Feb 042026
 

(In January Horror Pain Gore Death Productions released a new album from the Lithuanian death metal savages Stranguliatorius, and below we present our Norway-based contributor Chile’s review of this new full-length atrocity.)

It is not surprising that metal, one of the shining lights of postmodern art, that paragon of human creativity, has made a foothold in many different places around the world, and is luckily not limited anymore geographically or in any other way.

Hailing from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, Stranguliatorius is another one of those worthy entries in our everlasting, world-encompassing quest for all things filthy and deadly. No strangers on these pages, we have been visited by these death dealers before.

One of their previous albums got plenty of love here back in 2018, and deservedly so, with our editor calling the band “damned clever songwriters,” managing to concoct “a toxic brew of old school death metal, grindcore, doom, and d-beat crust”. Sounds good to me.

Now, I’ve been to Vilnius some years back and it really is a nice place, but there’s obviously something in the water, as they say, judging by the savage intensity on display. 

While some death metal bands have that distinctive stench arising from the decaying, rotten flesh with the imagery and riffs that go with it, some acquire a different perspective and put themselves in the role of the cold-blooded, flesh-cutting pathologist himself.

Sister, pass the scalpel, please.

Continue reading »

Jan 232026
 

(We have our contributor Chile to thank for the following vivid review of the debut demo from California’s Voidhämmer, which was released earlier this month by Caligari Records.)

Yes, the temperature outside is about to go down below -20°C or -4 on the Fahrenheit scale for all you non-followers of the International System of Units (which somehow makes it more tolerable on paper, just barely), and with spring thaw still months away, what better way to warm up than to fire up some filthy, rotting death metal.

You could argue that your everyday central heating would suffice, but nothing warms the heart and soul as hearing those riffs pounding down from your speakers and into your orifices. Newcomers in the Californian outfit of Voidhämmer, who are not really newcomers (see below), understand this very well and offer a variety of putrid riffs on their debut EP/demo Noxious Emissions. Continue reading »

Jan 202026
 

(Our contributor Chile (that’s his nickname, not his country of origin) has chosen to review the recently released debut album by the Chilean band Oraculum, recently released by Invictus Productions.)

If there is one truth about any given year when it comes to metal, it’s that we are constantly on the lookout for greatness. Sometimes it comes unexpectedly like a stranger in the night trying to pass us by in a dark alley, and other times it rams you head-on like a raging bull stomping over your mangled body.

You know already where we are going with this. Some bands are all about stomping and show us absolutely no mercy, which is also the reason why we appreciate them for that very feeling of might and strength. That is the story of Chile’s (the country) Oraculum. Continue reading »

Jan 122026
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile has brought us his first review of 2026, and the subject is the long-awaited debut album by the Croatian extremists Bezdan.)

Where did the time go? Well, that’s not really a rhetorical question. Listmania 2025 started happening and the wheels just seemed to fell off my proverbial writing wagon, so the time mostly went with me pouring over all the published lists and scratching my head at how the hell did I miss this or that album. Nevertheless, as a wise man said once: “Metal is never late, nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to”. Or something like that.

As another wise man said once (or twice) on these very pages, it seems like we do spend a lot of our time here at NCS playing catch-up, so here we go once again. This review would have been better suited to have happened around the time of the actual release date of this album back in late November or at least early December, but time is relative anyway, as we are about to find out. Continue reading »

Dec 192025
 

(Norway-based metal writer Chile joined our cadre roughly 13 months ago, a bit too late (or too soon) to participate in last year’s LISTMANIA orgy, but he does so this year with an excellent list of 25 albums that helped make 2025 a great year for metal.)

2025, eh? Bloody hell. We’ve felt the dissociation induced by the constant barrage of whatever was going wrong with the world on that particular day. We’ve felt the joy of new beginnings and the desperation of old wounds clawing at our serenity. We’ve felt compassion for the suffering of others, but were sometimes too helpless to act. There was 4 AM whiskey-soaked wisdom, there was bloody-knuckled politics.

We’ve made mistakes, and tried making some of them right again. Some by the grace of others, some we will take to our graves. The clouds passed by, and the days beneath them are passing still. We’re only human, after all. And in the midst of it all, there was the pure, thaumaturgical elation that metal brings to our lives and like all addictions compels us to come back for more. So here we are again. Continue reading »

Jul 012025
 

(Today we present a review by our Norway-based contributor Chile of a new album by the Portuguese black metal band Onirik, out now on I, Voidhanger Records.)

Imagination is a wonderful thing. As far as mind goes, it’s faster than the speed of light, stronger than a gravitational pull of a black hole, and can jump over mountains and oceans with a single leap. Without it, the world would be a completely different place and our lives much poorer, or as the great American author Henry David Thoreau put it: “This world is but a canvas to our imagination”.

With that said, we can all agree (well, we would) that out of all the music genres in existence today, metal is the one relying the most on imagination and the endless possibilities it brings. Merging influences, crossing the boundaries of genres, or just applying new formulas to old experiments are just but a taste of the wonders that metal can unleash on to the world.

So, finally coming to the point, let our imagination take us to that faraway land known as Portugal and to one of its premier black metal bands, Onirik. Forging the dark matter with vision and dedication, the band (or more precisely, Gonius Rex, the mastermind behind it) has been a purveyor of ritualistic celebrations for over twenty years now, with no sign of stopping soon. Continue reading »

Jun 052025
 

(In his review below, our Norway-based contributor Chile has some very nice things to say about the recently released fifth album by the Galician black metal band Balmog.)

Apart from being a generally well-conceived idea, black metal is also an excellently executed idea, evidenced by thousands if not tens of thousands of bands in existence. Bands coming from all four corners of the world, bringing their own cultural identities to the table and letting them shine through their music. Obviously, black metal being the subject, “shine” is maybe a bit misleading, but you get the idea.

All this makes life much easier for us reviewers, because you can pick any place on Earth, and you’ll find something interesting. Like our guests today, for example. Coming from the town of Soutomaior in the Spanish province of Galicia, Balmog is an undoubtedly interesting band, and also a very experienced one. With a career pushing on two decades, the band has been constantly releasing quality stuff and in good quantity too.  Continue reading »

May 282025
 

(Barely one week ago the Malignant Voices label released a new album from the Polish black metal band Martwa Aura, and our Norway-based writer Chile was tremendously impressed by it, as you’ll see from his review below.)

Once in a while, instead of devising some cute, little introductory story about how my childhood formed my adulthood listening habits, or how my lifestyle determines my deathstyle, or something, we could just go straight to the point, the good old in medias res. So this time, we dive head first into the deep, black end of the pool.

Not surprisingly, some metal bands just don’t care about matters of publicity or marketing and they’re just in it for the sake of their art, or so they say. Those in the black metal genre seem especially culpable of this by doing the bare minimum, dropping albums without any kind of big announcements or follow-ups, seemingly having no interest whatsoever to deviate from that path.

Anyway, Martwa Aura. Just by saying that they are a Polish black metal outfit should pique the interest of anybody even tangentially interested in the genre itself, as Poland has been a hot spot of black metal for a number of decades already and has produced some of the most magnificent music in existence during that period, as mentioned recently in the Wędrowcy~Tułacze~Zbiegi interview published on this very site.

You guessed it right by now, Martwa Aura dropped to minimal fanfare a new album called Lament on May 19th through the Polish label Malignant Voices, five years after their previous one Morbus Animus. This being their third full-length should make them an established name on the Polish scene, but the feeling is they’re still being a well-kept secret just waiting to explode like an atom bomb onto an unsuspecting population.

Continue reading »

May 092025
 

(Our writers make their own decisions about what to review. Our editor tries to coordinate so that two people don’t review the same album. In this instance his wires got crossed, and so in this feature we have not one but two vivid reviews — by DGR and Chile — of Caustic Wound‘s new album, which is out now on Profound Lore Records.)

GRINDING MECHANISM OF TORMENT — A REVIEW BY DGR

Washington’s Caustic Wound was only ever built to travel this particular path. The sense of inevitability that comes with knowing the musicians involved with this group, and how much further down the path into the dankest corners of the pits of death metal with their grinding side project, is natural. The combination of parts – Motiferum, Fetid, Magrudergrind… – makes perfect sense; there was no way it wasn’t going to sound like this.

When Quill Onkko asks you “was it ever thus?” after seeing all possibilities laid out before him while you’re visiting the backroom of Cetus, it contains similar feelings evoked by all the possibilities that Caustic Wound could have sounded like, given the band members making up the roster here. It was only ever going to narrow down to this. Everything else was a smokescreen. Continue reading »

Apr 282025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile prepared the following vivid review of Hexekration Rites‘ debut album Misanthropic Path of Carnal Deliverance, released last week by Godz Ov War Productions.)

First things first. The listening process is never a straightforward one. There comes an album occasionally that you’d listen to once or twice, shrug and move on. Maybe you’d give it one more chance. Or not. And then sometimes comes along an album that commands your attention on the very first listen. Like putting a spell on you, stopping the thing that you’re doing. This is that album.

The French marauders in Hexekration Rites have been around for some seven years now and it says a lot about a band when it gets high praise years before them even thinking of releasing a full-length debut. Exactly this happened with their demo release and the first EP Desekration Manifesto, both getting some downright carnal love here on No Clean Singing. A recommended read and a listen, surely. Continue reading »