SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PONTE DEL DIAVOLO, NEL BUIO, BIND TORTURE KILL, NÍLIM, EQUILIBRIUM, MARISSA NADLER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 292025
 

(written by Islander)

As on most Saturdays, today I’ll be looking back at the recent past, recommending some selections of underground metal that caught my ears and eyes during the last week or two, but first I want to look ahead — specifically, to something I’ll be asking you to do on Monday.

On Monday I’ll post the annual NCS appeal to our visitors to share their lists of the year’s best metal. Every year this post proves to be a highlight because so many people fill up the Comments with their favorite releases, which makes those Comments a great gathering place for things other people might have otherwise missed. We keep that post linked in the upper right corner of every page on our site for the 12 months that follow (just look there now to see the 2024 lists).

Bear in mind that you don’t have to have your lists completed and ready to go on Monday. Hell, you could add a 2024 list even today. But it’s time to at least begin thinking about it. And now, on to this week’s roundup of new songs and videos…. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BTK (BIND TORTURE KILL) — “BANDAISON”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 092024
 

You’re about to see a violent short film in the company of violent music. The video doesn’t show us what the victim did to deserve his brutal punishment, if he did anything deserving of such a fatal encounter. We only get the headlong chase, a struggle in the mud, and the vengeance of the hangman’s noose.

Based on the name of the song presented through the video — “Bandaison” — the motivating factor may have been a perverse kind of sexual thrill, though whether the perversion took root in the victim or his assailant is ambiguous (the lyrics might shed light, but the expulsion of the words is so terrorizing that even those who speak French might face a challenge in deciphering them).

The perpetrators of the song are the French band BTK, which stands for Bind Torture Kill, and the source of the song is their forthcoming third album album Sauvagerie, which will eventually be released by a trio of labels on different formats. This one track will see digital release on September 12th. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BIND TORTURE KILL — “VISCÈRES”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

There are no tender mercies on Viscères, the new album by the French maulers in Bind Torture Kill. There is no mercy at all, no prisoners taken, no glass-half-full outlook on the future. But there is staggering power, frightening intensity, and the kind of visceral impact that usually triggers a fight-or-flight response in the average human.

Viscères will be released on January 26th by WOOAAARGH. The label describes the music as “chaotic blackened hardcore”, a charred form of Converge or Trap Them that should also appeal to fans of Baptists, Employed To Serve, God Mother, and The Rodeo Idiot Engine. You can judge for yourselves, because today we present a full stream of the album — preceded by some thoughts of my own. Continue reading »