AN NCS INTERVIEW: MYSTIC CIRCLE

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Jun 122025
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Graf von Beelzebub from the long-running German black metal band Mystic Circle. They have been on a creative hot streak, with a just-released album named Kriegsgötter MMXXV following up 2023’s Erzdämon, and yet another album headed for release this coming Halloween. So, lot’s to talk about.)

Well, it’s a kind of an awkward situation, because the interview with one of the oldest German black metal bands Mystic Circle was initiated due to their new release Kriegsgötter MMXXV, which was scheduled on June 6th by Rock of Angels. Indeed it is a kind of compilation, and the band’s followers find there a lot of well-known covers and other stuff, and the band updated this material and you’ll read about it in the interview below.

But during the interview it was discovered that Graf von Beelzebub (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards) and A. Blackwar (drums, guitars, keyboards) had prepared new album, Hexenbrand 1486. And we’ve dug out a few facts about it as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DIG ME NO GRAVE

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Jun 062025
 

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Alexey Rumyantsev from the Russian death metal band Dig Me No Grave, whose new album is set for co-release by Satanath Records and Metal Race Records on June 15th.)

It’s difficult to add something to Islander’s overview of Dig Me No Grave’s fourth album Necrocosmic Ceremony. Yet this interview was planned long ago indeed for this Russian band that performs quite old school death metal focused on Lovecraftian horror and Robert Howard’s most grim fantasies. So let’s consider it as a logical addition to the review, and I hope that Alexey Rumyantsev, as the band’s vocalist and founder, will help to dig into it deeper. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JOHAN LANGQUIST – THE CASTLE

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Jun 032025
 

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Johan Langquist, vocalist of Candlemass and mastermind of the solo project Johan Langquist – The Castle, whose debut album, accompanied by talented allies and digitally released last year, will receive physical releases on June 27th of this year via I Hate Records.)

It’s hard to imagine what the landscape of the world doom scene would be like if the Swedish band Candlemass hadn’t recorded the legendary Epicus Doomicus Metallicus in 1986. This and the following two albums became a source of inspiration and an unattainable quality mark for many bands who worked on the doom path for a long time.

Although Johan Langqvist, who left Candlemass immediately after recording the debut, was only a guest vocalist, this did not stop fans from dreaming about his return for many years, and dreams came true in 2018 when the band reunited in almost “the same” line-up. Who would have thought that today, against the backdrop of Candlemass’s 40th anniversary and the release of their new EP, the news about the release of Johan’s first solo album would be lost? We’ll correct this omission. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NIGHTFALL

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May 022025
 

(Today Season of Mist is releasing the monumental 11th album by the Greek metal band Nightfall, with cover art by Eliran Kantor, and in anticipation of that Comrade Aleks conducted an extensive interview with founder and frontman Efthimis Karadimas. It is an excellent read, and we have it for you below.)

Nightfall was always one of those charismatic Greek bands that had its own identity despite all the changes in style. Once they were neck-deep into a rebellious seething stream of death and black metal, then they entered territories of doom and gothic metal. Always on the move, always searching. It’s not a surprise that Efthimis Karadimas (vocals, bass) is the only original hand of Nightfall who has stayed with his creature since the day it was born back in 1991.

However, the band returns with its eleventh album – Children of Eve – full of power and boiling artistic intention. This epic album carries on traditions of ancient Greek metal and keeps its grim identity untouched. However, I find it stupid to tell a lot of pompous words about the band, as we have Efthimis here, and this interview turned out to be a pretty in-depth one. So enjoy Nightfall. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PYRE

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Apr 082025
 

(Today we share Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Dmitry “Dym Nox”, the drummer, bassist, and vocalist of the Russian death metal band Pyre, whose latest album has been out for a couple of months on the Osmose label.)

Pyre is probably the most powerful and recognized Russian death metal band, and the release of their third album Where Obscurity Sways at the end of January on Osmose Productions was an event.

The previous album Chained to Ossuaries was recorded five years ago by Dmitry “Dym Nox” (drums, bass, vocals), Roman Rotten (guitars), and Fred Obsinner (guitars). It was a strange experience for the band: Pyre were then on a tight deadline, there were problems with the drummer, and they, as never before, wrote and recorded all the material in a year, and it was immediately released. And Dmitry considers Where Obscurity Sways as a spontaneous continuation of its predecessor, but on a different level both in general and in production.

According to him, the band is currently euphoric about the result, especially since the new material was recorded with drummer Oleg “Malleus”, with whom Pyre had been playing together for a long time and testing out ideas. The result is impressive. I interviewed Dmitry for the Dark City magazine, and as soon as the current issue is released, I’d like to share this interview with you.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARCOLH

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Apr 042025
 

(In February we had the pleasure of premiering and reviewing the newest album by the French doom band Carcolh, which is out now on Sleeping Church Records. Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ new interview with Carcolh vocalist Sébastien Fanton, and he again proves to be a wonderful conversationist.)

Five men from Bordeaux love and know how to make smart, traditional, almost textbook doom metal. And why not! Most of them did it years before Carcolh, and, let’s face it, they are professionals in their field.

“Carcolh” is a mythical half-snake, half-snail from French folklore, but this does not mean that the guys are “barely dragging their feet.” They managed to tell six stories in the 46 minutes of their third full-length Twilight of the Mortals, revealing in their own way the nature of human tragedies in the sublunary world.

This album shows that Carcolh maybe do not progress in a global sense of the word, but confidently move forward enriching their soundscapes with a lot of new nuances and semi-colours. All the instruments sound heavy, clear, rational, and tasteful. Sébastien Fanton’s vocal lines are harmonious and noble, matching the themes performed by his colleagues. Twilight of the Mortals is far from monotonous; its pace varies from the furious gallop of “The Battle Is Lost” to the crushing dirge of “My Prayers Are for Rain” or the twelve-minute long, multifaceted, and saturated “Empty Thrones”.

This material isn’t something one could easily digest in a case you aren’t into traditional doom metal, yet we did the interview with Sébastien, and it may help you to get how cool Carcolh are. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CONAN

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Mar 262025
 

(Lured by the impending release of a new Conan album on Heavy Psych Sounds, our Comrade Aleks got in touch with band leader Jon Davis, and below you’ll find their discussion — and the three singles released so far  from Violence Dimension.)

The UK’s heaviest band strikes back with all the power of the gargantuan barbarian sword. The name itself fit well for the music that Jon Davis and his companions played from the start – dirty, ugly, and damn heavy sludge-doom with a hypnotizing stoner vibe. Conan honed their skills with each new album and made a huge leap onward from the point where they started to their current firm position in the global extreme metal scene.

Conan built the legend on their own, but moreover they somehow managed to develop their sound further with the new album Violence Dimension, a masterpiece of heaviness and brutality. Somehow we caught Jon for a while during the band’s current tour and here’s what we were able to learn from him:

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HOROH

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Mar 212025
 

(In February the French death metal band Horoh released their second album on Crypt of Dr. Gore — reviewed here by our contributor Zoltar — and today we have Comrade Aleks‘ interview with this horror-loving band’s two veteran members.)

French death-metal duo Horoh consists of Sébastien (vocals) and J. (all instruments). Both men live in different parts of France, so I doubt that Horoh will outgrow its status of a studio project. And yet the fresh Horde of Horror is their new album released only two years after the debut Aberration. Crypt of Dr. Gore released this 39-minute-long knot of gore, death, and unspeakable horrors in a form of quite old fashioned death metal.

Sébastien and J. spent many years performing different kinds of metal, so… an old horse doesn’t spoil a furrow… or how do you pronounce that? However, here we have a quite lively and fun conversation with both men. Hi there! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ONIROPHAGUS

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Feb 282025
 

(In January of this year Personal Records released a powerhouse new album by the Spanish death/doom band Onirophagus. Our Comrade Aleks gives it a very good quick review below, along with his very enjoyable interview with the band’s vocalist, Paingrinder.)

Catalan death-doom band Onirophagus have been through a lineup rotation since the release of their second album Endarkenment (Illumination through Putrefaction) in 2019, and with two new guitarists and a bassist in the lineup, they have recorded 45 minutes of material under the title Revelations from the Void.

Initially, Onirophagus focused on the legacy of the grimmest death-doom bands of the past, those that avoided melodrama and “gothic sentiments”. And how could it be otherwise, if almost all the members either previously performed or still perform in thrash and death bands? Perhaps that is why the new album is so heterogeneous, although sustained in a single style.

In some places, Onirophagus pulls the veins with classic depressive doom, a model of dissonance; in others they deafen with a death metal attack in the name of Incantation; and in others they invite us into the paranoid nightmare of Esoteric. The mixture of these influences serves the purpose of creating the individuality of the band. Even the violin, appearing in “Black Brew”, plays its part in an unexpected schizophrenic style.

I guess, you can hear the rebellion of the bands from the noughties in Onirophagus, those who found the key to depicting madness with the help of new combinations of familiar formulas. These crushing and murderously dark compositions can be majestic and even melodic, and in this contrast lies their aesthetic value. The band almost never returns to the theme played within the track, preferring to move on from plot to plot. After all, Revelations from the Void is a conceptual album and the musical accompaniment of this story is appropriate. Onirophagus did everything right. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OLD FOREST

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Feb 252025
 

(James Fogarty is a man of many talents and musical incarnations, but clearly one of his favorites is in the guise of Kobold within the British black metal band Old Forest. That band, and their newest album Graveside (out now on Soulseller Records) is the focus of Comrade Aleks‘ interview with him that we present today, though the discussion turns to come of his many other projects and bands as well.)

Bands practicing any of the old school genres nowadays do not have to be original, they are not required to be. We approach such bands with a very specific request and expect to receive impressions conditioned by a clear code, a set of musical, lyrical and visual attributes common to the genre.

British black metal band Old Forest does not hide its intentions to express itself with the traditional features of the “second wave of black”. The name and logo itself, and the cover of the new album based on the 18th century painting ‘Moonlit Stoke Poges Cemetery’, exude a unique old-fashioned charm. Song titles such as “The Curse of the Vampire”, “Forgotten Graves”, “Spawn of the Witch” and so on categorically indicate the subject of their lyrics.

Although the label describes Old Forest’s approach to recording as “primitive and regressive”, this does not mean that Graveside will irritate your eardrums with its sound like the scraping of dead man’s claws on your window pane. Old Forest‘s eighth album is an honest and artful piece taken to the extreme level of verisimilitude. Their moderately angry, sincere, coffin-grim black metal comes straight from the ’90s, which is not surprising if you remember that the band has been active since 1998. With a deliberately simplified approach to writing music and a general tendency towards traditionally repetitive themes that build up the atmosphere, Old Forest catches you with memorable, sharp solos, rhythm changes, and even vocal melodies or the utterly vampiric harpsichord’s tunes.

Here’s the interview Kobold conducted with us soon after the Graveside release on Soulseller Records. Continue reading »

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