AN NCS PREMIERE: MORTUAIRE — “MONDE VIDE”

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Feb 072025
 

(written by Islander)

When you hear the name Bordeaux the first thing that will probably pop into your mind is world-class wine, and perhaps physical beauty both natural and man-made if you’ve ever been there. If anything else jumps to mind, it’s probably not death metal — though that will change after you listen to Monde Vide, the debut album from Bordeaux-based Mortuaire.

This group is fairly new, with only a 2022 EP in their discography so far, but its lineup includes musicians from well-known bands, among them Year of No Light, Bombardement, The Great Old Ones, Monarch!, and Faucheuse. Their debut album is now set for release on March 7th by World Eater Records, and what we have for you today is the premiere of the album’s title song. Continue reading »

2024’s MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THINGS WHAT ISLANDER AND DGR MISSED

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  No Responses »
Feb 072025
 

(Andy Synn is here to correct some egregious oversights by the rest of the NCS crew)

Well, I guess it’s finally time to draw a line under last year… in fact, it’s probably well past time… but before we consign 2024 to the great internet graveyard I wanted to get in one last edition of “2024’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs” focussing on some of the coolest and most killer cuts that my buddies Islander and DGR missed.

Credit where credit is due, however, the two of them did end up featuring a couple of tracks I assumed would end up on my list (namely “Dehumanize Me” by Candy and “Blackwater” by Bloom Dream) but the rest of these ten selections (I decided that was a nice limit, considering between them Islander and DGR already highlighted over 100 tracks) come from artists/albums/EPs they didn’t touch in their lists.

I’ve also resisted the temptation to include anything by my own band… although if I had it probably would have been “Until Morale Improves” (which, you know, you should definitely check out)… or any bands I’m too close to personally, but that still left a pretty massive “short list” (short being a relative term) to choose from, so whittling it down to just ten options meant a whole heap of songs were left behind on the cutting room floor.

But, hopefully, what you’re about to hear will encourage you to further check out the rest of these records.

Continue reading »

ROTPIT AND DRUID LORD JOIN FORCES IN ROT-FILLED SPLIT EP

 Album Reviews, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 072025
 

(Here, our contributor Zoltar shines a light on the recently released split Doomed To Rot by two death metal devastators — Druid Lord from the U.S. and the German/Swedish group Rotpit.)

Split releases may appear like a thing of the past but, Satan be thanked, some cool bands and underground labels out there carry on that long tradition, let it be by pure opportunity or, in today’s case, simply to show each other some good old respect. And why the hell not? Especially when the two bands in question aren’t exactly playing what you would call, well, half-ass death metal.

Here in the US, you’re probably more familiar with DRUID LORD: Formed over fifteen years ago by former EQUINOX and ACHERON veterans Peter Slate (guitar) and Tony Blakk (bass & vocals), completed since 20016 by KILLING ADDICTION’s Chris Wicklein (guitar) and MASSACRE’s Elden Santos (drums), they’ve been growing in strength over the course of three albums and a whole bunch of splits, showcasing their heavy-as-fuck doom/death take on the classic Floridian style.

On the flipside, you’ll find the Swedish/German supergroup ROTPIT, spearheaded by Ralf Hauber from REVEL IN FLESH, assisted by his partner-in-crime in HEADS FOR THE DEAD Jonny Pettersson (the man of a thousand bands/projects like WOMBBATH, HUMAN HARVEST and so on) and, on drums since last year, Erik Barthold from LEFT HAND SOLUTION. Last November, the lads released Long Live The Rot, a downtuned delicacy of epic proportions that would make BLOODBATH barf and run for cover. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HARVEST OF ASH — “EMBRACING”

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Feb 062025
 

(written by Islander)

Not all bands make music with a sense of place, with a connection to the environment that surrounds them and their experiences in that particular setting. Instead, the music might sound like it could have been conceived and created anywhere. But Salt Lake City’s Harvest of Ash definitely do have that connection. Here’s an introduction from their Bandcamp page:

Salt Lake City’s geography is a study of contrasts. Towering mountains, expressing power and grandeur, meet with desert emptiness – a completely flat limitlessness where barely a shrub is able to grow. Enormous and overwhelming, three-piece doom band Harvest of Ash conjures both the magnificence of mountain ranges and the desolation of barren deserts.

The band’s music is also equally rooted in their own experiences within that environment, including various chaotic calamities that hindered the completion of their new album Castaway, which is now set for release on March 6th. Here’s how they describe the new songs’ lyrical journey: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DRUGS OF FAITH — “MICROCHIP”

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Feb 062025
 

(written by Islander)

Allow me to repeat what I wrote about “Gas Mask,” the first single off Drugs of Faith‘s new album Asymmetrical (not that you have a choice): “It skitters and slashes, bounces and brawls, vents the words in a red-eyed fury, and eventually takes off from its punk launching pad into an eruption of grindcore mayhem.”

In other words, after a nearly 6-year hiatus following their last EP and nearly 14 years beyond their last studio album, Drugs of Faith have gotten up off the mat and come out swinging — hard. They have the same lineup that produced that EP (Decay) — guitarist/vocalist Richard Johnson (Enemy Soil, Agoraphobic Nosebleed), bassist Ivan Khilko (Immanent Voiceless), and drummer Ethan Griffiths (Embra) — and their chemistry still produces a volatile concoction of sounds.

Here’s a preview of the album offered on behalf of the labels that will release it on February 21st (Selfmadegod Records and Malokul): Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PUTRED

 Interviews  No Responses »
Feb 062025
 

(On January 20th a quartet of international labels released Megalit al Putrefacției, the highly anticipated second album by the Romanian death metal band Putred, and to follow up on that we now present Zoltar‘s interview of the band’s main man Uriel Aguillon, who as you’ll see has quite a history.)

Even from a European point of view, Romania remains one vast uncharted territory in terms of extreme metal, despite the fact that Metal Archives lists no fewer than 500 bands, with only the late Negurā Bunget having left a deep and still brooding mark (although the band ceased to exist over eight years ago). Yet somehow for those who know where to look in the deepest pits of the underground for the latest death metal sensation, a few low-key acts like Vorus, Reveler or Demoted kept coming back lately. Turns out all those bands/projects share more or less the same members, with guitar player, sometimes vocalist, engineer, and producer Uriel Aguillon at the very center of it.

Interestingly enough, Aguillon was born and raised in the US and was living in the country until a decade ago. Yet what is now, according to him, his main focus Putred might be one of the very first death metal bands to use Romanian for their lyrics. Not that it should stop you on your track, as song-titles like “Aura Macabra” or “Parasit In Purgatoriu” easily let you know what kind of murky swamps you’re about to enter.

Speaking of which, most of the music featured on the band’s just-released second album Megalit Al Putrefacției, after a whole bunch of demos and splits, is as fetid, lumping instead of running, while its decayed flesh reeks the kind of foul odor only downtuned and primitive old-school death metal manages to summon.

The fifty-year-old musician agreed to shed a light on his background, Putred‘s newest offering, how he ended up in Romania, and why playing death metal with your wife is far more entertaining than attending a couple’s night out at your local bingo club. Continue reading »

“STRESS TEST” — AN NCS SONG PREMIERE AND A REVIEW OF THE ALBUM

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 052025
 

(On February 28th Transylvanian Recordings will release the self-titled debut album by Stress Test from Portland, Oregon. What we have for you today is Todd Manning‘s review of the album and our premiere of its title song.)

With all the blends of sub-genres that make up the metal world today, grindcore and old-school thrash metal is a combination that doesn’t often pop up. But Portland’s Stress Test make it sound natural, like we all should’ve been doing this all along.

After a brief intro, “Degrees of Violence” vomits forth a tirade of crust and blast beats. The song is 30 seconds long, as it should be, and is awesome in all the standard grind kind of ways. “Coward” follows and at first glance seems similar to what came before. But there are moments that upon closer examination have a thrash feel. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GHOSTSMOKER — “ELOGIUM”

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Feb 052025
 

(written by Islander)

Smoke dope if you want, but today you can imagine what it might be like to pack your bong with ghosts and see what happens when you apply the flame.

The occasion for this mind game is a lyric video for the song “Elogium” that we’re premiering today. It’s the opening track from Inertia Cult, the debut album from Melbourne’s Ghostsmoker that’s now set for release by Art As Catharsis on March 21st, described by the label as “a record of earth-shaking sludge and blackened doom.”

But before we get to that, you ought to first allow your mind to be invaded by a gripping video for the first single from the album, “Incarnate.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SARKOM — “ENTER AS FOOL – EXIT AS BEAST”

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Feb 052025
 

(written by Islander)

There’s nothing wrong with a very good band sticking to what they know and essentially repeating an appealing formula from one record to the next. Many have done that, including groups who’ve been practicing their craft for long stretches of time.

On the other hand, many of us (most of us?) are more interested in creative types who aren’t content to crank out basically the same thing over and over again, even if it’s appealing. Over a large span of years, that might begin to seem like working on a musical assembly line, where boredom sets in.

Of course, varying a workable formula can be risky, depending on the extent and nature of the changes. What’s fun and exciting for the musician might be confusing and unwelcome to their fans.

Which brings us to Sarkom, the Norwegian black metal band who are now several years into their third decade of music-making, and just a couple of weeks away from the release of their fifth album, Exceed In2 Chaos. Continue reading »

NAKED WHIPPER: “CHAPEL DEFILEMENT”

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Feb 052025
 

(On January 31st Iron Bonehead Productions ushered in the return, after 30 years, of the German band Naked Whipper, and now we’re providing Zoltar‘s review of their new album.)

I know better. Fuck, I was there. So don’t believe those claiming they were right from the get-go into Blasphemy and their likes back in the mid-’90s because they weren’t. Truth be told, back then what was to be called ‘war metal’ and their likes had very few disciples. Even if death metal was on its way out, I guess most of them hadn’t come to terms with the new definition of what extreme metal stood for and what the heck this both annoying and fascinating corpsepainted kid known as black metal had to do with it.

What I do know though is that when Naked Whipper‘s first full-length Paintreaks unexpectedly dropped in 1995, most of us dismissed it, including me. Their only claim to fame was that their bass player and vocalist was briefly Blood‘s frontman for their cult Christbait album released three years later but that was about it. As a matter of fact, the result sounded to my ears like a more satanic-flavored and primitive version of Blood, and thus was immediately suspected of jumping on the left hand path band-wagon, especially since it was being put out by MMI Records off Germany (Morbid Records‘ little brother if you catch the reference), then first and foremost renowned for putting out ugly death metal and grindcore, such as Avulsed, Dead or Deranged. Continue reading »

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