BALMOG: “LAIO”

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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 »

MARTWA AURA: “LAMENT”

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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 »

CAUSTIC WOUND: “GRINDING MECHANISM OF TORMENT” (TWO REVIEWS)

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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 »

HEXEKRATION RITES: “MISANTHROPIC PATH OF CARNAL DELIVERANCE”

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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 »

ANCIENT DEATH: “EGO DISSOLUTION”

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Apr 222025
 

(Our Norway-based writer Chile has provided the following enthusiastic review of the debut album from Ancient Death, recently released by Profound Lore Records.)

Sometimes I feel that new bands have it hard. Other times I feel something else. Anyway, new bands. With what is now more than a half a century of metal history behind us, one would think that the burden of classics weighing down and the manic following of fans trying to prove that nothing great came out after Altars of Madness or Leprosy, would somehow discourage anyone from playing death metal. Well, think again.

These days, with all the technological possibilities permeating the music industry, the one real problem bands can encounter is finding their one, trve identity in the scene flooded with copycats. It seems like all the great, memorable band names have been taken by the ancestors, so new bands have to resort to various imaginative combinations on that perennial quest.

Enter Ancient Death. Hailing from Massachusetts with a name symbolic of the genre it plays, the band was formed in 2019 (or 2021, depending where you look) and already has a great EP and a split with Germany’s Putridarium under their belt. It’s only natural that the next step taken is a full-length album. Released on April 18th on Profound Lore Records, Ego Dissolution is the band’s debut and a wonderful show of intent and talent. Continue reading »

BLOOD ABSCISSION: “I I”

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Apr 172025
 

(Last Friday Debemur Morti Productions unveiled the second album from the shadowy black metal band Blood Abscission, and today we share thoughts about it written by our Norway-based contributor Chile.)

Everyone loves a good mystery story in their metal. It mesmerizes the listener, it heightens the experience, it pulls you in and makes you a part of something extraordinary. And certainly, a lot of metal music is no stranger to mystery, but black metal is the one genre where it all comes together, having a natural penchant for histrionics and lurking in the shadows. 

Mystery made many a band on the scene more interesting and more attractive to the audience, for theatricality and deception are powerful weapons. We needn’t look further than the last ten years of bands appearing in their hoodie-wearing, face-covered outfits, having only initials for identities. If we’re lucky that is, for there are those who opt for total anonymity.

And so the anonymous mystery streak continues with our guests today, of whom nothing is truly known, except that their name is Blood Abscission and that they make great black metal. Speculating on origin or any additional information would be just that, a speculation, and since I absolutely suck at lottery or guessing games, we’ll leave it at that. Continue reading »

CORPUS OFFAL: “CORPUS OFFAL”

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Apr 032025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile has a lot of ghastly and glowing things to say about the debut album from Texas-based Corpus Offal, which erupted in a spray of 20 Buck Spin‘s intestines on March 21st.)

I would say, in general and on average, I am more of a black metal fan than a death metal fan, looking back at both my listening habits over the years and the end-year lists (not yet here on No Clean Singing, so take this as a warning come December). Scientifically speaking, it’s a 65.212 to 34.788 ratio, but who’s counting. Anyway, admittedly, this year has been so far very tempting in that matter, threatening to turn the scales towards a more even split in said preferences.

Reason for this is, first and foremost, this gloriously twisted 2025 being already stacked full of fantastic death metal and we’re only three months in. Smoking hot, fermenting, rotting mounds of body parts stretching as far as the eye can see, what’s not to love? This is not just the onset of putrefaction, it is a full-blown bloom of abnormal flesh.

Poetically appropriate then, that we are visited today by the entity of Corpus Offal which rises from the corpse of another great American death metal band, namely Cerebral Rot, which dissolved last year after releasing two monster albums a couple of years back. Continue reading »

NATTVERD: “TIDLOES NAADESLOES”

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Mar 252025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile returns to NCS with the following review of a just-released  album by the Norwegian black metal band Nattverd.)

The change of seasons is upon us, that much is true. Mind’s undying love of wintry landscapes and frozen vistas will be put on hold for the next seven or eight months, while the physical form will be thankful for not needing the concentration and dexterity of an Olympic ice-skater just to get to the local shop so it could diverge resources on other needful things in the body. Also affected by this change are numerous black metal bands across Scandinavia famous for preferring to take their promo pictures in frozen, snowy environments. Soon enough, winter is, well, coming.

Until then, we work with what we have. And what we have is plenty of new metal from Scandinavia coming to these shores in their longboats wielding sharp riffs in our general direction. One such example is the outstanding Norwegian black metal band Nattverd whose releases so far may have passed under the radar of a wider audience, but their new album Tidloes naadesloes should be the one to take them further up the ladder of chaos. Continue reading »

WARDRUNA: “BIRNA”

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Jan 292025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile prepared the following extensive discussion of Wardruna‘s just-released new album Birna.)

Bears have been a constant presence in our minds, stories, and myths from the times undreamed of. It was those first encounters between our ancestors and the majestic dwellers of the forest that shaped our very understanding of nature. For the bears, so perfectly aligned with the changes of the seasons, were like a beacon that shone its light on our wandering hearts and thus setting us on a path of revelation, a path from which we have strayed away in our complacency. Time has come again to take the road less traveled and return to the shade of the trees and the rustling of the leaves.

If there is one band in existence today that we would call upon to take us back into nature’s realm, there is no other better candidate than Wardruna. This Norwegian force of (and for) nature needs no particular introduction, as they have forged their own blazing trail from the noctilucent North into the hearts of the world. Their Runaljod trilogy is a towering achievement in modern music and serves both as an inspiration to many and as a reminder that we belong to the Earth and not the other way around.

Released on January 24th by Sony Music and By Norse Music, the sixth studio album by the band is called Birna and sees their mastermind Einar Selvik reaching for inspiration deep into the dens and the burrows of the earth where the hibernating bears dream on their moss-covered beds. The concept behind the album is best described by the band itself: Continue reading »

CONCRETE ICON: “VORACIOUS STREAMS”

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Jan 232025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile has brought us (and you) the following review of a new album by Finland’s Concrete Icon, released just a few days ago by Memento Mori and Fetzner Death Records.)

Maybe the dark, frozen months of the winter and the thick snow cover are not the right time to think about the reasons why there are not more death metal records played at the summer barbecue parties, but here we are. Just think about it, for it’s a perfect match-up, as both deal in the themes of dead, carved tissue, the eternal flames of charred remains, and the cult-like gatherings around those very flames, and are normally a whole lot of fun. Now only to find the place where this idea falls on fertile ground.

Not trying very hard, we turn our gaze towards Finland, the most metal-bands-per-capita country in the world, so if you’re going to make it anywhere, you can make it there with these random ideas. Anyway, all of this brings us today to our guests in Concrete Icon who, you might have guessed it, are indeed Finnish and play death metal. As if the spiky band logo and the toxic, green-tinged cover art by the brilliant Juanjo Castellano didn’t inform you enough, then heed these words. It really is a death metal album through and through. Continue reading »

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