AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHGRAVE — “HELL IS EVIL”

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Aug 132026
 

(written by Islander)

By this point the Bay Area grindcore miscreants Deathgrave probably need no introduction to the kind of miscreant listeners who visit our site, but there’s also a chance someone just awoke from a long coma or just recovered from a debilitating mental disease, so we’ll make a quick one.

Originally formed in 2013, Deathgrave brings together the talents of guitarist Greg Wilkinson (Autopsy, Brainoil), bassist Fern Alberts (Amber Asylum), vocalist Andre Cornejo, and drummer Clint Zane (Owl). Even from their earliest releases, they were prone to stewing together differing genre ingredients from punk and metal, but the stew has become more rich over time. Their new album Hell Is Evil is the richest yet.

We’ve already published a review of the album (here), which concludes with this paragraph:

This is the sound of what happens when grindcore grows up. Fans of the more feral punk-tinged offshoots of death metal would be advised to give this album a listen. Overall, it proves it does not matter how heavy or intense your sound is; there is always time to slow down and create memorable songs, without having to sacrifice the confrontational elements of your sound. This is the primary reason why this is one of the best albums on the more extreme side of things so far this year.

And today we have the pleasure of premiering the new album’s title song in advance of the record’s release by Tankcrimes on August 21st. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: EXTINCTION OF MANKIND / HAAST / THE SALT PALE COLLECTIVE

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Aug 132026
 

(Andy Synn tries to beat the heat with three more home-grown recommendations)

It’s another hot one here in the UK right now, and people are definitely looking for something to take their minds off the oppressive heat.

And in the absence of any particularly icy Black Metal to cool us down, I thought I’d instead focus on a trio of recent releases (“recent” being a relative term) all capable of capturing your attention and distracting you from the oppressive weight of the weather, in three distinctly different ways.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE BLACK THUNDER — “VERIFICATION OF WOUNDS”

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Aug 122026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we have the pleasure of helping announce that in October Pagan Records will release a new album named Time Obliteration by The Black Thunder from Poland, and to help build anticipation for that event we’re also premiering a video for the album’s first single, the genre-bending “Verification of Wounds“.

If you are already familiar with The Black Thunder via their previous releases, including their two previous albums, you may be in for a surprise, because the band have shifted their sound, moving on from the stoner and groove-based sounds of those records into darker tones that feature a mixture of black metal elements, sludge elements, technical elements, and crust-punk elements.

Moreover, The Black Thunder recorded Time Obliteration in a live studio recording. Pagan Records further explains that, lyrically, the album “focuses on themes of existential anxiety, internal conflict, and distorted perception”.

Here is how bassist, vocalist, and founder Marcin Szczepański explains some of the changes in the context of the new song you’re about to hear: Continue reading »

APOGEAN: “WASTE WHERE LIFE BEGINS”

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Aug 122026
 

(Former NCS writer TheMadIsraeli returns after a long absence with the following review of a new album by the Toronto death metal band Apogean, which was released on July 10th by The Artisan Era.)

It sounds so fucking stupid to say, but a pretty good barometer of a good album especially if you’re on the AuDHD spectrum like I am is “does this album make me pay attention to it while grinding on Diablo 4?”. Diablo has oddly enough been a crucible through which many albums have been deemed good or bad in my mind; if something can catch my attention through the demands of playing the game especially at end-game sweat levels it means it stands out or it stands on its own.

Apogean’s now sophomore album Waste Where Life Begins is a great record, and one that oddly in my opinion takes quite a divergent path from their debut. Cyberstrictive was good, don’t get me wrong, a good but rather standard tech-death-metal/deathcore middle ground album. I liked it. My life was in turmoil at the time so it wasn’t exactly a priority list to write about in my life but it got a few spins.

Waste Where Life Begins has within the span of a week already gotten more spins out of me than Cyberstrictive ever did. Partially because those scant deathcore touches have been entirely abandoned, which to me, I’m sorry, is just always objectively good, and also due to a commitment toward an oddly more atmospheric, almost blackened death metal direction. The serpentine riffs are still there, but there’s a much greater emphasis on riffs and rhythmically impactful sections that are designed to seize your attention. Continue reading »

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS 2026: FOUR DAYS OF DUST, WIND, FRYBREAD, AND TRANSCENDENCE 

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 122026
 

(Below you will find NCS writer Gonzo’s extensive and beautifully evocative report and celebration of Fire In the Mountains 2026, which took place on July 23-26 on the sovereign lands of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana.)

Fire in the Mountains has never been the kind of festival you simply consume. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that it can be demanding—not in the hollow, transactional way so much of modern life has become, but in the more meaningful sense that it asks attendees to be present, considerate, and involved. The reward is a space built around something increasingly rare: community over convenience, inclusion over exclusivity, and shared experience over consumption.

This festival is, and always has been, a vast departure from the life we’ve been told we have to live. That’s why it remains as special as it is. The people hosting this gathering are cut from the same rebellious cloth, as they dare to take risks where it counts, doing things their way, but never losing sight of what they originally set out to accomplish years ago.

Like last year, all these thoughts were surging through my head at dawn as I hit the gas on I-25 from Denver. The same thoughts returned as I finished packing my Subaru to the brim with supplies. Our destination tonight was Great Falls, MT, and we’d complete the trek to Red Eagle Campground for Fire in the Mountains 2026 on Thursday morning.

All of this seemed so familiar, as though it had already happened in a parallel universe. Or maybe it was just the welcome sense of familiarity I felt, knowing that I’d be revisiting a very special and sacred land, reuniting with the incredible people I met last year, and watching even more astoundingly awesome music there over the next four days.

Continue reading »

ONLY DEATH IS REAL: GODAGAINST / IMPERATHRON / SEPULCRUM

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Aug 112026
 

(Andy Synn takes us on a trip to the Death Metal underground of Chile today)

It’s been suggested, perhaps not unfairly, that I’ve been neglecting the Death Metal side of things recently.

So to make up for this (while acknowledging that I’ve definitely covered stuff from Carbon Tomb, Altarage, and a bunch of other short form releases all in the last month or so) I decided that today would be the day we’d dive head-first into the Chilean Death Metal scene in all its nasty, blasty brilliance.

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AN NCS PREMIERE: CELOPHYS — “MAMMOTH MARCH”

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Aug 112026
 

(written by Islander)

At this site we try to range widely in our listening and in the music we choose to share, to range widely in both geography and in the stylistic character of what we recommend. We also intentionally spend more time delving into obscure quarters than names most metalheads already know.

But of course, we are only a small and huddled group of hobbyists (fanatical hobbyists)), and even after many years of foraging we still miss a great deal, though sometimes we eventually find what we missed.

And so today we have at last found the massively heavy Ukrainian sludge band Celophys, whose sixth album Neanderthal will be released by the Ukrainian label Robustfellow Prods. on August 21st. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FURIA

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Aug 112026
 


photo by Acidolka Photo

(We happily welcome back The Goat Tavern, a metal enthusiast based in the UK but with roots in Poland whose contributions to metal you can also find here and here. This time he has brought us an extensive, truly wide-ranging, and impressively articulate interview he conducted with Nihil, frontman of the groundbreaking and ever-evolving Polish band Furia.)

For nearly twenty-five years, Furia have stood apart – not only within Polish black metal, but within the genre as a whole. Restlessly evolving while remaining unmistakably themselves, they’ve built a body of work that defies easy categorization, drawing equally from black metal, theatre, Silesian identity, and a deeply personal search for meaning. I spoke to the frontman of the band, Nihil in search for answers to questions that many of us wanted to ask for a long time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VEILBURNER — “OF GODSLAVE AND BLOOD MORTAR”

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Aug 102026
 

(written by Islander)

We’ll keep our count going: This now marks the 15th time we’ve written about the music of the macabre Pennsylvania duo Veilburner over the last decade-plus, and the eighth time we’ve premiered some of that music. The explanation should be obvious by now:

Despite how prolific Veilburner have been, their mind-boggling adventures never get old, and it’s really not an exaggeration to say that no one else sounds like them. In the case of some performers, familiarity may indeed breed contempt; in the case of Veilburner, it breeds endless fascination (albeit sanity-threatening fascination).

They remain prolific — less than a year after Transcending Obscurity Records released their eighth album Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy, the same label is primed to release their ninth one, All that Glimmers is Gloam, on October 16th. As songwriters and performers, Veilburner also remain diabolically ingenious, as you shall discover through our premiere today of a song from the new album called “Of Godslave and Blood Mortar“. Continue reading »

PULL THE STRINGS – GRIEFBLOOM

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 102026
 

(Andy Synn kicks off another new week here at NCS with another new album you may have missed)

While it’s true that some bands spring from the proverbial womb fully formed, generally speaking mosts bands take a little bit of time to achieve their final form.

Influences both internal and external, issues of place and time, evolving line-ups and changing circumstances, all have an impact on a band’s development, and it’s difficult to predict exactly what confluence of factors will inspire a band to produce their best work.

And in the case of Pull the Strings, it was the shift from a pure solo project – masterminded by multi-instrumentalist Alan Brucke (also of Mind Prisoner) – to a collaborative duo (with the addition of the equally talented Gabriel Yadon) which has ultimately allowed them to achieve their full potential.

Continue reading »

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