, spawning (no pun intended) a myriad of new strains and new variants, that it’s understandable if you’re wondering where exactly Retromorphosis are going to fit in.

Well, wonder no longer, because you’re about to find out all that… and more!

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERHEERER, OSGRAEF, ANCINE, THE BLOOD MOUNTAIN BLACK METAL CHOIR, OFNUS, Обрій (OBRIJ)

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Another Sunday arrives, and with it another brain-wrecking task of making choices for this column, a task made even harder than I was expecting when I woke up to find that Rennie Resmini had climbed back into the starkweather Substack with a bunch of new recommendations I hadn’t already discovered (more on that later).

It’s obvious (maybe painfully obvious to some of you) that I am prone to great enthusiasm about music. I know I’m less critical than lots of other listeners, and even other writers at our putrid site. I still use my own kind of filter, but it seems more porous than those of others. Or maybe I see more clearly just how much fucking creativity and talent continue flowering in the metal underground, week after week!

(Somehow my enthusiasm for music is unabated even though the country where I live is rapidly going down the shitter.)

Here’s a severely cropped snapshot of what’s enthused me in recent days from the blacker realms. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REVOCATION, RIVERS OF NIHIL, ILLUSIONS DEAD, SERPENTS OF PAKHANGBA, SEASON TO RISK, JUNON, BENEDICTION, ROTTING CHRIST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 082025
 


Revocation – photo by David Brodsky

(written by Islander)

Bookends: solid objects firmly in place, resistant to the pressure of adjacent warped spines, bulging contents, and the changes in atmosphere and time that cause such pressures. I have a pair of musical bookends on each end of today’s musical shelf. In between are a few exceedingly interesting small volumes that caught my eyes and ears this week. I hope you’ll give them all a chance so they can catch yours too.

REVOCATION (U.S.)

Surely, Revocation need no introduction, so I won’t provide one. Let’s see and hear what they’re up to now, the focus being on the video released for a new single named “Confines of Infinity“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: METAPHOBIC — “EXECRATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 072025
 

Anyone who’s been paying attention to extreme metal for more than a few months knows that Everlasting Spew Records is one of the most dependable curators of dreadful, demented, disturbing, and devastating music out there. To their burgeoning roster, they have now added the thoroughly demented and impressively ingenious death metal quintet Metaphobic from Atlanta, Georgia.

What now lies ahead of us is the band’s debut album, the perfectly named Deranged Excruciations, which Everlasting Spew has set for release on February 28th. What lies ahead of you even more closely is today’s premiere of a song from the album named “Execration” — also very well named. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries