AN NCS INTERVIEW: LONE WANDERER

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Feb 042026
 

(Just a handful of days ago High Roller Records released a new album by the German funeral doom band Lone Wanderer, and that provided the occasion for Zoltar to conduct the following interview with the band. Doom on….)

Silent hooded sinister figures in line disappearing into the mist next to a cenotaph as cover artwork, a nearly 25-minute opening track titled “To Rest Eternally”… Even before pressing play, you more or less know that you’re treading here on funeral doom territories, and that’s somehow exactly what Lone Wanderer proudly deliver with Exequiae, their third album.

But what’s interesting with those Germans is that besides their unusual background – three out of four members also played pure classic ’80s heavy-metal with Kerrigan – and the fact this is being released on High Roller Records, a well-established label and mail-order whose well-deserved reputation was built on high-quality classic metal vinyl reissues — they’ve managed to somehow tweak their genre’s otherwise firmly established assets into something quite personal, albeit still pretty much in debt to Mournful Congregation, whose mastermind Damon Good actually mixed their first two records. The band collectively agreed to lift the veil on their funeral obsessions… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEAD SUN

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Dec 292025
 


L-R: Thomas Ohlsson, Rogga Johansson

(On December 19th Emanzipation Productions released This Life Is A Grave, the latest album by Rogga Johansson’s long-running melodic death metal band Dead Sun. And that event led Zoltar to contact Rogga for the interview you’ll find below. We’ve stitched in some of Dead Sun’s new music too, which is well worth your time.)

Oh yeah. Rogga Johansson. Like again. I know what you’re thinking: with no less than 48 (!) bands/projects listed as ‘active’ on his metal archives page, and don’t get me started on those considered ‘inactive’ as there are as many, it may be hard sometimes from an outsider point of view to take the man seriously. I mean, who does have 48 bloody different aliases, especially since in most cases it more or less is to do the same kind of chuggin, old-school and full of ‘ugh!’ style of death metal whose foundations were laid out by his main band PAGANIZER back in 1998? Isn’t it all the same all over again?

Well, as one of the few psychos who own, if not all, say, most of his works (give or take, over 120 + albums dude), I (slighty) beg to differ. Yep, you need first of all to be a sucker like me for this brand of Swedish mid-tempo rudeness but believe me when I tell you you’ll find different flavors here and there, that is if you know where to look.

Case in point being DEAD SUN: next to his solo albums or EYE OF PURGATORY, this is probably as close as ‘melodic death metal’ goes, Rogga Johansson-style. Meaning: catchy as fuck, because let’s face it, the man knows a thing or two about coming up with instantly memorable in-your-face crusty riffs. Yes, This Life Is A Grave is their (his?) official ninth full-length, but next to the criminally overlooked 2019 Night Terrors one of their best under that moniker. Plus it’s DEAD SUN’s first under the banner of Emanzipation Productions, who already has a long history of partnership with Mr. Johansson thanks to STASS or THORIUM.

So come on, don’t be shy, come on and have a taste! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEAD AND DRIPPING

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Nov 272025
 

(New Jersey-based Dead and Dripping has created macabre musical intersections of sounds that are ghastly, putrid, bludgeoning, and malicious, but also machine-precise, head-spinning, and dazzling – in a very demented way. Their new album will be released tomorrow by Transcending Obscurity Records, and that provided the impetus for Zoltar to reach out for the following interview with D&D’s mainman Evan Daniele.)

There are fucked up death metal bands. And there are REALLY fucked up death metal bands. Dead And Dripping defo deserves to be on the latter top list. Initially ‘just’ a solo project by Sentient Horror’s Evan Daniele who’s never hidden his love of death metal the brutal way, one could have easily expected the result to be on the same basic-and-brOOtal wave-length as, say, Putrid Pile or Insidious Decrepancy, just to cite two early 00s prime examples of one-man-brutality.

But as soon as his debut – first digitally, then on CD format through France’s Percussive Spectre – Profane Verses Of Murderous Rhetoric dropped, we realized that as in Matrix, instead of choosing between the blue or the red pill, Daniele went for both and thus, opened a doorway to some psychedelic, twisted, and, well, truly fucked up parallel universe. And if you thought his first three albums sounded like Demilich or Timeghoul heavily tripping on acid through a brutal death metal vortex, wait until you hear the new one, Nefarious Scintillations.

Turn on, tune in, drop out, and get blasted. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SLAUGHTERDAY

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Nov 182025
 

(The German death metal band Slaughterday signed with a new label, Testimony Records, and their first release for Testimony (which will be out on November 21st) turns out to be something different from what you might expect. We’ll let Zoltar explain, just before he dives into a discussion with Slaughterday bassist/guitarist Jens Finger.)

When former Obscenity guitar player Jens Finger caught up with his old friend Bernd Reiners to go see Autopsy play at the Party San Festival on August 13th 2010, the pair quickly realized that the song title “Slaughterday“ off the classic Mental Funeral album performed that night would make a great band name.

Since then, besides setting a live line-up to play shows around their native Germany, the two have laid out four great albums of doomish old school death metal in between 2013 and 2022. After over a decade on FDA Records, Slaughterday have just signed a brand-new contract with Testimony Records (Deserted Fear, Carnal Tomb, Leper Colony). Yet, as suggested by its cover artwork (a spoof of the mighty Horrified album), the very first result of this new alliance ain’t exactly what you would have expected from those guys.

Instead of their usual downtuned catchy style, Terrified turns out to be a four-tracks, nine minutes, in-your-face grindcore EP, but the kind of grindcore only metalheads raised in the ’80s on a severe diet of thrash metal and hardcore/crust could really muster. We caught up with Jens, who handles guitar and bass in the studio, to see if this was just a spur of the moment thing or an indication of a sudden change of heart… Continue reading »

NEWS FEATURE: ROTPIT RELEASE A NEW EP, BECOME A FULL BAND

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Sep 112025
 

(Our contributor Zoltar wishes to draw your attention to developments in the grimy and gruesome Rotpit camp, including a new EP and an expanded full lineup now at work on a new album.)

Thanks to the internet, the scene has been flooded over the last decade or so by super-groups – or whatever you wanna call those sometimes intercontinental collaborations of musicians from all over the world, each of them delivering their parts in their respective home studios before getting somebody to piece them altogether et voilà. Too often, said collaborations prove to be a tad lackluster as, let’s face it, nothing beats getting the whole gang together in one sweaty rehearsal room to bang their instruments innit?

Thankfully, some of those more or less ‘bands’ beg to differ. And not only did ROTPIT released two splendid downtuned-as-fuck slimy full-lengths and two split EPs but they’ve gone the extra mile by actually turning this once studio-only thing into a fully functioning five-piece band. Both Ralf Hauber from REVEL IN FLESH and former MASSACRE and WOMBBATH vocalist Jonny Pettersson started collaborating together in HEADS FOR THE DEAD in 2017 but felt like churning out something even uglier, hence giving birth to ROTPIT. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEFACEMENT

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Sep 052025
 

(One year after their acclaimed Duality album, last month the international quartet Defacement released their fourth studio record, Doomed, through the Unorthodox Emanations division of Avantgarde Music. What we have for you today is Zoltar‘s interview of Defacement protagonist Khalil Azagoth.)

The jury may still be out on if they truly belong to the post-black metal genre or not (read Andy Synn‘s extended review to find out – or not) but the international act that is Defacement aren’t your so-called ‘typical’ dissonant death metal band, whatever this elusive tag may refer to.

Yet as undecipherable as they may come across at first, despite their overall concision, each of their four so far released albums, including Doomed unleashed by Avantgarde Music last month, has this rare ability to suck the listeners into the vacuum where one can experience subsequently dizziness, fear, and inner peace, sometimes simultaneously.

Mainman and guitarist Khalil Azagoth agreed to give us some keys to their abstruse but fascinating inner world. Continue reading »

A NCS INTERVIEW : DISEMBODIMENT

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Jul 252025
 

(Everlasting Spew Records released the gut-churning, pulse-pounding, head-moving debut album of Disembodiment on July 11th, and now we present Zoltar‘s interview of Disembodiment guitarist Chris Lacroix.)

Disembodiment are a death metal band from Canada. Now hold your horses right away, especially those immediately expecting some kind of shred-fest or deathcore march. This four-piece out of Sherbrooke, Québec may be downtuned and all about decay and slimy things but their music nevertheless remains deeply rooted in the early ’90s, back when the genre wasn’t all about speed and/or technical wankery but stomping grooves, grueling slow parts, and being metal-as-fuck.

If their demo-turned-into-an-EP Mutated Chaos in 2021 was a warning shot, their long-awaited full-length Spiral Crypts – with a couple of songs premiered on this very site a few weeks back – will truly take you to a even more gruesome place “where cadavers pile to rest” as they say themselves on the opening track, “Stygian Overture”.

Although not the most talkative person on the planet, guitar player Chris Lacroix spills some of the beans for us… Continue reading »

SÁTAN FESTIVAL, JUNE 5TH, 6TH, AND 7TH, STYKKISHHOLMÚR  (ICELAND)

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Jun 272025
 

(Our French contributor Zoltar made his way to Iceland again to attend the June 2025 edition of Sátan festival, and we received the following report, with a few of Zoltar‘s photos.)

Be warned, you’ll often read this same phrase over and over again in the following report: Only in Iceland…

Mind you, it’s far from being my first time here as after a first visit in the mid-00s as a regular tourist (no metal involved), I had the chance to attend a few times the now defunct Eistnaflug festival and also to be invited to be part of the Wacken Battle Iceland jury. Yet, this tiny country with a big heart never ceases to amaze me, on all levels.

And yes, only in Iceland could a festival be set up in the middle of freakin’ nowhere (that would be in this very case Stykkishholmúr for you, roughly one three-hour drive up from Reykjavik, population 1,300) in early June called Sátan Festival. And yes, there’s a twist here. The accent makes all the difference, since Sátan (look it up, google it if you don’t believe me) is first and foremost the name of a local mountain with an old legend attached to it.

Besides a hard-to-transcribe-on-paper pronunciation – try something like ‘sauthan’ – the name has actually something to do with a legend about a troll, a haystack, a horse, and a couple of extra things I’m not entirely sure of anymore… But that’s not what really matters here, as this new and up-and-coming festival (this is their second edition) encapsulates everything that makes the Icelandic scene such a special one. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JONAS LINDBLOOD (PUTERAEON)

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May 282025
 

(Our French contributor Zoltar conducted the following excellent interview with Puteraeon founder and vocalist/guitarist Jonas Lindblood in advance of Emanzipation Production‘s release of this Swedish band’s newest album on May 30th — an album we will premiere-stream one hour from now.)

“Dead but dreaming.” Howard Philipps Lovecraft probably never thought while writing for the first time about what would become his most famous creation in the aptly titled The Call Of Cthulhu nearly a century ago back in 1926 that, somehow, this conception would also ring true about his never-ending influence on extreme metal.

A lot has been said about how pioneers like Black Sabbath (‘Beyond The Wall Of Sleep’) or Metallica (‘The Call Of Ktulu’) early on associated the name of the master of Providence to distorted riffing on selected tracks, but lately more than a few bands like French weirdos The Great Old Ones or German epic travelers Sulphur Aeon have gone the extra mile by entirely dedicating their lore to his writings and monstrous cosmology.

The cool thing about Puteraeon is that they never jumped on the bandwagon to start with yet made it clear from their third demo what the deal was, going as far as doing a whole set of songs (The Extraordinary Work Of Herbert West) solely dedicated to one of Lovecraft’s most-beloved novels – and the source of inspiration for what remains his best movie-adaptation, Stuart Gordon-directed 1985 cult horror flick Re-Animator. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SIJJIN

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May 132025
 

(Here we present Zoltar‘s interview of Malte Gericke, bassist and vocalist of the pan-national death/thrashing band Sijjin, whose new album Helljjin Combat is out now on Sepulchral Voice Records.)

“I couldn’t be happier man.” Malte Gericke, aka Mors Dalos Ra, is relieved for probably the first time since the band’s split in 2021 not to be asked about Necros Christos, the cult and highly-mystical death/doom beast he led out and back to the abyss for over two decades. And he deserved the right to, as Sijjin, the to-the-point and proudly stuck in the ’80s thrash/death new band he had put together even before NC took their final bow, has proven not to be the expectative derivative but an entity on its own, far less entrenched in occult and cryptic atmospheres and doom-laden circumvolutions, way more straight-forward and unapologetically METAL, as in denim-and-leather-patches-furious-headbanging metal.

If their 2019 demo, later reissued on LP, and their debut album Sumerian Promises were treading on early Morbid Angel territories, as he once again puts it himself, their long-awaited sophomore and very riff-oriented album Helljinn Combat goes even more “back in time”. Old-school to the bone! Continue reading »

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