SRPNTS: “SECOND SHAPE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 302026
 

(This is Daniel Barkasi’s review of a debut album by the German occult black metal band SRPNTS, which will be released on October 2nd by Serpent Sun Records.)

Discovery is at the heart of what makes our music-craving juices flow, for this scribe anyway. There’s always the insufferable “nothing good came out since 1991” curmudgeons, but to the truly initiated, the current day is quite an exciting, and sometimes overwhelming, time to be in the thick of the near constant barrage of quality music that comes our way most weeks. While plenty of the best musical moments do come from acts that we’re already familiar with, sometimes that thrill comes from a completely fresh entity that couldn’t have been predicted.

With that in mind, enter SRPNTS. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: JÖJJÖN — “MUTABILITY”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 302026
 

(written by Islander)

Obviously, we host a lot of premieres here — we’ve done so almost every weekday for many years. The point, of course, is to introduce people to new music they haven’t heard before that we’re inspired to support. But our tradition of premieres holds the same benefit for us — it introduces us to music we haven’t heard before, and even more than that, to bands we haven’t previously discovered.

In the case of this premiere, it has introduced us to the intriguing Hungarian black metal band jöjjön (the solo work of Zsolt Sipeki). Jöjjön has already released two albums, Faust’s Grave in 2022 and Stoic Neurotic in 2024, but those eluded our attention. And now jöjjön has readied a third album, Szelet Vet, which will be released via Bandcamp on November 6th.

This new one we have discovered in a timely fashion, thanks to the invitation to premiere a song from Szelet Vet named “Mutability“. It is an entirely captivating piece of music, and the album’s thematic conception and lyrical composition is equally eloquent and enthralling, as you’re about to discover. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NYRAK — “THE SATURNALIA PROPHECY”

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Sep 302026
 

(written by Islander)

The Belgian progressive black metal band Nyrak has enjoyed what we can fairly call a meteoroic ascent. It did not exist until late 2021, when it was founded by Guy “Nevel” Van Nieuwenhove as a solo studio project, but in relatively short order Nyrak released their debut album Malvs in 2022, expanded into a full band and released their second album Devourer Of All in 2024, and in 2025 released both the Faceless Tyrant EP and a third album, Phoenix Mortis. Moreover, Nyrak toured the UK and Europe in support of that most recent album.

And yet Nyrak’s meteor continues soaring, apparently unhindered by gravity wells, because on November 26th of this year Void Wanderer Productions will release yet another Nyrak album, a new one named Empires of Ash. We were fortunate to host the premiere of a song from Phoenix Mortis last year, and we get the chance to do the same for Empires of Ash as we now present the new album’s opening song, “The Saturnalia Prophecy“, in cooperation with Black Metal Streams. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 199): HIPPOTRAKTOR

 THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Sep 302026
 

Recommended for fans of: Hacride, The Ocean, Benea Reach

As the person who’s largely been responsible for featuring Hippotraktor here in the past, it only made sense for me to be the one to write about their upcoming third album, Annihilist, which comes out this Friday.

And when I realised that this might well be the first time some listeners are encountering the band (the fact that they’ve been announced for this year’s Damnation Festival here in the UK has certainly helped increase their exposure too) it only made sense to pull together what I’d previously written, give it a bit of a tweak and polish, and then add some (hopefully) useful thoughts and insights about the new album, and call it this month’s edition of The Synn Report.

So if you like your music proggy-yet-punchy, complex-yet-catchy, heavily down-tuned but hauntingly melodic, then you should probably get to reading (and listening) all about these bombastic Belgians.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PAARA — “KYLMÄÄN KYLÄÄN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 292026
 

(written by Islander)

We have a very unusual song for you in this premiere, one that will carry listeners through a variety of sensations and musical traditions (some much older than others), and one whose head-spinning and heart-pounding experiences are vitally connected to the band’s inspirations and ambitions for the album that includes it.

That album, Laulut tulen ja jään, is the third full-length from the Finnish band Paara, and it will be released by the Dusktone label on October 30th. Once again, it reflects Paara’s sense of place and of history, vitally connected to the brutal yet beautiful landscapes of the cold North they call home and the dark myths spawned there, but the album has other meanings as well, as Paara explain:

Laulut tulen ja jään is an allegory for death, depression and loss. In simplicity it’s a hero’s journey – war breaks, our hero needs to end the suffering and heads out to face death in the underworld. The album paints a dark picture of this mythic North with gods of old. You could also say that the album is esoteric, because it’s filled with hidden meanings, mythology and folktales. So, it’s more complex than what it first seems. It beckons for the listener to come back and dig deeper.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a Finnish-language lyric video for a song from the new album nbamed “Kylmään kylään“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: URNA — “DREAM DEATH, TOWARDS REBIRTH”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 292026
 

(written by Islander)

On October 16th ATMF will release a new album named The Great Jihad by the Italian esoteric extreme metal band Urna. It is Urna’s fifth album since the band’s inception in 2003 but their first one since ATMF released Mors Principium Est thirteen years ago. Obviously, Urna’s creation of the new album has been quite a journey, especially since early demos for songs on the new album were already taking shape in the early period after the last album’s release. We’re further told that the album was recoded through multiple sessions between 2014 and 2025, across Italy and the United Kingdom.

Urna’s lineup for The Great Jihad is a new one. In addition to founders RM and MZ it includes Sibilans (Anamnesi, Simulacro) on drums and T (Sangue Nero) on bass. It is also the first Urna album with lyrics entirely in English (with the exception of their 2003 debut Justa Funebria, originally performed in Italian, the band’s releases have traditionally employed Latin).

The album also has an unusual and deeply thought-out conceptual perspective, one summarized as follows:

In esoteric and mystical Islamic traditions (such as Sufism), the phrase “The Greater Jihad” (Jihad al-Nafs) refers strictly to the internal spiritual battle—the struggle against one’s own base desires, ego, and illusions to purify the heart and align with the divine. The entire record has been framed around this concept, defining RM’s continuous internal spiritual journey through Hermetic philosophy, Kabbalah, Buddism, and more.

The music has also evolved, and we have a striking example of that evolution in the album track we’re premiering today, “Dream Death, Towards Rebirth“. Continue reading »

SPIRIT POSSESSION – CATHEDRAL SPEECH

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 292026
 

(Andy Synn prepares to worship at the altar of Spirit Possession, whose new album is out on Friday)

Allow me to begin this review with a semi-spoiler, if I may?

Because, if nothing changes between now and December, there’s a very high likelihood that Spirit Possession‘s third album will be taking one of the highly-coveted slots in this year’s “Critical Top Ten”.

But, then, something like that has been on the cards for the Portland-based pairing of Steve Peacock (vocals/guitar) and Ash Spungin (drums) ever since their self-titled 2020 debut, with the subsequent release of 2023’s stunning Of the Sign… only serving to expose even more people to the band’s riveting and instantly recognisable blend of frenzied, finger-picked riffage and equally frenetic, effortlessly fluid, drum work.

And now, with the imminent release of Cathedral Speech, it feels as though the dynamic duo are, finally, right on the verge of being accepted as true masters of the black arts.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASGRAUW — “CONFABULATIE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 282026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we are most happy to renew your acquaintance with the Dutch black metal band Asgrauw, a member of the Zwotte Kring circle whose music we’ve enthusiastically covered since the fall of 2017. Although their recording history precedes our discovery of them back then, we’ve been playing close attention ever since.

Following relatively soon on the heels of their sixth album Oorsprong, which was discharged in 2024, Asgrauw have a new album for us this year. Its name is Solips, and it will be released by a collective of labels on different formats (we have details at the end of this feature).

The music of Asgrauw has always been lyrically thought-provoking, and their changing lyrical interests haven’t been predictable. One of their labels sums up the subject matter of the new album this way:

Seven albums in, and Asgrauw still doesn’t give a damn about your expectations. Solips is a reckoning, a brutal, unflinching dive into the abyss of perception. You want answers? You’ll get questions. You want comfort? You’ll get the cold, unyielding truth: reality is yours alone to define…. Doubt everything. Question everything. Solips is here.

As an example of what Solips delivers, today we’re premiering a video for a song called “Confabulatie“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARMORY — “PILLARS OF FIRE”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 282026
 

(written by Islander)

“Can you take some clean singing with some sci-fi shred?” That’s the quick pitch I received for this premiere from the publicist for Dying Victims Productions. Prudence would have dictated that I listen before responding, but Dying Victims hasn’t steered me wrong, even if the steering (stylistically speaking) is kind of like what’s required for Formula 1 drivers racing through metropolises, so I immediately said yes, with fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be a mistake.

The reference to “sci-fi shred” was appealing, and so was the branding of Armory’s new album Echoes of the Astrolith as a “speed metal U.F.O.”. But while the name of our site is a bit tongue-in-cheek, not all the tongue is in the cheek. At least in the case of this writer, it’s more serious than joking. So, what had I gotten myself into? What are you about to get yourself into? Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Sep 272026
 

(written by Islander)

As you can see, I have the music of only one band for you today, and only one of their songs rather than a complete release. This is because I have to leave my home and the virtual world (two different places, it may surprise you to know) very early today and didn’t have time to make a head-start yesterday.

I’m again venturing across Puget Sound to join friends for the viewing of a football game featuring our beloved home team. Due to time zone differences the game has an early start, which means I’ll have to decide what kind of alcohol would go best with breakfast, to calm the nerves, which will get jangly even though our team is heavily favored to win the game.

I thought about not posting even this very brief piece, but concluded that I had (barely) enough time for what you’re now about to hear (and perhaps read). The thought of leaving a void for even one day around here bothers me, as does the void that the future will leave as its final gift. Continue reading »

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