AN NCS INTERVIEW: RAVAGED BY THE YETI

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Jul 102026
 

(“Fun” is a recurring word in Zoltar’s interview of Mike Borders, and “fun” is the operative word for what the interview will bring you, too. The focus is on Ravaged by the Yeti (Borders‘ band with Rogga Johansson and Jon Rudin), whose new album is being released today by Testimony Records, but it goes in other directions too. Enjoy!)

Few people do take a thirty-plus years leave of absence in death metal before going back at it in full swing. But Mike Borders ain’t no regular death metal musician either as he was part of one of MASSACRE’s earliest line-ups back in 1985. Yep, he played along Kam Lee, Bill Andrews, and future OBITUARY axeman Allen West before the latter was replaced by Rick Rozz, recording with them their first two proper demos before hanging up his bass to lead a ‘normal’ life.

That is until 2019 when Lee called him back, eventually becoming part of the team that would record and release the Resurgence album and a few subsequent EPs, including Mythos. Said team included Rogga Johansson from PAGANIZER and a zillion other bands with whom Borders would soon have a very special bond, leading to formation of RAVAGED BY THE YETI in 2023, right after his second and final exit from MASSACRE.

After a cool but nowhere-to-be-found debut on a rip-off label (Apex Predator) and a slight reshuffling of the line-up – gone are both WOMBBATH’s Jonny Pettersson and drummer Jon Skäre – RAVAGED BY THE YETI’s brand-new album Snowbound Horror on the far more reliable imprint Testimony Records is as dumb and fun as its title suggests and Borders doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CANDARIAN

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May 252026
 

(Our contributor Zoltar is back with us again, this time presenting his interview with José Pablo, vocalist and bassist of the Costa Rican death metal band Candarian, whose debut album was released in April of this year.)

Two out four members of CANDARIAN already play in Chile, eat your heart out? If you’re a classic and dark-sounding death metal freak like I am, you do know damn well that over the last few years, Chile has more or less taken the lead in that style, piling one after another bands with the right attitude, underground ethos, and shitloads of reverb this style requires. But there’s a new boy in town… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RESURRECTED

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May 042026
 

(On April 24th Testimony Records released the long-awaited and quite crushing eighth full-length by the German death metal band Resurrected, and that provided a timely reason for our contributor Zoltar to arrange an interview with the band’s sole remaining original member, Thomas Granzow. It was a very good discussion, as you can now see for yourselves.)

Thanks Satan for Germany. Let’s face it: back in the mid-’90s when listening to death metal became as fashionable as eating rusty nails for breakfast, they seemingly were the only ones to care – next to Poland and the Czech Republic to be fair, but a whole different level.

Since the hey days of MORGOTH, they may have failed to produce A-list contenders (and don’t get me started on what ATROCITY turned into post-Hallucinations will ya?) but the underground scene was nevertheless striving with blue collar defenders of the faith who had no problem whatsoever doing songs about zombies and serial-killers while covering early DEATH, like OBSCENITY, ANASARCA, MANGLED TORSOS, BLOOD, TORCHURE, PURGATORY…

 Many were quite derivative, most of them lasted an album or two before drifting away without anybody noticing, but on this desolate battlefield, surrounded by many of their fallen comrades, RESURRECTED – or more precisely their guitarist and main songwriter Thomas Granzow – soldiered on, no matter what. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GLUTTONY

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Apr 102026
 

(On March 13th FDA Records released Eulogy to Blasphemy, the fourth album by the Swedish death metal band Gluttony, and that motivated Zoltar to arrange the following interview with founding member and guitarist Anders Härén.)

Considering the rather ‘modern’ (for lack of better terms, as this had probably more to do with the average age of the musicians involved  than anything else) take on death metal that MY OWN GRAVE had, it was too tempting to some to call them out as posers once the word got out that three quarters of its line-up all of a sudden decided to play it old-school with a full-on HM-2-fueled mindset as GLUTTONY. But if jumping on the SweDeath wagon is one thing, the band’s first proper album Beyond The Veil Of Flesh released back in 2014 was not.

Maybe it had something to do with having a singer (Magnus Ödling) with a more black metal background (the man did front SETHERIAL for fifteen years plus) or the unusually tight rhythmic approach à la VOMITORY, but a cheap DISMEMBER/ENTOMBED throw-off it was not. Twelve years later, the band are releasing their fourth and probably best record to date, Eulogy To Blasphemy, and it was all too tempting to ask their founding member and guitar player Anders Härén why his thirst for the HM-2 hasn’t dried out yet… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: INVICTUS

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Feb 262026
 

(In late January Me Saco Un Ojo and Memento Mori co-released a new album by the Japanese death metal band Invictus, and that led our contributor Zoltar to reach out for the following good interview with guitarist and vocalist Takehitopsy Seki.)

While the Japanese grind and death scene has granted us some of the wackiest, most disturbing bands over the last twenty-five years or so (we dare you to try to listen to GORE BEYOND NECROPSY or CATASEXUAL URGE MOTIVATION for 24 hours straight and not want to murder everyone), they also know a thing or two about recreating note-perfect tributes to their American elders. Unsurprisingly, the sound of the early ’90s Floridian mob left an obvious mark on many, including Nagano’s own INVICTUS, whose second album was released on vinyl by Me Saco Un Ojo and CD by Memento Mori.

This trio may be obvious MONSTROSITY fans but their extremely tight musicianship, powerful drive, and thrash leanings truly set them apart from the clone pack, and guitarist and vocalist Takehitopsy Seki does obviously know what the fuck he’s talking about, based on the following answers… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: IN AETERNUM

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Feb 062026
 


Photos by Magnus Eklund Izarra

(Today Soulseller Records is releasing the first new In Aeternum album in more than 20 years, and to help commemorate the event we’re now presenting Zoltar’s interview with founding member David “Impious” Larsson.)

No matter what some would say, the late ’90s and early ’00s were when both the black and death metal scenes collided, with various results. In Sweden, despite Jon Nödtveidt landing in jail from 1997 onwards, you could still feel the aftermath of Dissection’s gigantic Storm Of The Light’s Bane and how it redefined a whole scene. If on the old continent No Fashion Records picked up the baton and ran with it, so did Necropolis Records on the other side of the Atlantic. By the time the next millennium was just around the corner, the Californian imprint seemed to mostly put out one future Swedish black/death metal classic after the other: Dawn’s Slaughtersun, Arckanum’s first three albums, Ophthalamia, Nifelheim, etc.

Originally called Behemoth, In Aeternum showcased on Forvever Blasphemy, their debut for the label back in 1999, everything fans of that particular genre could hope for with a massive Fredman production, some ripping Necrolord cover artwork, and songs about the end of the world and the reaper. Even if things went a bit south in between the two parties after the release of their equally great second album The Pestilent Plague, those Swedes nevertheless did carry the torch all the way ‘til the end of the ’00s when they seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth.

After a first attempted yet short-lived reunion in 2016, the band are finally back with a vengeance thanks to …Of Death And Fire, their fifth full-length and first proper material in over a decade. We caught up with founding member David “Impious” Larsson to see if his inner flame still burns bright or not. Continue reading »

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 »

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