AN NCS PREMIERE: PEST — “LIGHT FADES”

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Sep 262025
 

(written by Islander)

We spin through space, the ground beneath us ever-turning, and as the rotations accumulate sometimes what was lost is found again.

Ensconced in Lower Saxony, the German black metal band Pest came to life in 1997 and released five albums and an EP between then and 2014. The fifth of those full-lengths, Buried, was so named because it was to be the band’s last one following the death of Pest‘s co-founder Mrok. And so Pest was lost. But now they’re found again.

With an album-length split released last year (sharing sides with the band Cultus), these plague doctors returned, and on October 17th Pest will at last release their sixth album through Heidens Hart Records, a haunting and harrowing record fittingly named Eternal Nightmares. Today we bring you its second single, “Light Fades“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): ARS VENEFICIUM, ULVDALIR, UNDOER, PEST, RAAT

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jun 232019
 

 

There’s no hope of catching up. The flood of new metal is unrelenting; the torrent certainly did not pause for me while I spent a week in Iceland and then much of the next week trying to get the rest of my life back in order while paying homage to the Iceland experience (and honoring a bunch of premiere commitments I had made before leaving the country). Although I can’t listen to everything that surfaced during those two weeks, much less what had accumulated in the weeks before those, I’m going to attempt a two-part post today, in an effort to cover more rather than less of what I managed to find over the last 48 hours.

Today’s blackened selections are a mix of advance tracks from forthcoming albums, a couple of complete short releases, and a few excerpts from recently released (or re-released) full-lengths. For both Parts, I decided to end them with performances that diverge from the general wildness of everything else.

ARS VENEFICIUM / ULVDALIR

On June 21st Immortal Frost Productions released In Death’s Cold Embrace, a new 7″ vinyl split by two bands whose previous music we’ve praised at NCS. The split is also deserving of praise — and your close attention. Continue reading »