MORTUARY: “GREAT BLACK EARTH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 202026
 

(This is a guest review of a new EP by the veteran Mexican band Mortuary (released last month by HPGD Productions) written by Jason Kiss, also known as Lonegoat from Goatcraft and Lord Abyss from Amorphophallus Titanum.)

As I have grown older, my patience for speed metal has waned substantially. Nevertheless, I continue to hold an affinity for proto-death metal expressions in which speed metal is driven beyond the confines of its own limited logic and, through excess, transforms into something altogether more menacing and expansive.

One might argue that Morbid Angel on Abominations of Desolation, alongside Necrovore’s Divus de Mortuus and Possessed’s Seven Churches, were among the first to exemplify this rupture; they produced the conditions for death metal to emerge as its own original coterie unshackled to its speed metal roots. What compels me not is speed metal in itself, but rather this fractured threshold where the spirit of extremity in metal is nourished and an Aristotelian potentiality is actualized; where speed metal dies so that something more sinister can take its place.

Continue reading »

FADING AEON: “FADING AEON”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 202026
 

(DGR prepared the following extensive review of the third album, self-titled, by the German epic melodic death metal band Fading Aeon, which was released in March of this year.)

It seems if nothing else, 2026 is going to be the summoner of old ghosts for yours truly as we find ourselves once again cycling back to review a band that we started covering over seven years ago. Now, if you’ll please ignore the part that we’re coming up on the site being nearly-seventeen as well, a few of us are going to stand up and listen to our knees pop louder than the thunder and lightning shows that’ve been happening outside our windows recently. Is it any wonder we seem to attract groups that’ve taken long hiatuses between albums for new premieres?

Germany’s Fading Aeon are one of a fleet of three-piece melodeath groups that’ve appeared in the past decade – apparently they have little time for the bullshit of your standard four-to-five piece lineup – although they occupy a different musical sandbox than most, favoring epic tales of battle and heroism instead, with the song lengths to match. It hasn’t been uncommon for the Fading Aeon crew to release an album consisting of five songs and yet still have a run time sailing well over forty-minutes in range.

The group’s newest self-titled album, which saw release in mid-March, is no different in that regard. As the band have matured, so too has their songwriting ability, and while they started out incredibly ambitious, what has made Fading Aeon something to watch is how they’ve grown into the role that they sought out to start with. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KUR•NU•GI•A — “CARMINA INFERORUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
May 192026
 

(written by Islander)

Prepare to jump off your usual beaten tracks, indeed off the tracks of the world altogether, as we present Carmina Inferorum — Latin for “Songs of he Underworld”. This is the debut album of the mysterious Polish avant-black-death-metal band KUR•NU•GI•A (not to be confused with the Ohio death metal band Kurnugia or the Finnish black metal band Kurnugia). It will be released by Godz Ov War Productions on May 22nd.

Curious about the band’s rendering of the name and what it refers to, I found a source (here) that includes this description:

Kurnugi, also called Kur-nu-gi-a, was the Sumerian underworld. It was dark, vast, and final. It lay beneath the earth, beyond the Mountains of Sunset. Souls descended here after death, stripped of light and joy. The dead ate dust, drank from mud, and lived in shadows…. Kurnugi was not punishment; it was fate.

Those words increased my curiosity about the music before hearing a single note, as did a Lovecraftian chant that appeared in the announcement of the album by Godz Ov War on social media (a chant that’s interpreted to mean “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”):

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn…

But the album’s cover image and KUR•NU•GI•A’s band photos made me even more curious. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARBON TOMB — “REVERSED HEAD RENEWAL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 192026
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday we premiered a song from Dysgnostic’s new album End Whispers (you should go listen to it if you haven’t), and today we’re premiering a song from the debut album of Carbon Tomb. It’s fitting that they follow back-to-back, because Carbon Tomb was started by Dysgnostic member Richardt Olsen, who’s the guitarist and screamer within this newer band.

Like Dysgnostic, Carbon Tomb play a form of dissonant death metal, but don’t leap to the conclusion that the two bands are twins. Truly, they are not — they’re more like cousins — though both are very good at what they set their minds to do.

We have an example of Carbon Tomb’s own distinctive songwriting prowess through our premiere of a song intriguingly named “Reversed Head Renewal” from their first full-length, also intriguingly named — Passage to a Neutron Star — in advance of the record’s release by Transcending Obscurity Records on July 17th. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: RELIQUIA / SILO / TYRANNUS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 192026
 

(Andy Synn returns to his homeland, in spirit at least, for another edition of the Best of British)

I’m still over in the good ol’ US of A at the moment, gearing up for this year’s edition of Maryland Deathfest, and while I’ve loved my time here – as always – I’ll admit that I’ve been feeling the occasional pang of homesickness every now and then.

So to help quell my longing for the green and pleasant lands of my birth I thought I’d put together another carefully-curated collection of British bands, from a variety of styles and sub-genres, to remind us all of what’s waiting for me when I get home.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PSICORRAGIA — “SOMBRAS LUMINOSAS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 182026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to share with you is a beautifully illustrated lyric video for a truly remarkable song, one that invites listeners to enter the valley of the dead and to commune with the frightening and yet seductive spirits who dwell there, to experience their gloom and sorrow, as well as their frantic confusion and their bursts of fiendish exhilaration.

The name of the song is “Sombras luminosas” (Luminous shadows), and it’s from Nekromanthra, the third album by the long-running Peruvian death/doom cult Psicorragia, now set for co-release on June 23rd by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Thrashirts (Peru). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DYSGNOSTIC — “THE LAST REFRAIN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 182026
 

(written by Islander)

In 2022 the Danish brutal death metal band Defilementory announced a change of name to Dysgnostic and revealed a dramatic change of musical identity through the release of their first album as Dysgnostic — Scar Echoes. It was presented by Transcending Obscurity Records under the banner of magnificently chilling cover art by Dawid Figielek. As we described at the time, the performances on Scar Echoes “are technically impressive, their dissonant compositions are intricate and twisted, and their music is capable of creating atmospheres of mental and emotional ruin that are both electrifying and profoundly disturbing, and only barely tethered to the ‘real world’.

And now Dysgnostic return with their second album, End Whispers, also to be released by Transcending Obscurity (on July 10th). As you can see, this one also features stunning cover art, this time a frightening and unearthly creation by Belial NecroArts, and we are again privileged to premiere some of Dysgnostic’s new music, a song from the album called “The Last Refrain“.

Here is how T.O. introduces the album as a whole: Continue reading »

LORN: “SEARING BLOOD”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 182026
 

(We begin a new week at NCS with our Norway-based contributor Chile and his compelling review of the first new album in more than 9 years from the Italian black metal band Lorn.)

Italy has been a hotspot for quality extreme metal for years now it seems, and it is still moving on an upward path. It is hard then to imagine a time when the scene was much smaller and only a handful of bands strived to make a mark for themselves.

Maybe somewhat overshadowed by the likes of Mortuary Drape, Bulldozer or Death SS, many other bands were holding their own in those early times and are still a worthy listen. All of this helped the new and upcoming bands in the years to come, and by the time the late ’90s came around is when things began to develop in different directions.

Out of that time immemorial comes Lorn. Starting their musical voyage around the turn of the century, they came into their own by releasing their debut in 2006. With their activities seemingly going up and down over the years, like the road to the mighty Dolomites out of their native city of Bolzano, the band maintained a string of quality releases culminating in the phenomenal Arrayed Claws from 2017.

Now, even if the name of that album doesn’t ring an immediate bell, the absolutely outstanding cover should. The intermingled, leering forms of teeth-baring wolves (or something like such animals) adorned in a shade of deep purple, captured perfectly the essence of one of the best metal albums to come out of the Italian scene. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DAUÞUZ, VYR MUK, GOD SHELL, EMBER VALE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 172026
 

(written by Islander)

I’m getting a very late start this morning. I wrote an explanation and then deleted it because my late start is the result of a level of stupidity that’s kind of embarrassing even for me. Better to just dive in.

What you’ll find below is a truncated version of what I originally planned. The collection begins with a single and then continues with three EPs, the last of which is a rehearsal demo that’s the band’s first release. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: EMPTINESS, IMPURE WILHELMINA, LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, MOON REAPER, VRYXOR, ESCAPING AGHARTHA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 162026
 

(written by Islander)

As you may remember, I spent last weekend working on (and enjoying the performances at) Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. It was a tremendous three-day event that formed many indelible memories, but it did mean that I had no time for the usual NCS weekend roundups. Because of that, I now find myself with twice the usual number of new songs and videos to consider for this roundup and for the SHADES OF BLACK collection for tomorrow.

I jumped around among many different possibilities, enjoying a lot of what I heard and saw and also (therefore) agonizing over what to choose. I also had to force myself to stop listening with dozens of tabs still open, or else this column would never be written.

But while the agony remains, I’m happy with these selections and hope you will be too. I’m beginning with three bands whose previous music was familiar to me and following with three that were brand new discoveries. Continue reading »

 Older Entries