SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: JUODVARNIS, ANGERSEED, MAGNACULT, SKULLD, GAMO GRIND, GRAVETAKER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 272025
 

(written by Islander)

We all made it through Christmas week more or less intact, not just those of us who toil here at NCS but you too, or you wouldn’t be reading this. Taking some deep breaths, we now look ahead to the final five days of 2025. We have a few more year-end lists to share from friends of our site, although I think one or two of those won’t appear until on or after New Year’s Day. And somewhere around the first day of 2026 I’ll start rolling out the last part of our year-end LISTMANIA celebration, the only one I’m responsible for — our list of 2025’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

In the meantime, here’s one last 2025 edition of SEEN AND HEARD, and tomorrow I hope to bring you the year’s last edition of SHADES OF BLACK (it’s more hope than promise because there’s a mid-morning start on Sunday to an NFL football game that will rivet my attention; one does not live by metal alone).

As usually happens, the flood of new music diminished during Christmas week, although there was plenty of actual flooding out here on the U.S. West Coast. However, the diminished music stream still included some very good offerings, on top of what had breached the levees in the weeks before that. As you try to recover from the week just ended and begin peering ahead toward 2026 with some combination of fear, loathing, and maybe glimmers of hope, I hope you’ll enjoy what follows. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANTAR, BALMOG, JUODVARNIS, DARK MEDITATION, GRAVEWITCH, MESSA, MARES OF THRACE, IMPURITY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 012025
 


These are bathrooms I visited in Port Orchard, Washington

(written by Islander)

It’s been a hell of a week hasn’t it? More like a week from hell. The daily news has become a series of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, the ghastly ones whose details have frequently appeared on the cover of metal albums.

On the other hand, it’s been a heavenly week if you focus on the kind of music that typically makes its way into these Saturday roundups. So let’s forget about the news for now and move right to that!

MANTAR (Germany)

I’m never going to not rush to check out new music from Mantar. (Forgive the double-negative, I guess I haven’t completely forgotten about the news.) Especially when it’s prefaced by this kind of statement from guitarist/vocalist Hanno Klänhardt: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DORDEDUH, JUODVARNIS, ANTRISCH, ACAUSAL INTRUSION, RALE, SLITHERING DECAY, PAN KUBUŚ

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 012021
 

 

This round-up includes seven bands, which is a lot. But except for two, there’s just a single track per band (in the remaining cases there are EPs). I included a curveball at the end.

DORDEDUH (Romania)

Two days ago Dordeduh premiered a beautiful English-subtitled lyric video for “Descânt” (“Disenchantment”), the second single from their new second album Har, which will be released by Prophecy Productions on May 14th. The previously released single is “Desferecat“, which translates to “unchained”. It was accompanied by a fascinating music video of its own. Both songs have a visceral “physicality” but also quicken the imagination as you listen. Here’s what former NCS contributor KevinP wrote me about them: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GAEREA, HAEIRESIS, THECODONTION, EISENKULT, RAAT, SOMNIATE, OBSCURE RELIC, ENSHADOWED, JUODVARNIS, ODIOSIOR, TERROR MACHINE

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Jun 142020
 


Gaerea – photo by Catarina Rocha

 

Maybe you know about the “Overflowing Streams” format that we use for especially large collections of new music we want to recommend? The idea is to (regretfully) cut back on words and save the time needed to find, download, and upload cover art, and let the music streams mainly speak for themselves. And that’s the format I’ve resorted to for this week’s Shades of Black column, which is mostly a collection of recently released individual songs from forthcoming records.

GAEREA (Portugal)

The meteoric rise of Gaerea continues. In both its sights and its sounds the new video that begins this collection is extremely powerful. The inner pain they express is mutilating. The music is both crushing and explosive, delirious and despairing, sweeping and scathing. For such intense music, it’s also thoroughly immersive… or perhaps it’s better said that this is an emotional vortex that’s hard to escape. Continue reading »