NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BIZARREKULT

Feb 192026

photo by Radmila Volchenkova

(Here we have a new interview by our Comrade Aleks of Roman V., mastermind of the Norwegian black metal band Bizarrekult, whose new album is due for release on February 20th — tomorrow! — by Season of Mist Underground Activists.)

Norwegian project Bizarrekult emerged from the Siberian band Dryados and moved to Oslo with the relocation of its founder, Roman “Bizarre” (guitar, bass, vocals). Since then, Bizarrekult has had a virtual “studio” lineup, which, in addition to Roman, includes guitarist Ignat Pomazkov from the Belarusian doom band Adliga and drummer Alexander Pryakhin, based in Russia. At the same time, Roman maintains a live lineup of local musicians, so the band is fully active.

As you noticed due to NCS’ newsletter, Bizarrekult’s third album, Alt Som Finnes (“All There Is”), is here and it’s marked by a slight hint of moderate progress. The eight new tracks feature both pitch-black traditional black metal, with some post-branches. The material’s sound ranges from uncompromisingly apocalyptic and quite extreme to dreamy, transparent “philosophical” passages, presented in a softer, more tranquil manner.

Incidentally, the album features guest vocals: Yusaf Parvec (Manes, Dødheimsgard, Code) croaked on “Blikket Hennes,” Lina (St. Petersburg’s Cross Bringer and Predatory Void) sang on “Drøm,” and Kim Song Sternkopf (Møl and The Arcane Order) sang clean on the lyrical post-metal farewell “Tomhet.”

Conceptually, Alt Som Finnes sounds like an introspective, heart-wrenching album, untethered from conventional black metal themes, save perhaps for a profound sense of the inappropriateness of one’s place in a disorganized world. There was no other way but to do this interview with Roman, so you can read almost the entire story of Alt Som Finnes below. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PRISON OF MIRRORS — “DE SEPULCHRIS OCCULTIS ET IGNE PROFANATIONIS”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Feb 192026

(written by Islander)

De Sepulchris Occultis et Igne Profanationis (Of Hidden Tombs and the Fire of Profanation) is the second album (or EP if you prefer, since it’s on the borderline) from the Italian band Prison of Mirrors. It consists of two very long songs — “Chants Beneath the Shunned Shrines” and “The Devouring Fire of Demonic Doctrine“. It will be released by ATMF on February 24th. And you can listen to it today through our full streaming premiere.

While making references to “the desolate lines traced by the darkest Blut Aus Nord and Akhlys,” ATMF describes the record as “a work that is bleak, profound, suffocating, and all-encompassing: a sonic ritual that grants no respite and, like a slow-acting poison, will wound its listeners, consuming both mind and senses” — “a journey into the core of an abyss with no bottom, where every step drags you deeper, until nothing remains of former memories — only the faint echo of a consciousness undone.”

After that, you’ll be happy to know that the record is survivable, but the mental wounds it leaves won’t heal quickly. The experience is hallucinatory and labyrinthine, and around all of the many strangely curling corners something very unsettling and intense awaits, though the intensity manifests in different ways, leaving different scars. Continue reading »

INGRINA – NÅVÆRENDE LYSS

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 192026

(Andy Synn is here to encourage you to lose yourselves in the new album from French Post-Metal collective Ingrina)

Here’s a funny story for you.

Recently, quite out of the blue, we received an email asking us – and I swear I’m not making this up – to stop using so many words in our reviews and to just boil things down to a score out of 10 at the end of each article so that they were more “useful”.

And while you almost have to admire the sheer gall it takes to contact us directly and ask us to change who we are and what we do purely for someone else’s convenience – as if that was ever going to elicit a positive response – it got me thinking about the power of expectations (particularly the wrong expectations) and how important it is to approach things on their own terms.

Which brings us, nice and neatly, to the new album from Ingrina.

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, JANUARY 2026

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Feb 192026

(Join us in congratulating NCS writer Gonzo on his engagement! Also join us in enjoying his reviews of four recommended January releases.)

I’ve yelled about how February is a useless fucking month at least once in the past, but this year feels a little different. For me personally, anyway.

Yes, you may have noticed that this column is hilariously late compared to my usual cadence, but since I’ve last posted here, I have:

Gotten engaged
Taken a last-minute trip to New York (I had the advanced notice of 24 hours in business days)
Had my byline in Decibel for the first time

Suffice to say some curveballs have thrown themselves into my schedule, but it’s not unwelcome. Despite living in a rapidly declining christofascist empire, life is largely good. It’s a very weird time to be happy in your personal life, if nothing else, and that alone is worth something. I also have the privilege of making my return to Roadburn this April, and with the recent announcement of Cult of Luna playing two sets there, I’ll have a hard time thinking about much else for the next two months.

God, where was I?

Oh, right. Here are another four albums you should really drop everything you’re doing and listen to. Yes, right now. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “THE NEW FLESH”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 182026

(We welcome back one of our early writers, TheMadIsraeli, and his review of a new album by Sylosis that’s due for release on February 20th by Nuclear Blast.)

It’s been a long while hasn’t it? More than six years by my count and I’ve been checked out as a music enthusiast for most of it. I won’t go into why, but I’m ready to come back and talk about some sick metal records, and starting my return to NCS with a Sylosis record feels about as appropriate for me as it gets. Before we get to talking about The New Flesh we ought to talk about my history with this band.

I discovered them all the way back when their debut full-length Conclusion Of An Age had just come out, and it blew me away. The commitment to mixing modern metalcore conventions and melodic vocal hooks with an extremely technical and precise thrash approach in the vein of Forbidden, Metallica, Testament, and the like really spoke to me, and it kept me hooked.

Sylosis is an all-time favorite band of mine. Edge Of The Earth is one of modern metal’s ALL TIME GREATEST records. I am a fanboy for this band, a simp, and an admirer as a guitarist of Josh Middleton and his commitment as a composer to keeping things melodic, technical, and deep. UNTIL that is, Cycle Of Suffering. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LESOTHO — “A FLASHING ON PLAIN GLASS”

Premieres No Responses »

Feb 182026

(written by Islander)

Just two days ago we hosted the premiere of an instrumental metal song by Utah-based Osmium Gate. We concluded the introduction by proclaiming, “It really is one of those songs that’s so emotionally evocative, so viscerally soul-stirring in its impact, that vocals are unnecessary, and indeed would have risked distraction from all the other marvels had they been present.” Coincidentally, we’re now premiering another instrumental metal song, this time from the other side of our continent, and the same impression holds for this one: You won’t miss the vocals at all.

What we have for you today is the title song for A Flashing on Plain Glass, the intriguingly named forthcoming third album from the Boston-based instrumental post-metal trio Lesotho. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARLUGUBRE — “SHE NIGH HIS DEATH”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres No Responses »

Feb 182026

(written by Islander)

By definition, “concept albums” are based upon narratives or themes that connect the songs. Most often, the concepts are represented lyrically. Often, the lyrics are written independently of the music, even after much of the music has already been written. Although listening to the riffs and melodies might inspire the lyricist’s development of concepts, sometimes there may be no evident connection at all between an album’s “conceptual framework” and what the songs sound like.

Which brings us to a new concept album by the Italian artist Marlugubre. The name of the album is Per Amor Nymphae, and as that title signifies (it translates to “Through the Love of the Nymphs”), the songs are based upon the mythical figures of nymphs. Deeply rooted in Greek mythology, the songs include tales of the primordial figure of Nyx from Hesiod’s Theogony, of Chloris, of the tragic myth of Scylla and Glaucus, and of perhaps the even more tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice — which is the subject of the song from Per Amor Nymphae that we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s February 27 release by Dusktone. Continue reading »

KILLING PACE – HCPM

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 182026

(Andy Synn burns down genre boundaries with the new album from Killing Pace)

Did you know that I did my disseration on the concept of “categorical perception”?

In particular I was looking at the ways in which your (for want of a better term) perspective – dictated by your social, cultural, and even geographical, influences – affects your perception of things like language (specifically speech sounds), colour, and more.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, it’s because the way we categorise sub-genres also seems to follow a lot of the rules of “categorical perception”

Let’s face it, Death Metal that becomes increasingly more “blackened” until turns into “Blackened Death Metal” can easily just tip over into straight up Black Metal (and vice versa)… Hardcore combined with Metal becomes “Metallic Hardcore”, which in turn, at some point, becomes “Metalcore” (a term which itself means different things to different people, depending on their background and history), and so on…- to the point where even if the sonic spectrum appears pretty continuous we generally choose to draw some pretty hard lines and separate it into discrete little areas, if only to help us more easily manage the sheer wealth of music we’re exposed to.

But what’s really interesting about all that – to me, anyway – is the fact that while these sub-genre categories can be a useful tool, sometimes how you choose to categorise a band says more about you than them.

Which, of course, brings us to the new album from self-declared “Hardcore Punk Metal” crew Killing Pace.

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

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 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 »

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