NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINCE AND FRISSON — “TUMULT”

Sep 022026

(written by Islander)

In February of this year we helped introduce listeners to Wince and Frisson, a “dissoblack and death metal” duo consisting of Triumvir Kaleido from North Carolina and Steve Wiener from New Jersey. In February we premiered a striking animated video created by Triumvir (who’s responsible for all of the band’s artwork) for the song “Kärrhäxan” from Wince and Frisson’s then-forthcoming debut album Tumult. What we’ve got for you today is a premiere stream of that album in its entirety in advance of its September 4 official release..

Wince and Frisson introduce the album with these words:

Tumult – a virulent cocktail of extreme metal genres. Seven tracks, all blackened and swathed in dissonance. It gets to the point immediately and offers no rest to the listener until its conclusion. All the while, guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Triumvir Kaleido maniacally spews warped interpretations of his experiences with religious and psychological abuse, and struggles with mental health.

But of course we have our introduction to what you’re about to hear. Continue reading »

GOROD: “THE EMBER GONE”

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Sep 022026

(We present a review by Professor D. Grover the XIIIth of a new album the French metal band Gorod which was released last Friday.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. As you may have picked up on in recent years, I’m a big fan of modern technical death metal (not that I mind the classic old-school stylings of Death, Cynic, Pestilence, and Atheist). In recent times over on Bluesky I ranked my top twenty modern tech-death albums (read: post-Necrophagist), one album per artist, and my number one with a number belonged to Gorod’s Process Of A New Decline. It was probably the album that truly made me love tech-death and it’s an incredibly influential album for me even to this day. I’ve loved everything Gorod have released, both before and since, but there’s been a definite evolution in their style over the years, a creeping prog influence that has culminated in The Ember Gone. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Sep 022026

(Andy Synn caps off another busy month here at NCS with four more albums you may have overlooked)

Like I said last week, for the most part we prefer to focus our attention on bands who we think deserve more exposure or who simply aren’t as big as we think they should be, rather than expending our time and energy on artists who have been thoroughly covered elsewhere.

For example, I’m probably not going to be crafting a full Mastodon review this time (it’s a good album… occasionally a very good album, but occasionally held back by a few dud moments and an excessive length) or writing about the new Sigh (which, so far at least, I’m really not a fan of), as both those bands have already received more than enough coverage, so a few extra words from us – positive or negative – is unlikely to have much of an impact.

The four artists I’ve chosen to feature today, however, have never been written about here at NoCleanSinging before, which should make for some fun discoveries for all of us.

AN NCS PREMIERE: BESOTTEN — “CRUENTATION”

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Sep 012026

(written by Islander)

Let’s cut to the chase: The track you’re about to hear from the U.S. death/doom band Besotten is an absolute horror-show of a song, and one that turns out to be insidiously infectious — a brand of death metal that’s simultaneously as foul and festering as the corruption of unburied corpses, as feverishly devouring as swarms of enormous maggots, as soul-draining as incurable cancer, and as bone-smashing as a phalanx of battering rams.

It’s disgusting, ghoulish, and nerve-firing in its hostility, but we predict it will also really gets its blood-stained hooks stuck deep into listeners from a first run-through, and thus leave you besotted (couldn’t resist that). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LIFESWALLOWER — “DEFY MY WORLD”

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Sep 012026

(written by Islander)

The UK band Lifeswallower brings together four experienced musicians with disparate musical backgrounds who combine a wide ranges of influence from rock and metal. Today they are releasing their self-titled debut EP via the Prog On! Recordings label in Manchester, covering (in their words) “the blastbeat intensity of death metal, to the pacey riffage of thrash metal, whilst leaning into the mathematical complexity of prog with a side-serving of their own unique take on things”.

As a further preview of what the music brings, Lifeswallower recommend the EP for fans of Gojira, Morbid Angel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Sikth, and Tool.

To help spread the word about this release, we’re now premiering a sinister and intriguingly immersive video for a song from the EP called “Defy My World“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CARDINALS FOLLY

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Sep 012026

photo by Tomi Mäenpää

(On October 9th Cruz Del Sur Music will release Let the Posers Fall!, a new album by the Finnish doom band Cardinals Folly. This provided an occasion for our Comrade Aleks to re-connect with the band for an extensive new interview with Mikko Kääriainen that we present below.)

A band like Cardinals Folly can afford to title their albums in such a brazenly provocative manner… Such Power Is Dangerous! Our Cult Continues! This Is No Church! And this time Let the Posers Fall!. This is the Finnish doom masters’ seventh full-length release in nearly twenty years, and the band, led by vocalist and bassist Mikko Kääriainen, excels not only in the studio but also on tour. Mikko, albeit with a varied lineup, has not only conquered Europe but also made it to the US, which, given the lack of major label support, is an achievement in itself.

Incidentally, thanks to touring, the Cardinals Folly lineup almost broke up, and Mikko recorded new material with Joni Takkunen, who drummed in the band for 12 years, and Tuomo “Space Doom” Kosonen, guitarist of Pohjoinen. Considering Mikko’s stubbornness and obsession with his creation, I’m not surprised that these changes haven’t affected the new album’s quality. Let The Posers Fall! is a blast, and there’s some truth to the pathos of the joke in the title.

Cardinals Folly are still as good at everything related to jaunty trad-doom and solid heavy metal, and their songs seem to have even more of the latter. Here’s our traditional interview with Mikko, and it’s traditionally good. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NONTINUUM — “AS I LEAVE THIS BODY”

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Aug 312026

(written by Islander)

Today we help pave the way for the return of the Australian black metal band Nontinuum after an extended absence, and so a bit of background may be useful.

They were originally founded in 2010 as a bedroom recording project rooted in atmospheric and depressive black metal, and their debut demo Dwelling In Oceans was released shortly afterward through Misanthropic Art Productions.

Two years later they made their live debut as a full band at Devil’s Arcana Festival and released their first full-length album, The Stars You Gathered, The Stars I Destroyed — and then Nontinuum seemed to disappeared.

More than a decade later, the original line-up reunited for a performance at Essence Festival in 2025 and are now working on the follow-up to The Stars You Gathered, The Stars I Destroyed.

The first sign of their new work is the song we’re premiering today in advance of its September 3 digital release — “As I Leave This Body“. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 198): MINDWORK

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Aug 312026

Recommended for fans of: Sadist, Cynic, Obscura

Sometimes it’s a real struggle to decide what band to focus on for the next edition of “The Synn Report”… and sometimes, like this one, it’s an easy choice.

One thing that made it pretty easy was that so far this year we’ve had editions focussing on scorching Screamo (Ostraca), brooding Doom (Todomal), pounding Post-Metal (Erdve), riff-tastic Death/Crust (Black Breath), and a host of other genres to boot, but not really much that touches on the “thrashy” side of things… so this felt like a prime opportunity to tick that particular box.

Of course, the fact that Czechia’s Mindwork are such excellent purveyors of prodigiously proggy thrashery – one whose heaviest moments ably blur the lines between Thrash and Death Metal, while their willingness to indulge their proggiest proclivities often push their sound into more free-form, jazz-fusion inspired places – also made it a pretty simple decision, especially since their new album (their first since 2012) is such a killer comeback.

FEN: “ELEMENTAL (PART 1: MOURNING EARTH)”

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Aug 312026

(We begin a new week at NCS with Daniel Barkasi’s review of a new album by the UK black metal band Fen, recently released by Prophecy Productions.)

The UK black metal scene is one of vibrance and diversity in approach. Of the long-standing members of that geographical scene, Fen stands alongside Saor and Winterfylleth as the most eclectic of the bunch, with today’s subject being a prolific example of never making the same album twice, choosing to continuously take risks over familiar stylistic comfort.

Since releasing their astounding and ever-relevant debut The Malediction Fields back in 2009 to throw the black metal hordes on their proverbial heads, it’s been a harrowing journey since, with a wide array of sonic shifts and creative swerves. That album will always be a special one for yours truly, and having witnessed it played in full at Fortress Festival remains a core memory.

Masterworks such as the seminal Dustwalker and the bitingly dynamic The Dead Light are also foundational works in the history of atmospheric black metal, pushing boundaries while bludgeoning with an endless cavalcade of riffs.

Others didn’t land quite as close to those established heights, though all have their place in Fen‘s story. With the benefit of hindsight, each at minimum contain massive standout moments; Carrion Skies took the impossible task of quickly following Dustwalker and is altogether a great record, but not quite reaching the legendary status of its predecessor, where the experimental, proggy Winter has over time been a release that we’ve grown to appreciate more and more. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KOSTNICA, LAUGH TRACK, OAKENTHRONE, I HELVETE, THERMIDOR, HALO OF TEETH

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 4 Responses »

Aug 302026

(written by Islander)

As I did yesterday morning, I began today by again bleakly staring at my enormous list of links for new music. I could hear the list chortling at me. “You fool,” it muttered in between cackles, “you won’t even scratch the surface.” The truth of that mockery made it no less degrading. (Let’s put aside any concerns about hearing voices from a typed list.)

On days like this I often resort to time-savers, one of which is to prioritize recommendations from people I trust, a kind of life-line to a beleaguered soul.

(The Associated Press reports that on this day in 1916 explorer Ernest Shackelton successfully returned to Elephant Island in Antarctica to rescue 22 of his stranded crew members, who had survived on the barren island for four and a half months after the sinking of their ship, the Endurance. I feel this is not a coincidence.)

The recommendations proved to be worthy. Beyond those I resorted to impulse, and fortune smiled upon my scattershot urges. Here are the resulting choices I made for today; if you think of yourself as a trve cvlt listener, be forewarned that many of them challenge black metal orthodoxy in varying (and very interesting) ways: Continue reading »

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