NO CLEAN SINGING

CULTHE FEST 2025 — “LARGER, VASTER, FURTHER”

Mar 312025

(written by Islander)

Once again No Clean Singing is a co-sponsor of Culthe Fest, and its 2025 edition is rapidly approaching. The event will take place in Münster, Germany, on April 25th and 26th, and features 20 bands from more than 7 countries on 3 stages, headlined by Der Weg einer Freiheit and Ahab.

Culthe Fest proudly proclaims that this year’s edition will be “Larger, Vaster, Further”. Not only has the lineup expanded, more than half of the bands will be playing special sets, and the organizers will also be presenting a “Dark Arts & Crafts” exhibition that they plan to correspond closely with the musical program and bring together the works of various artists from several countries.

Below, we’ll share many more details about Culthe Fest 2025, but a main point we want to make up-front is that approximately 75% of all tickets have been sold, so if you want to attend the festival you should act quickly (we’ll tell you how to do that). Here’s the lineup scheduled for each day and notes provided by Culthe Fest‘s organizers: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OUTERGODS — “COSMIC ABOMINATION”

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Mar 312025

(written by Islander)

The cover art of Outergods‘ forthcoming second album is abominable, a skeletal devil-winged regent that clearly won’t die despite its lack of flesh. The album’s title, Dethroned & Devoured, is equally cursed. But the name of the album track we’re presenting today through a video promises something even more abhorrent — “Cosmic Abomination“.

The new album, which follows this UK band’s 2023 full-length debut A Kingdom Built upon the Wreckage of Heaven, is now set for release by Apocalyptic Witchcraft on June 13th. As the label represents, it offers “an unrelenting blend of blackened death metal, grindcore, and extreme intensity” and “promises to deliver the same raw intensity and unbridled chaos that fans have come to expect from the band.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TIL THE END — “THE SUMERIAN”

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Mar 312025

(written by Islander)

Earlier this month the international melodic death metal band Til the End released their debut EP, Dark Kings, preceded by a full streaming premiere at Decibel that included these words of introduction:

Across its runtime, the band flexes their songwriting chops with razor-sharp melodies, relentless energy, and a deep-rooted understanding of what makes melodic death metal truly hit. Fans of Slaughter of the Soul-era At the Gates, early In Flames, and modern Arch Enemy will feel right at home in TIL THE END’s sonic assault.

“With Dark Kings, the band distills the essence of classic melodic death metal into a modern, high-impact form—balancing soaring hooks with high-speed aggression and intricate riff work. This is just the beginning for TIL THE END, but if this EP is any indication, they’re a new force worth watching.”

To help spread the word further about this very impressive debut EP, we have two things to share with you today. The first is a stunning music video for a song from the EP named “The Sumerian“, and the second is a track-by-track commentary about all the EP’s songs by the members of the band — vocalist Antony Hämäläinen (Nightrage, Armageddon), guitar virtuoso Kostas Sotos (Mystic Prophecy, Crystal Tears), drummer Márton Veress (Orgy, Armageddon), and bassist/rhythm guitarist Nic Svensson (Slaves For Scores). Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 181): SECRET CUTTER

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Mar 312025

Recommended for fans of: Soilent Green, Wake, Inter Arma

One of the best things in life is discovering a cool new band out of the blue.

Sadly by the time I discovered this particular band – a considerable amount of time after the release of their second album – the group had gone worryingly quiet, with only a passing teaser of them working on their next release in late 2020 indicating they were still alive, leading me to assume that they’d most likely quietly gone on hiatus (if not broken up entirely).

But the recent release of their long-gestating third album, ///, has firmly put to rest any exaggerated rumours of the bands demise… which is why today I have the great pleasure of (re)introducing you to the face-melting, flesh-ripping, full-throttle Sludge-Grind of Secret Cutter

SHADES OF BLACK: IMHA TARIKAT, ELEVENTH RAY, WALD KRYPTA, VARNHEIM, ANGLACHEL, GEMYND BEADU

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Mar 302025

Imha Tarikat

(written by Islander)

Today is my wedding anniversary (it’s a big one, with a number that ends in a zero). Today the Associated Press highlighted some other events that happened on this day in U.S. history:

In 1822, Florida became a United States territory.
In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”
In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
In 1923, the Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived back in New York after a 130-day voyage.
In 1939, Detective Comics issue #27 was released, featuring the first appearance of the superhero character Batman.
In 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, Communist forces occupied the city of Da Nang.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.
In 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.

Let’s celebrate! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSIDIAN TONGUE, HATE, OBSTRUKTION, JORDSJUK, APPLE OF BASILISK, SERIAL HAWK, CONTEMPLATION

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Mar 292025

(written by Islander)

I didn’t expect I would be able to pull this Saturday column together, or the usual one tomorrow either. I thought my spouse and I would be leaving home very early today for a weekend trip. I even prepared a short notice to post this morning saying there would be no music at our site this weekend. But for reasons there’s no need to go into, we canceled those travel plans late yesterday.

That left me flat-footed this morning. I mean, I’m usually still scrambling on Saturday mornings to get this column figured out and finished, but today was set up to be an even bigger scramble because I’d given no thought to which songs and videos I might include. I had done a pretty good job over the last week of saving links to potential choices as I saw news about them — 30 or 40 links! — but no way could I check out most of those.

So, aside from picking a couple because the band names made me feel I’d be in good hands, sheer impulse ruled the rest. It’s a sign of how healthy metal is these days that making choices by impulse still turned out to be good choices. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TUMULARIO — “BASTARDO HUMANIDAD”

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Mar 282025

(written by Islander)

The Colombian band Tumulario have already formidably hacked their own path through the dense, dark, and ever-expanding jungle of underground metal with a first tape release (2016’s Renace El Crudo Metal) and a pair of albums (Maligno & Esencial in 2021, and Vociferaciones in 2023). Now they continue forging onward with a third album named Vestigios that’s set for release on May 5th by Satanath Records (Georgia), Vestigio Records (Colombia), and The End Of Time Records (Ireland).

If you’re not familiar with the previous works of Tumulario, this pitch by the labels should prove to be very enticing (it certainly was for us):

Forged in the fires of the Colombian underground, this full-length bears six unholy tracks that echo the obscure tones of ancient traditions. Each note entails a sacrilege while every riff is a chant that reverberate through the darkened halls of time, a dense path through the most organic metal essence — savage yet sublime, drenched in the thick blood of old-school reverences like Root, Beherit, Ancient Rites plus the blasphemous heritage of everlasting South American influences such as Sarcófago, Dirges and Mystifier.

The song from the new album we’re premiering today — “Bastarda humanidad” — is also damned enticing. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VORTEX — “HAUNTING THE ABYSS”

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Mar 282025

(written by Islander)

Among the many musical vortices that violently spin in the dangerous straits of extreme metal (the sonic manifestations of Charybdis opposite the smashing rocks on the other side) are numerous bands, living and dead, who’ve actually taken the name Vortex. The one we focus on today (and not for the first time) is a group of seasoned and hard-gigging musicians from remote Rimouski in the Canadian province of Quebec.

The occasion for revisiting them today is the impending release next month of a new five-song EP entitled Alien Realms, and our premiere of a video for a song from the EP named “Haunting the Abyss“. Continue reading »

THRONE OF ROACHES: “CHRYSALIS”

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Mar 282025

(Straight outta Malmö, Sweden, Throne of Roaches released their debut album Chrysalis last month, and today our writer DGR gives it an extensive review… after some extensive thoughts about what’s going on with death metal in the modern era.)

For those who’ve been paying attention to the recent spate of reviews the site has run – and those by yours truly – ever-observant as you are, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had a recent string of album arts in which the predominant color has been blue. Well enough of that bullshit, it’s time for a change. Now, we’re going with the color green for an album or two.

Every year tends to bring with it some sort of theme – other than usual overarching abject misery – that picks at the brain until it finally unclasps like a louse killed and rots away into dust. This year in particular has been poking the cortex with ideas of how metal has grown and evolved each year, and its myriad changes and how newer groups must navigate a landscape that isn’t just shifting so much as it is turbulent enough that even the FAA these days might detect that there’s something happening with a particular plane before it hits the ground. They don’t have enough coffee in the world to keep that one guy fueled.

Metal has blended many times over its generations and death metal especially has time and time again found itself bisected, dissected, vivisected, septrisected, and intersected to the point of unrecognizability. Pantheons and towers erected and destroyed in one fell swoop and just as many merged together to resemble the security guard cenobite from Hellraiser: Bloodline. What is and isn’t has proven fertile ground for those who wish to engage in perpetual argument. The concept of death of the author becomes hilarious in this regard when dealing with a genre obsessed with the actual physical undertaking and not the philosophical aspect. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SIJJIN — “DAKHMA CURSE”

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Mar 272025

(written by Islander)

Following up on their debut album Sumerian Promises, the German/Basque trio Sijjin are storming back this year with a new album named Helljjin Combat that Sepulchral Voice has marketed for release on April 25th. It is described (and accurately so) as an amalgamation of “the most antediluvian variety of death metal” and “a derivative of evil thrash with utmost evil intent,” conjuring “its own life of Satanic imagery, diabolical debauchery, and biblical fatalism.”

The album was recorded live, with a cutting sound that brings to mind ’80s analog-produced records, which is part of what links the songcraft on the new album to such hellish names as Infernäl Mäjesty, Nasty Savage, Possessed, and very early Slayer or Megadeth.

What you’ll also discover on the new album are songs that are not only diabolical in mood but also diabolical in their arrangements, with constant and technically impressive twists and turns that are a big part of why the album is going to keep listeners pumped up and right on the edge of their seats (or toes). You’ll understand that for yourselves when you hear the song “Dakhma Curse” that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

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