AN NCS PREMIERE: CRIMSON CROWN — “BURN THE CHAINS WITH UNHOLY FIRE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 112025
 

(written by Islander)

We’ve had a few occasions in previous years to froth at the mouth about the extravagant music of the Russian black metal band Malist, on one occasion summing it up as “…blazing and boisterous… thrusting and thunderous… moody, melancholy, and mysterious at times, but mainly explosive and exhilarating (and highly addictive)…”

Now we learn that the Russian musician behind Malist, Nick Kholodov (Ovfrost), has a new project named Crimson Crown and a debut album for the project entitled Vae Victis that will be out next month. Like Malist, Crimson Crown is devoted to black metal, but there must be differences, mustn’t there? Else why create a new project? Well, let’s find out together as we listen to a song from Val Victis named “Burn the Chains With Unholy Fire“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANCESTOR OF KAOS — “ETERNAL NIGHT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The marauding black/thrashers Ancestor of Kaos have followed a long and winding road, a twisting and turning path that now leads to the April 18 release of their new album Animal Ritual by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions.

They began as a black metal band formed in Havana, Cuba in 2005 under the name Ancestor. Under that name they released a first demo, a split, and two albums. In 2013 the band moved to the U.S following an invitation to play at South by Southwest that same year. Initially they were based in Miami and were active on stage, opening for such bands as Deicide, Acheron, and Goatwhore, among others.

We’re told that from 2015 until 2020 the band went into a brief hiatus where they changed their name to Ancestor of Kaos. In 2022, after resuming activity, they released their Ancestor of Kaos album, which consisted of new versions of old songs, re-recorded in Las Vegas, Nevada. And then, in 2024 (with a renewed lineup) they began releasing singles that would lead to the discharge of this new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KA’APER — “EYES OF KA’APER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 102025
 

(written by Islander)

Today we encounter once again the term “dark metal“, which is how two labels are describing a debut album they’re releasing from the Cypriot band Ka’aper. It is one of the most amorphous genre descriptions you can find in the realms of metal, most often used (it seems) when none of the other more established and more descriptive labels fit very well, even the multiply-hyphenated ones.

What it means in the case of Ka’aper and their first full-length While Flows The Nile is a subject we’ll explore today through our premiere of a song from the album named “Eyes Of Ka’aper“. But first, a bit of background about what has motivated the band. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SONUM — “THE OBSCURE LIGHT AWAITS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Those of us who first came across the Italian death metal band Sonum through their 2021 EP Divide et Impera encountered a head-spinning array of wild musical adventures, a free-wheeling experimentation in which death metal was only one of many stylistic twists and turns. They followed that with their somewhat less genre-bending but still multi-faceted 2022 debut album Visceral Void Entropy, and now they’re returning again with their new full-length The Obscure Light Awaits, set for release on April 11th by the Dusktone label.

Since their last album, Sonum‘s lineup has dropped from five members to three, and by some measures their music has become more streamlined as well, certainly more carefully structured and cohesive.

But let us quickly banish any thought that Sonum have become “conventional”, in any sense of the word. This is an ingeniously elaborate and thoroughly dazzling album of progressive and atmospheric death metal (though its varying moods are quite dark), and heads that lean into it won’t stop spinning until it’s over — as you will learn for yourselves through our premiere today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FINAL DOSE — “UNDER THE ETERNAL SHADOW”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 082025
 

(written by Islander)

Like other genres of extreme metal, a good case can be made that black metal in its earliest stages evolved from punk rock. But black metal continued to evolve in ways that essentially left punk behind. Some bands did not completely cut the tie, but many did, and so the fundamental tropes of subversive “second wave” black metal as they took shape in the early ’90s, and which persist to this day, bear little resemblance to where things started.

Yet in more recent times, maybe most notably over the last decade I’d say, we’ve seen a new emergence of punk influence in black metal, not really a rolling back of the clock to the earliest days but a hybridization of punk, hardcore, or crust and second wave Scandinavian black metal.

Many bands have embraced that hybrid form, and Final Dose from the UK are one of them, and one of the best. But they have also evolved, bringing other stylistic ingredients into their mix besides those two main ones in order to better express the emotional torrents that fuel their work.

The results are vividly on display in their viscerally powerful new album Under The Eternal Shadow, which we’re premiering and reviewing today in advance of its release on April 11th by Wolves of Hades. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAMIARUS — “CRUSHED BY INFERIOR”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Samiarus took shape in the SF Bay Area among current and past members of Abnutivum, Meth Sores, Flesh Dungeon, Doomsday, Slaughteruin, Abstracter, and Mentor. The name they chose was intended as a reference to “the Arabic name of the leader of the Watchers in apocryphal abrahamic scriptures, a rebel angel who shared knowledge with men and birthed the Nephilim, becoming a danger to divine power and law and turning into the absolute usurper.”

First impressions of their black/death terrors arose from their Demonstration demo, released in January of this year, which included one original song, a cover of Absu‘s “Descent to Acheron”, and a recording of a live rehearsal. It brought to mind full-blown war zones, episodes of unhinged violence and splintering sanity, but infiltrated by ingredients not wholly dependent on antecedents like Blasphemy and Archgoat.

Now we have a Samiarus EP looming ahead of us, a 23-minute onslaught named Reign Destroyer that will be released by Sentient Ruin on April 25th. What we have for you today is the premiere of one of its 7 tracks, “Crushed By Inferior“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PYROMANCER — “VOLCANIC RAPTURE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 072025
 

(written by Islander)

The name Pyromancer rang bells around here when news of their forthcoming debut album broke, but they were distant bells, even though their resonance was ruinous. Looking back, we had a burst of posts in 2015 about Pyromancer‘s debut demo and then Kaptain Carbon‘s review of their performance at the spring 2016 Blood of the Wolf Fest in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.

Almost a decade has passed since then, an almost incomprehensible amount of time given the rushing pace of changes in almost every aspect of life over those years. Pyromancer did finally re-surface last year with a pair of songs on a split with Detroit’s Perversion released by Godz Ov War, and now comes the debut album, aptly named Absolute Dominion By Fire, set for release next month by Adirondack Black Mass.

The same two terrorizing dominators are still in charge — Master of Graveyard Torment (drums, vocals) and Conqueror Horus (guitars, vocals) — and as you’ll learn from the album track we’re premiering today, they haven’t backed off or backed down from igniting black/death conflagrations – bizarre black/death conflagrations. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERHEERER — “URGEWALT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 032025
 

(written by Islander)

The title of Verheerer‘s new album (their third) is Urgewalt. Like many German words, it probably doesn’t have a precise English translation, but based on our own searches it could be rendered as “elemental force” — “a sense of raw, untamed, and powerful force, often associated with nature or something fundamental.”

In the context of the album, that force is the absolute will of humanity to destroy, to the point of self-destruction. The album’s even more specific context is the horror of World War I, as described in this press preview of the record (which will be released on April 4th by Vendetta Records):

The new album was composed and written with this basic idea in mind and with the First World War, which revealed a new level of cruelty and dehumanization and at the same time shaped our world like no other conflict to this day, the canvas was also found on which Verheerer paint their very own pictures. Of the loss of humanity in an industrial machine of destruction, of seduction and the mechanisms of power that make the incomprehensible possible in the first place.

And thus the album’s cover art (by Misanthropic-Art) is a fitting one — the remains of creatures who irresistibly fought and died, horns locked together and unable to escape. It’s a representation of the truth “that every supposed victory in this bloody game must be paid for all the more dearly.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CHAINS — “SUBJUGATE THE UNKNOWN TO THE YOKE OF REASON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 022025
 

(written by Islander)

The Brazilian musician A. Enrique (aka Henry or H.) has fired his varied musical creations into the world through a number of cannons — among them, Astral Lore, Woe Bearer, Gateways, and Cavern, and if you click those links you’ll see that we’ve written about most of them. And now he adds one more to the battery.

The newest project is named Chains, in which H. is the lyricist and performs all instruments, joined by vocalist Thomas Prunet (also a participant in Astral Lore and Woe Bearer). As for why H. created a new project when he already had so many others, it’s because the music differs from that of his other endeavors. As he explains, “It’s a mix Sludge/Post-Black Metal, heavily influenced mainly by Andavald and Amenra, but turned out to sound quite different…”

Chains has recorded a debut album entitled Subjugate the Unknown to the Yoke of Reason that will be released by Primitive Archive on April 4th, but we’re giving you the chance to hear it today. Of course we have some thoughts to share with you about what you’ll hear, but to begin we have some insights about the album’s themes from H.: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NAMEBEARER — “BLACK VEIN, ATOM DRUM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 012025
 

(written by Islander)

Is it a coincidence, or something like the alignment of stars in a constellation? Over the last month I’ve repeatedly been struck by impressive new music from bands located in the great state of Maine, and then enthusiastically spilled words about each of them. Bands like Obsidian Tongue, Blood Chariot, Stone Crown, and now Namebearer.

By some measures that’s surprising: Maine is in the bottom 10 of our States in population, and its location is remote from most of the country, which creates challenges for bands to get outside of New England if they want to expose themselves through touring. On the other hand, there seems to be something about the State’s rocky coast, its rivers, forests, and mountains — and its distinctive history and culture — that proves to be conducive to the creation of distinctive forms of metal, and especially black metal.

And because the community of such bands isn’t large and sprawling, it seems to lead to inspirational connections among them. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries