Andy Synn Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

MARTRÖÐ – DRAUMSÝNIR ELDSINS

Dec 032025

(Andy Synn sneaks in one last review just under the wire before drawing a line under the year)

With this being my last review prior to next week’s take-over of the site for my annual round-up of “A Year In Review(s)”, I knew it had to be something special.

And what better than the long-gestating, and highly-anticipated, debut album from a band – or, to be more precise, a duo – who seem set to take their place as the tip of the spear in the ever-expanding, and ever-abrasive, sphere of “dissonant” Black Metal.

So, please, allow me to present Draumsýnir eldsins… a vision of fire that will soon burn itself into your brain.

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Dec 022025

(Andy Synn is hoping to cover as many in as possible before “List Week”… so here’s four you may not have checked out)

As the last edition of “Things You May Have Missed” before my epic, week-long round-up of “the year in Metal”, this particular article has a fair bit of pressure on its shoulders, and deciding who to feature wasn’t easy.

Suffice it to say, however, that I’ve done my best to once again cover the spread as well as I can, which this time means a late-in-the-year highlight from the Hardcore scene, an absoutely killer Death Metal debut, some gloriously riff-happy Blackened Stoner Metal from Canada, and a slab of deathly Slovakian Tech/Prog extremity from a band who have, from my perspective at least, flown under the radar for far too long!

So, withour further ado, let’s get to it. After all, time is running out…

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 189): CZERNINA

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Dec 012025

Recommended for fans of: Shining, Maladie, Der Weg Einer Freiheit

It was just last year when I stumbled across Polish Black Metal madmen Czernina for the first time, and quickly fell in love with their absolutely scorching delivery, whose impressively heavy sound was tempered – and by this I do mean strengthened – by a strain of subtle stangeness woven deep into the warp and weft of their sound.

And when I randomly discovered that the band’s third album, Oszukać Listopad, had been released just last week (and right in time for the end of the month) I knew it was their turn to be on the receiving end of another one of my discography deep-dives.

So if you’re looking for a dose of unflinchingly causitc, yet also unusually creative Black Metal (there’s a reason, after all, that the above “for fans of” references are all for bands who err towards the proggier, yet also punishing, side of the genre)… well, here’s not one but three lethal injections to stick straight into your veins.

HVRT – CANCERBLOOM

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Nov 262025

(The new album from Hvrt comes out Dec 05… and Andy Synn says you won’t have to wait, or weep, much longer)

I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I’ve often thought about starting a more Black Metal (or, at least, “blackened”) project of my own, something that sits somewhere between Black Anvil, Black Breath, and Mantar, on the sludgier, punkier side of things… all nasty riffs, gnarly grooves, and stripped-down, hook-heavy songs designed to take no prisoners and take no shit.

There’s only two problems with this, so far:

Finding the right collaborators has proven difficult, as I just don’t seem to know the right people or have the right contacts (and we’d obviously have to be compatible, both musically and personally);
Hvrt kind of already got there first.

BLUT AUS NORD – ETHEREAL HORIZONS

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Nov 252025

(Andy Synn ventures towards new horizons with Blut Aus Nord, whose new album is out on Friday)

Although it often seems like we spend most of our time here at NCS playing catch-up… and that’s because we do… on rare occasions, such as this one, we do manage to get something published in advance of an album’s release.

Not necessarily by much, it’s true, but we’ll take what we can get when it comes to getting ahead of the curve for once.

Of course, few bands out there have as much of a claim to being “ahead of the curve” – not just once, but multiple times throughout the myriad variations of their sound – as Blut Aus Nord, whose long career has been characterised by a near-constant sense of musical motion and creative evolution.

THE END APPROACHES

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Nov 242025

(The days are growing darker… which means it’s the perfect time for Andy Synn to get doomy and gloomy)

Last week I received my first promo for a 2026 release… which I guess means it’s time to start thinking about wrapping up 2025?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to be stopping writing about releases from this year just yet (I still have several albums set for release in December on the docket, for one thing) but at some point I’m going to have to shift my focus to my usual series of round-up posts.

Before then, however, I feel like I need to make amends for the fact that I haven’t spent much time focussing on the doomier side of things over the course of the last eleven months.

And the best way to do that, in my opinion, is to highlight the work of three artists – Lera (Italy), Oneironoia (Germany), and Sun of the Dying (Spain) – who I’m ashamed to have overlooked.

BEST OF BRITISH: ASIRA / FALSE REALITY / GNASCH

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Nov 202025

(Andy Synn presents another terrific trio of albums from the UK underground)

I’m going to level with you, I’m running out of time… I’ve got recording to finish off, my annual work review coming up, and then I’m off on my mini-honeymoon at the start of December… and I still haven’t properly started work on my yearly round-up of all the “Great”, “Good”, and “Disappointing” albums of the year.

But that’s not stopping me trying to highlight as many examples of the “Best of British” as I can before the year is out, and today I’ve got a killer mix of “blackened” Prog, Metallic Hardcore, and nasty Sludge that should appeal to a variety of tastes.

So, without further ado…

BORE – FERAL

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Nov 192025

(Andy Synn has gone Feral… and thinks you should too)

My love of Hardcore (mostly of the more “Metallic” variety) has been well-documented by now.

After all, many of my earliest, and longest-lasting, musical loves had their roots in Hardcore, and many of the genre’s ideals (or, at least, what I still think of as the genre’s ideals) – of promoting community and collaboration, of building bonds and breaking down boundaries – are ones which still resonate with me today.

That being said, I’d never claim to be an expert on the current state of “the scene”… I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, truth be told, and rarely do I have any idea what (or who) is currently cool (or not), which means I’m often late to the party (if I even get invited at all).

For once, however, I feel like I’ve got my finger if not smack-dab on the pulse (today’s band already have a couple of EPs and splits to their name prior to this release) then at least pretty close to it considering that Bore‘s debut album, Feral, was released just last week but is already making some well-deserved waves.

PHOBOCOSM – GATEWAY

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Nov 182025

(Andy Synn enters the gateway… and likes what he finds there)

One of the biggest issues, for any band at any level, is finding a way to stand out from the crowd.

I’m not saying that every band has to be totally unique by any means – hell, there’s an argument to be made that the more “mainstream” side of the scene actively favours bands all sounding the same way (that’s how trends work, after all) – but, at some point, you have to have at least something distinctive to offer, right?

It’s an issue that Canadian catastrophists Phobocosm have been dealing with from the beginning, as the sound they’ve chosen – although perhaps “chosen” isn’t the right word, as it’s clearly more of a “compulsion” than a conscious choice – is one that sits smack-bang in the middle of the increasingly crowded and intensely contested sonic territory between Immolation and Ulcerate… two bands who cast some very long shadows indeed.

But while the influence of these two seminal acts has continued to loom large over Phobocosm throughout their career – beginning with their 2014 debut, Deprived, and then continuing to make its presence felt on 2016’s Bringer of Drought (a personal favourite of mine that year) and 2023’s Foreordained – the band have stubbornly persevered, refusing to divert from their chosen path in an attempt to assert their mastery over this particular brand of dense, dissonant, and doom-laden Death Metal through sheer force of will.

And now, with the upcoming release of Gateway, we get to see them take their next step towards domination.

BEST OF BRITISH: DIVINE HATRED / VANDAMPIRE / WAR CLUB

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Nov 122025

(Andy Synn has three more bands from the UK underground for you to check out today)

There’s a passage in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (which I’m currently re-reading) where he talks about his experiences as a young journalist and his desire to tell “stories of consequence… stories that, had you not read about them in my articles, you wouldn’t have read at all.”

And while the whole book is an excellent piece of work – engaging, insightful, and unapologetically devastating in the way it dissects and analyses why the world is the way it is, right here and right now, and what that really means when you strip away all the constant obfuscation and abnegation of responsibility by those who bear the lion’s share of the blame – this particular passage stood out to me a little more this time around.

Because, really, that’s something we try to do here at NCS – albeit, obviously, on a much smaller scale – when we focus on covering bands who we believe haven’t received the attention or acclaim they deserve (which, in some cases, means any at all).

Sure, we’re not afraid of writing about bigger bands who already have a decent level of exposure – they help bring eyes to the site after all, which in turn benefits their lesser-known cousins – but the ethos here has always been to try to use our platform as a place for articles and opinions you might not get elsewhere.

So, with this in mind, today I’ve chosen three debut albums by a trio of bands who don’t necessarily have the biggest profile outside the UK – even Divine Hatred, who have crossed the channel a couple of times already (and if they want to share some info about that with us, that’d be appreciated), don’t appear to have received much coverage for their new record – but who could (and should) all benefit from this article.

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