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 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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOMBSTALKER — “IRON WITHIN IRON WITHOUT”

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Aug 282026
 

(written by Islander)

We have some history with the Kentucky band Tombstalker, starting with an article back in 2012 about metal in Kentucky (here), following that the next year (here) with a review of their self-titled EP, then including some commentary in 2015 about their fine and ferocious debut album Black Crusades, and then gleefully helping spread the word here in 2017 about a new Tombstalker EP named Chaotic Devotion.

Today we renew our support of Tombstalker’s music with the premiere of a song from their forthcoming second album, the aptly titled Chaos Monolith, which will be released in various formats on September 25th by Awakening Records, Adirondack Black Mass Records, and Bat Magick Records. The song you’re about to hear is “Iron Within Iron Without“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARD LESSONS — “GANGRENE”

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Aug 282026
 

(written by Islander)

On September 5th KingSide Records will release a new EP by the Danish metallic hardcore band Hard Lessons. It’s a six-track attack named Influx of Betrayal. One song from the EP (“Insufferable“) has already launched, and today Hard Lessons are releasing a second one, and we’re premiering a video for it just now.

The name of this new song, which features a guest appearance by No Grave, is “Gangrene“. In some ways it’s a sonic manifestation of infection, but it’s also a raging remedy for the rot. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SKUMSTRIKE — “MASTERY OF SIN”

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Aug 272026
 

(written by Islander)

When you name your metal band Skumstrike you’re not trying to hide the ball. You’re sending a very clear signal that the music will make no pretenses to artistic refinement, thought-provoking intellect, or avant-garde experimentation. Instead, it brandishes the idea of leaping from the gutter, unclean to the bone, and attacking with no holds barred. But what kind of musical attack do they launch?

This Montreal trio gave us a ferocious idea of their attack with a 2022 debut album named Deadly Intrusions (well-named, that one), and now they’re reinforcing those deadly impressions with a second album titled Flawless Intrigue from Hell, which will be released by their new label Dying Victims Productions on September 25th.

As vividly described in the PR materials, the new music “combines a lethal dose of speed metal with the gunpowder roar of thrash and death metal,” “cross-contaminating the wild fury of Japan’s Sabbat with the abandon of early Slayer and Bathory“.

Those aren’t empty words, as you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere of the album’s second single, “Mastery of Sin“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PYRE OF DESCENT — “LOVE’S SOMBRE DEATH”

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Aug 272026
 

(written by Islander)

In early 2020 we hosted the premiere of a thought-provoking debut EP by the Berlin-based band Pyre of Descent. Later that same year they released another EP (Love’s Sombre Death), and now they have a debut album named Albedo that’s headed for release by two labels and the band this coming September.

The new album is described by one of those labels as “a mature form of occult/dark rock with some post-punk and gothic sensibilities, somewhere at the intersection of Fields of the Nephilim, The Devil’s Blood, and Aluk Todolo.” Based on that description alone, you can guess that it’s a fork in the road leading away from many of our usual beaten paths here, though not entirely divergent (as you will see).

One song from the album has been revealed already, and today we premiere a second one, “Love’s Sombre Death (Canto II)“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SRPNTS — “INTER LIMINA”

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Aug 262026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we help introduce listeners to the German black metal band SRPNTS, a band formed from the ashes of the group Zwielicht after their bassist Veit Benning died in 2024. Their debut album Second Shape is now set for release by Serpent Sun Records (UK) on October 2nd of this year.

The album’s name manifests its occult inspirations and objectives, a work shaped by nihilism, Gnostic opposition, and the alchemical principle of solve et coagula. We’ll share some of what we’ve received regarding the intent behind the music:

The title Second Shape refers to transformation after dissolution. The state that remains after the first form has been stripped, burned and sacrificed. The album is not meant as a narrative of salvation but as a passage through loss, negation and occult illvmination, where the old self is not healed or restored but abandoned and reformed into something colder, clearer and self-willed.

Its imagery revolves around thresholds, false cosmic order, fire as revelation, the Serpent as initiator and the final act of coagulation. The outline of a new form rising from the Void.

To help further introduce SRPNTS and their music, today we’re presenting a song from Second Shape named “Inter Limina“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATH. VOID. TERROR – “V. (– —) DAPHNYR”

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Aug 252026
 

(written by Islander)

Less that two weeks ago the Swiss experimental extremists Death. Void. Terror returned after a five-year silence with their release through Sentient Ruin Laboratories of an EP named To The Great Monolith 2.5. The EP’s name signifies a progression from their 2018 debut album To The Great Monolith and their 2020 full-length To The Great Monolith II, but it was a progression in more than name.

That EP revealed a metamorphosis in sound from the band’s first two albums. As Cvlt Nation wrote when premiering the EP:

The cavernous, abyssal black/death deluges from their past releases surprisingly gives way to ritualistic, folk-tinged dirges of solemn tribal black metal with striations of occult rock and psychedelia. The guitars remain heavy and hypnotic but appear cleared of their debris, shimmering and resonating into the continuum with vibrant fervor as they trace the lineaments of a mystical liturgy accompanied by keys, synths, bone instruments, tribal percussion, and mantric chants. Urfaust comes to mind as the hypnotic, experimental dirge unfolds its contemplative wings, while the guitars’ solemnity and weight reverberate with the stern echoes of Bölzer or The Ruins of Beverast.

As it turns out, the EP functions as only the first stage of the band’s return, and the second stage is another album slated for release by Sentient Ruin on September 25th. Its title is To the Great Monolith III: Rifts, and today we’re premiering its fifth track, “V. (– —) Daphnyr“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACRELIGIOUS — “VILE”

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Aug 252026
 

(written by Islander)

Given the current state of the world and “the music business” in particular, it frequently astounds us that young people continue starting up new bands and pouring their energies into creating songs and playing shows. Didn’t anyone tell them the odds of survival are near hopeless?

Well, no one told the Gothenburg death metal band Sacreligious, or they ignored such miserable advice — and death metal addicts who partake of their debut album Brutality Incarnated will be happy they did. We are certainly very happy to premiere the album’s diabolically exhilarating first single “Vile“. Continue reading »

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