(Andy Synn wants to have a conversation with you about a new band and their killer debut)
As you all surely know, we are big proponents of balance here at NCS… for every light a dark, for every yin a yang, and for every big, iconic name we cover there must be a smaller, more underground artist we can give a helping hand to.
And, lo and behold, here we have The Conversation (out tomorrow), the debut album from wild-eyed Math-Punk Metalcore crew Lockslip, to even the scales once more.
(Andy Synn says that these old dogs still bite just as hard as ever on their new album, out Friday)
What more is there to say about Hatebreed?
After all, we’re talking about a band who have been Hardcore royalty for almost thirty years now, and a veritable institution in the Metal scene for almost as long, selling millions of albums and touring around the world, from toilet bowls to stadium shows, along the way.
So you might think that everything that needs saying has already been said, in one way or another.
But you’d be wrong, because real fans know that while there’s never been a bad Hatebreed album, not all Hatebreed albums are created equal… especially when you consider their last few releases which, while never without at least a banger or two to their name (The Divinity of Purpose in particular features a bunch of killer cuts that have ended up on my regular playlist), have sometimes felt a little too formulaic for their own good.
Which is what makes Fatal Paradox worth talking about, because against all odds – and without radically reinventing the proverbial wheel or breaking the metaphorial mould – it might just be the band’s best album since The Rise of Brutality.
(Andy Synn presents another round-up of things from last month you may have missed)
Was October the busiest month in Metal so far this year?
Well, the jury’s still out on that one, but it definitely left me with so many options for this edition of “Things You May Have Missed” – including Black Royal, Coal & Crayon, The Curse Made Flesh, Dethroned, Detresse, Dread Witch, Hatalom, Hope Collapse, Litost, Minenfeld, Sneglefeber, Throes, Urarv, and Veret – that I might just have to do a another one of these articles next week, because four really isn’t a big enough number to even scratch the surface of what I want to recommend to you all from last month.
With that in mind then, let’s not waste any more time and get right to my first batch of recommendations.
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Nightrage, Wintersun
Wow, 200 editions of THE SYNN REPORT… how time does fly.
Of course, strictly speaking there’s actually a few extra ones knocking about, but those were all “special editions” and don’t count towards the official total (plus 200 is a nice round number, so let’s stick with that).
For such a momentous milestone it’s only fitting to choose an equally momentous band, one whose work has impressed us with each and every release – up to and including their new album, The Mother Void, which came out last month – in the form of cosmic Melodeath maestros Iapetus, aka Jordan Navarro and Matthew Cerami.
(Andy Synn, ahem, extols the virtues of the band’s new album, out next week)
Let’s address the elephant in the room immediately, shall we?
Yes, Extol‘s long-awaited sixth album – coming some thirteen years after their seminal (and almost equally long gestating) self-titled record – deserves much, much better artwork, as it’s become painfully clear that Hugh Syme (famous for his work with Rush, Dream Theatre, and even Extol themselves) has been phoning it in for quite some time now.
Thankfully, however, this is one of those times when it’s worth remembering that you can’t always judge a book (or an album) by its cover, as there’s nothing half-assed about the band’s own work on Aura of Decay.
(Andy Synn doesn’t do many interviews any more, but made an exception for this one)
The main reason I don’t do many interviews any more is due to the fact that I feel like a good interview – not just one that regurgitates the same old boring, boilerplate questions that you can find anywwhere else – is one that you dedicate a bit of time to, and time is something I’m almost always in short supply of these days.
I’d also say that a good interview should be a form of dialogue, one where you get a sense of the personality of the interviewer through the questions they ask, which in turn leads to a more natural and (hopefully) illuminating interaction with the interviewee… which also takes a lot of time to get right.
And did I mention that I don’t really have that much time to spare at the moment?
That being said, when the opportunity fell into my lap to interview the one and only Candace Buckingham (née Kucsulain), formidable frontwoman of Metallic Hardcore legends Walls of Jericho (a band I’ve been a huge fan of for a long, long time, and whose upcoming new album is the sort of record which tempts me to dip back into my big bag of clichés for terms like “comeback”, “revival”, and “renaissance”) I knew I couldn’t turn it down.
So, without further ado, let’s see if I still remember how to converse with another human being, shall we?
(Andy Synn stands up to be counted alongside Washington D.C. Hardcore crew NØ MAN)
People sometimes (and by “sometimes” I mean “frequently”) get very mad at the assertion that all music is, in some way, political.
And I get why, to an extent.
After all, for a lot of people the use of the term “political” is a negative thing… they think of it as being lectured, being told what to think, who to vote for, etc.
But that’s not really what it means.
In fact it’s the very act of making music that’s an inherently political statement, especially when it comes to Metal/Punk/Hardcore… genres that various government and regimes around the world have frequently decried as decadent, degenerate, and a threat to the youth.
That’s what we really mean when we say that it’s “political”, because by picking up that guitar, screaming into that microphone, bashing away at those drums, what you’re doing is taking a stand and asserting yourself, creating art that is for yourself, not to serve the state or the economy but to express something freely and openly and – perhaps most importantly – loudly.
And, on their new album (out this Friday), Washington D.C. quartet NØ MAN are as loud, as proud, and as in-your-face about who they are as they’ve ever been.
(Andy Synn presents his thoughts on one of the best debut albums of 2026)
A couple of months back I took a quick jaunt back up to my old stomping grounds to catch Metallic Hardcore legends Merauder play a killer show at The Bread Shed in Manchester.
What made the show even better was the fact that, in response to the fact that two different – and potentially competing – tours were in town the same night, the promoters decided to combine forces in a laudable display of both scene solidarity and business savvy, meaning I got even more bang for my buck with the inclusion of a whole other roster of bands on the bill.
And the one that really stood out was that of New York Thrash-core thrillsters New World Man, who made sure that eveyone there would remember their name with an absolutely electrifying, ass-kicking performance that recalled the likes of Power Trip, Drain, and Enforced at their very best.
Which is why I made a mental note to check out their new album (just released on Closed Casket Activities) as soon as it came out, because I knew that if they managed to capture even half of the energy and intensity of their live show on record they would be in line to make a major impact.
So grab your helmets and your elbow pads and prepare to get absolutely wrecked by I Am the Machine.
(Andy Synn tries to separate the certain from the uncertain once and for all with the new Dream Unending album)
It’s well-documented by this point that I’m not a big fan of the often unnecessary and frequently misleading excesses of the online hype machine.
Not only can it do more harm than good by setting an unreasonably high standard (especially for new bands being presented as “the next big thing” before they’re ready) but it also makes it hard to have a measured and nuanced conversation about the merits, or mis-steps, of a piece of work when people are conditioned to see everything on a binary, black and white scale of either “best thing ever” or “complete and utter garbage fire.”
Case in point, the debut album from Justin DeTore and Derrick Vella, aka Dream Unending, was initially presented as a paradigm-shift in the medium of Death Doom, despite (in my opinion, at least) how obviously and heavily indebted it was to the earliest works of the seminal “Peaceville Three”… but any suggestion that it might not be the genre-defying game-changer it was presented as received a very hostile response.
And, to be clear, it’s not a bad record (even if 2022’s Song of Salvation, which you can read more about here, was significantly stronger) it’s just a prime example of an album where the initial hype represented a clear attempt to set and control the narrative in a way that wasn’t fully reflected by the release itself.
But, for whatever reason – maybe it’s because they’re no longer the hip, new thing, or maybe it’s just because the band’s third album is a more daring, harder to definte piece of work – there doesn’t seem to have been quite as much hype about Certain Uncertainties… which actually leaves a lot more room for me to talk about it.
(Andy Synn has a thoroughly nasty new recommendation to share with you all today)
Music, for a lot of people anyway, can be an inspirational thing.
The new Cursebinder (reviewed here), for example, seeks to inspire the listener to reflect on the disaffected nature of the metropolitan age, while the latest slab of Deathcore destruction from To The Grave (also reviewed here) hopes to inspire both rage and disgust at the depradation of the modern meat industry.
And the debut album from Black Mask?
Well, that wants to inspire you to meet the violence of the world head on, with a violent reaction of your own.