AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STRUP — “ABYSSURGE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 172026
 

(written by Islander)

The labels Rotted Life and Gurgling Gore have joined forces for the first time in a collaborative release of a debut album named Abyssurge by the Ukrainian band Strup, with a street date of February 20th. They describe the band as “a death grind assault unit blending the surgical brutality of death metal with the speed, chaos, and ferocity of grindcore”.

That description is true, but doesn’t completely capture all the musical ingredients of Abyssurge. Most prominently, Strup’s music is also hideously foul and abysmal as well as maniacally furious and brutally bludgeoning.

But you’ll soon see this for yourselves, because today we’re premiering a full stream of this Kyiv band’s debut — preceded (of course) by our own more detailed thoughts about what you’re about to encounter. Continue reading »

CRYPTID SPAWN: “BLACK PHOSPHOROUS DUNGEON”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 172026
 

(We present Todd Manning’s enthusiastic review of a debut EP by Singapore-based Cryptid Spawn, released at the end of January by Iron Lung Records.)

When it comes to vicious hardcore punk, d-beat, and grind records, the label Iron Lung Records reigns supreme. However, it is rare that they release anything that falls more firmly in the metal camp. So when they do put something out that is unquestionably metal, it is something to take notice of. Such is the case with Black Phosphorous Dungeon, the new EP by Cryptid Spawn.

When we say that Cryptid Spawn is undeniably metal, we aren’t talking about Judas Priest, not that there would be anything wrong with that. Cryptid Spawn’s leather-gloved hands are sticky with the DNA of the darkest extreme metal forebears. Think early Bathory, Blasphemy, Sarcófago, and Hellhammer. “Gods of the Grim and Dismal World” shows how they are able to blend the relentless blur of war metal with actual, discernible riffs, the song held together by a primitive but memorable chord progression. The vocals spew blasphemous phlegm in the best possible way, and when the guitars slow down partway through the song, the riff is the best combination of death metal crawl and sludge-ridden filth.It’s an auspicious beginning to a short but devastating release. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GLASSBONE / KANONENFIEBER / MUDTOOTH

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 172026
 

(Andy Synn has three more bite-sized blasts of brutality to share with you today)

As we all know, short-form releases (splits, EPs, and the like) tend to get the… ahem… short end of the stick when it comes to coverage (especially amongst the larger and/or more mainstream publications, who tend to prioritise full length albums, for obvious reasons).

Last year, however, I managed to reverse this trend a little, covering more EPs than I did the year before that… and in 2026 I’m hoping to continue expanding our coverage of releases best described as “short but sweet”.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORS.VOID.DISCIPLINE — “SANGUINEM IN ANUM CAPRAE PUTRESCENTIS EIACULANS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 162026
 

(written by Islander)

Take it from someone who’s been struggling to write about music for 16+ years: It’s not easy to capture sounds in words, or to represent how they alter feelings and inspire the imagination without running afoul of triteness or tedium. A humbling challenge to be sure, but even more humbling when we run across the prose of the honcho behind Sentient Ruin Laboratories. Here, as a pertinent example, is an excerpt from the label’s linguistic preview of an album that’s the source of a song we’re about to premiere:

Chilean bestial goregrind terror-cult Mors.Void.Discipline emerge from the bottomless dungeons of South America’s extreme metal underground with their debut full-length monstrosity Txketh)ëké, a twenty-minute obfuscation of terror-spawning bestial war metal destruction swathed in the flesh-eating violence and maggot-infested putridity of 90’s goregrind.

Cryptic and malignant beyond thresholds comprehensible to man, Txketh)ëké projects forth a cancerous aural perversion in which the war-mongering assaults of Blasphemy collide with early Carcass’ mangled and deconstructed sonic butchery. Its astonishing hideousness and violence are not only shaped by its unequivocal descendancy, but further complexed by the peculiar antediluvian and occult aura historically permeating Chile’s underground scene, as well as by the band’s enigmatic inner workings and imagination harvesting perversions from beyond the reach of sanity.

You see? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OSMIUM GATE — “WATERS OF NATRON”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 162026
 

(written by Islander)

We are genuinely thrilled today to introduce you to Osmium Gate, a two-person instrumental metal band “forged in the shadows of Salt Lake City, Utah”. Those two people are guitarist/bassist Drew Ehrgott, known for his work in Reverence Of The Martyr, and drummer Rene Gomez, “whose percussive presence reverberates through Ibex Throne, Yaotl Mictlan, and his bass work in Pan-Amerikan Native Front.”

Osmium Gate was formed in December 2024, and they now have a debut album named Cannibal Galaxy set for release on March 13th. We’ll share these further words from the press materials we’ve received, already excerpted above: Continue reading »

CONVERGE: “LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 162026
 

(Last Friday Converge released their new album Love Is Not Enough, and below you’ll find Wil Cifer’s thoughts about it.)

It is always an exercise in objectivity when you are reviewing one of your favorite bands. For me, they are under more scrutiny as they set my expectations high, leaving me with certain boxes to check off as I am listening. The larger their catalog, the more expectations their legacy has built.

I am not surprised that the hyper-aggression of Boston hardcore legends Converge has endured, now 11 albums into their career. Their new album does find it being refined and often being more of an Entombed-like stomp. There are some thoughts on the idea that seem to be stuck on the chaos of what they do, but in truth, compared to albums like When Forever Comes Crashing, it is a much more streamlined effort that is more accessible to a larger metal audience. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: HEIDEN, FARSON, MALAURIU, GALARE, LYSERGIC, LIGATION

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 152026
 

(written by Islander)

Getting a late start today. In yesterday’s roundup I mentioned that I had a cold. I took some over-the-counter stuff last night to help me sleep through it. I woke up 10 hours later, so I guess it worked, and hence the late start.

I picked all of today’s recommendations yesterday, and though my head is infected, these songs proved to be both more viral and more virile than the rhinovirus. I’m very happy with the choices and hope you will be too.

By way of preview, things begin in what we might call avant-garde territory, and then move in more punk-influenced directions, and then you’ll get blistered and beaten. At the end is an album that’s outside the usual boundaries of this column, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to give it a further push. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MELECHESH, KADAVEREICH, ARCHITECTS OF AEON, A FOREST OF STARS, THE HOLEUM, VOIDSPIRE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 142026
 

(written by Islander)

I felt a cold coming on yesterday when I woke up, and that was quickly followed by the discovery that anyone trying to get to NCS experienced frantic meltdowns from their browsers, which warned people that our site was insecure and might expose all their personal finances and identities to theft, might turn their children into ghouls, might cause cats to have sex with dogs, etc., etc. In other words, it seemed our site’s SSL security certificate had expired.

Or at least that’s what I concluded based on some googling, because I hadn’t received any advance notice or warning. I had forgotten what an SSL is, had no idea when we implemented it, and was completely clueless about what I was supposed to do to fix the problem. I e-mailed our IT consultant, who I think must have implemented SSL for NCS years ago (I still haven’t heard back from him).

I also opened a support ticket with our security provider, because our web host told me they maintain the site’s security certificate. I haven’t heard back from them either — though late yesterday afternoon the scary browser warnings stopped, so I guess they remewed our certificate, but I really am still in the dark about the whole incident. Which means I’m also in the dark about how to prevent this bullshit from happening again.

Oh, and my cold was also in full bloom by late afternoon yesterday. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXORCISED — “HATRED KNIFE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

On March 13th a new Spanish underground label named Cruel Gates Records will release Fire & Sulfur, a debut album from the Spanish band Exorcised.

Born from the ashes of the thrash band Madsher, Exorcised have devoted their hellish energies to the creation of old school death thrash, taking their cues from such bands as Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Devastation.

Today we have an example of the infernal sonic madness they’ve created through our premiere of a lyuric video for a song from their debut full-length named “Hatred Knife“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEIMLER — “DARKNESS FALLS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 132026
 

(written by Islander)

In 2023 the Spanish death metal band Deimler released a concept album named Immortalized that was based on Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking 1979 movie Alien. Following that up, guitarist/vocalist Pako Deimler decided to pay tribute to a personal favorite series from the ’90s — The X-Files. More specifically, Deimler’s new album, Darkness Falls, is based on one episode from the show’s first season that itself was named “Darkness Falls”.

That was a standalone episode in which Mulder and Scully went looking for a group of loggers missing in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State (which coincidentally isn’t far from the HQ of our site), only to be confronted by a deadly form of mutant insects. Pako has said that he loves that episode in particular because of its “atmosphere” but also because it’s “one of the few episodes where the main characters have a hard time and are truly in great danger.”

The new album is now set for release on March 20th by Awakening Records, and what we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for its second single — the title track “Darkness Falls“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries