BEHEMOTH: “I, SCVLPTOR”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 132026
 

(Here is NCS writer DGR’s take on the assembly of songs released by Behemoth, Massacre Records, and Nuclear Blast in September under the title of I, Scvlptor.)

Even though yours truly is personally knee-deep in slowly trudging through a backlog that is forever growing for a series of articles that have rapidly spun out of control, one cannot take a fully ascetic approach to music and its releases.

The difficulty that arises in reviewing stuff from months ago is that there are always options and things to explore that’ve come out more recently, and sometimes the distraction is enough to reset one’s brain and get the gears back in motion.

Subject matter is just as important and sometimes the theory is simple: If it caused my brain to wander and wonder about the music therein, it might be a source of good discussion, and even though it may seem like all the reams in the world have run dry of their ink and all discussions have been had, Behemoth and their continual artistic pursuits is something that people seem to love to talk about. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BEHEMOTH, TROLLDOM, VREDEHAMMER, HARDIESSE, IHLOOSUHREE, THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Sep 062026
 

(written by Islander)

I feel somewhat better today as compared to yesterday (thanks for asking), though the achiness produced by the inoculation hasn’t completely vanished. Once again, I looked forward to assembling the following column as a welcome distraction from the twinges of soreness.

By way of overview, I’ll say that today’s collection leans into eye-popping tempests of imposing scale and blood-heating intensity, though it also includes psychotic episodes and a musical curveball I’ve saved for the very end. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BEHEMOTH, RUSSIAN CIRCLES, FUMING MOUTH, SÉPULCRE, LUMINOUS VEIL, JØTNARR, THOLN, MAUNAH

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 272026
 

(written by Islander)

Sometimes we lead off these roundups with shiny lures (bands whose names are well known) to attract hungry fish (you), in the hope that the fish will get hooked by something sharp hanging below in darker waters. That’s what I’ve done today, though to be clear, I was also attracted by the lures.

(Note to self: don’t use the fishing analogy again since you haven’t gone fishing in decades and the only lures you used were worms.)

The lures are themselves quite different from each other, and so are the lesser-known hooks, and altogether they provide a lot of listening (and viewing) pleasure. Be forewarned: there’s a bit of singing in the mix until you get to the end — when there’s a lot of it (and extraordinary singing it is). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, CYTOTOXIN, FALLUJAH, GHOST

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Only five days ago Bandcamp announced that it would continue Bandcamp Fridays in 2025, with the first one happening today. Before that, it wasn’t clear that they would continue, so it caught most of us by surprise. But word obviously spread very fast. What was already unfolding as a packed week for new music became a typhoon over the last few days. I was already agonizing about what the hell to do for tomorrow’s usual SEEN AND HEARD roundup, but now I feel like someone caught on the beach as a towering tidal wave rushes ashore.

Bandcamp Fridays are always an ideal time to spread the word about new music, but because of other duties around here I rarely have enough time to pull something together until the day after. I really don’t have much time for it today either, but felt like I needed to do something to make tomorrow’s task even a bit less overwhelming.

What I decided to do is a bit out of character for myself and the site as a whole: focusing exclusively on some of the bigger names in metal (or in one case, metal-adjacent). We don’t ignore the big names around here, as long as what they’re doing is good, but we often use them as a way of luring people into music from bands whose names are much more obscure. If I’d had more time, that’s what I would have done with this small roundup. It was just easier and faster to stick with these four.

But of course, none of these four new songs and videos would be here if I didn’t think they were worth recommending. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, PESTILENT HEX, DEIVOS, SOUL DEVOURMENT, CKRAFT, SOULSKINNER, TALES OF BLOOD, THORNLORD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 042024
 

“BC Friday. Go spend money.” That’s what a fellow metal writer posted early this morning in a chat group I’m part of, populated by a bunch of other metal writers from print and on-line spaces. From my observation, they do that every Bandcamp Friday, sharing in the group what they’ve bought, proving they did it and suggesting spendy ideas to the others, even though all of them get free promos of most records they’re interested in.

Well, I’m not going to exhort all of you to go spend money on Bandcamp today. Ends must be made to meet, and for some, the ends don’t include paying for music you can listen to for free. But for those who do like to take advantage of these Fridays and shove a few extra coins across the table to needy metal bands and labels (which is about 95% of them), I’ve got a few more ideas for you — in addition to the gazillion other ideas we’ve offered up on every one of the 28 days since the last Bandcamp Friday. Continue reading »

BEHEMOTH: “OPVS CONTRA NATVRAM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 092022
 

(DGR has some thoughts to share about the new 12th album from Poland’s Behemoth, which will be released on September 16th by Nuclear Blast.)

It has been a long-standing tradition of Joe Baressi that whenever he works on a metal album, he is credited as ‘Evil Joe Baressi’. That’s pretty funny, considering that often Joe’s name is brought up more in line with groups like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age, Volbeat, and a bunch of other humongous rock acts over the years. Thus, you get ‘Evil Joe Baressi’ whenever he and his team work on a metal album.

It is certainly an unusual name to see attached to one of the bigger purveyors of Satan-as-spectacle out there — Behemoth. There’s been a little hay made in the press over the name drop, although it’s not like the band strayed well outside their comfort zone, since they’ve involved longtime collaborator Daniel Bergstrand as well. However, this may also be one of the more interesting new things happening with Behemoth‘s latest release Opvs Contra Natvram, because otherwise this is “as expected” a Behemoth album as you could possibly expect. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, ALTARS, RIBSPREADER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 132022
 

 

In the outer world, Friday the 13th is often perceived as an unlucky day. But in the crypts, swamps, deserts, and various infernal and post-apocalyptic dimensions where most of our beloved music dwells, the signifiers of luck are reversed. Which makes it strange that on this Friday the 13th we have no music or video premieres on our calendar.

On the one hand, since I write almost all of our premieres, that should have meant I had a block of free time to round up some new songs and videos. On the other hand, I used most of the block going through the thousand NCS e-mails I had mostly ignored all week long. What did that get me? Links to about a hundred new songs and clips I thought might conceivably be interesting — and almost no time to listen and watch. I question my judgment.

To deal with the conundrum, I just quickly picked the following three items and deferred the rest of the sifting process to some point later today or tonight, with the goal of having a more fulsome round-up on Saturday. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, LORNA SHORE, ZEAL & ARDOR, SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL, NYTT LAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 122021
 

 

Well, this didn’t go at all like I expected.

First and foremost, I didn’t expect to write anything for the site today. Thanks to the revival of the Waxing Lyrical series by Sir Andy Synn (no, he hasn’t been knighted yet, but surely it’s just a matter of time, innit?), we had a Saturday post. No need for me to make one. I thought I’d just spend some time listening instead.

It happened that the first thing I explored was a new song and video by the Siberian shamans Nytt Land — and then unexpected things began to happen. I noticed a new Behemoth video in the YouTube sidebar that I hadn’t known about, so I watched/heard it. And then I noticed a new Lorna Shore video in the YouTube sidebar and thought, what the hell why not? And then the YouTube sidebars led me to Zeal & Ardor and Slaughter To Prevail. And now here we are. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 33): BEHEMOTH, VOLKOLUN, SEAR BLISS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  6 Responses »
Feb 252019
 

 

With this post I’m beginning the final week of this list, bound and determined to end it by Friday, when the third month of the year begins. With that brutal deadline in mind, I spent hours this past weekend looking at what was left on my gigantic list of nominees for these awards and listening to many of them. The listening was enjoyable, but it was still a harrowing experience — because even though this 2018 list has turned out to be longer than in any previous year, there are still SO MANY SONGS I’d like to recognize, beginning with these three:

BEHEMOTH

Behemoth‘s latest album, I Loved You At Your Darkest, seemed to stir up a hornet’s nest of controversy. Sure, there were plenty of people who lavished it with praise, but a lot of the accolades came from sources that seem to reflexively give every release by every “big name” their highest ratings. The album didn’t evoke quite so much enthusiasm in other quarters, where fans were dismayed by some of the ideas the band tried on for size, and by the more “rock ‘n’ roll” feel of the album as a whole. Continue reading »

DGR’S QUEST TO TURN 2018 INTO A COFFEE TABLE BOOK – ISSUE ONE: 50-41

 LISTMANIA 2018  5 Responses »
Dec 312018
 

 

(DGR is actually turning NCS into a coffee table book, but slowly, one day at a time, from now through Friday.)

About halfway through the year I actually thought I was going to make it through the year-end with a solid Top 30 list and nothing more. For a good chunk of the year, 2018 seemed to move in fits and starts — there would be large batches of album releases and then a couple of quiet weeks, then another small collection, and so on. A lot of the more consistent older guard were on something of an “off year” too, so at first I wasn’t expecting to see a large cast of repeats from two years ago making themselves known. I’ve gotten used to a two-to-three year album cycle, so I half-expected stuff to start pointing towards a real loaded front-half of 2019.

But alas, instead the back-half of 2018 turned out to a be a flood. Not just in bands that I’ve consistently enjoyed either, but a whole bunch of new faces that have either been hammering it out over the years and put out some genuine surprises, or people with some absolutely stunning first-time exposures on my end. Not only that, but who would’ve expected an actually pretty solid -core resurgence, with a lot of groups that had thought to hang it up deciding 2018 would be a good year to resurface and put out some stunningly good releases (at least in some cases).

As a result, 2018 proved to be an absolutely massive year. In some ways I think people’s year-end lists are reflecting just how vibrant the year was for our specific subsection of the musical sphere. While people lament that rock ‘n’ roll is dying or has become lame, heavy metal seems perfectly content to just be the constantly angry and forever roiling collective of music — as if it has found a sort of equilibrium in comparison to the mainstream world outside. Which is how you wind up with stupid shit like this, where I once again have FIFTY (warning ahead of time: if you think this introduction is getting verbose, do I have a surprise for you) albums to talk about in wrapping up this tire fire of a year. Continue reading »

 Older Entries