AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ACROSS THE SWARM — “INVISIBLE THREADS”

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Feb 172025
 

(written by Islander)

At the end of this week Time To Kill Records will release a new album by the powerhouse Italian death metal band Across the Swarm. Entitled Invisible Threads, it follows up the band’s 2020 record Projections, and we’re bring all of it to you today.

Thematically, the album is about as dark as you could imagine. In the band’s words, it “explores human degradation, unspoken fears, and wars that ravage not only bodies but also minds” — depredations and agonies reflected in the album’s cover art. The music is intended to be a raw and unflinching musical exploration of those terrible themes.

But it must be said right away that the music is the opposite of gloomy and grief-stricken. Instead, it’s absolutely exhilarating – though equally cold-blooded. The album delivers pulverizing, pavement-fracturing thuggery and technically impressive high-speed ferocity, all of it accompanied by monster-show vocals that add to the music’s many spine-tingling (and bone-smashing) effects. It’s a top-shelf example of explosive and rampaging musical malice that’s exceedingly well-constructed, expertly executed, and very addictive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SHRINE OF DENIAL — “I, MOLOCH”

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Feb 142025
 

(written by Islander)

It was a daring decision for the Turkish band Shrine of Denial and their label, Transcending Obscurity Records, to emblazon the band’s new album I, Moloch with the above artwork by Juanjo Castellano. A daring decision, because artwork that frighteningly magnificent represents a challenge: Can the music really match it?

Well, we’re in the process of finding the answer to that question, an answer that has unfolded through two songs revealed from the album so far, and a third one we’re about to present today in advance of the album’s March 7 release date. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEVIL’S GATEWAY — “WASTELAND SANCTUARY”

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Feb 142025
 

(written by Islander)

Let’s start with a “FFO” reference for Devil’s Gateway that you should find interesting, though maybe perplexing: Sacrilege, Axegrinder, Amebix, Prophecy of Doom, early Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, Godflesh, Deviated Instinct, Bolt Thrower.

In my case, all those names ring like golden chimes. But thinking about how all those influences would blend together leaves a big question mark, especially because I was not familiar with Devil’s Gateway before we were asked to host the premiere of a song (with lyric video) that will soon be placed before you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CHÜZO — “BRUISED AND BROKEN”

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Feb 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Last fall the Montreal outfit Chüzo released an EP named M.T.M.D (Maximum Threshold, Minimum Decay). It was intended to introduce the world to their new lineup (still intact today), which features an internationally sourced group of Taiwanese/Brazilian transplant Mischa M on vocals, first-generation Chilean Canadian and mastermind Cristian S. on guitars and vocals, Carlos G from Venezuela on drums, and Alex S from Russia on bass.

The EP also served a second and even more important purpose — to introduce the world to the nature of their new music, a blender of grindcore, Swedish death metal, thrash, and hardcore punk that they named “Aggro Metal.”

To help spread the word about Chüzo in their new incarnation and the M.T.M.D EP, what we have for you today is the premiere of a video for the record’s third and final song, “Bruised and Broken,” which is a good description of how the song and video will leave you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLORIOR BELLI — “WELTSCHMERZ WIELD POWER”

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Feb 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Cleveland-based Dark Empire Records was originally founded by Dwid Hellion of Integrity in the early 1990s. It released music from such bands such as Confront, Apartment 213, and Integrity, as well as the 1994 compilation Dark Empire Strikes Back, which featured acts like Ringworm, Face Value, Pale Creation, and The Guns.

The label ceased operation in the mid-’90s but has revived, and its newest release will be a self-titled album by the French band Glorior Belli, headed our way in March.

The tale of Glorior Belli has been an interesting one. Their musical evolution began with the debut album Ô Laudate Dominvs in 2005, and then Manifesting the Raging Beast in 2007. By the time of their fifth album, Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls, they had made a name for themselves as purveyors of black metal infused with swampy Southern rock and blues (and their sole recording member Infestvvs had long before that re-named himself “Billy Bayou” in line with that evolution). Since black metal has loaned itself to hybridization probably more than any other extreme metal genre, others would have eventually done this (and probably not as well), but as far as we know, Glorior Belli was one of the first. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CARCOLH — “TWILIGHT OF THE MORTALS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 122025
 

(written by Islander)

Carcolh is the name of a mythical beast from French folklore, a large snail-like serpent that oozed slime and grasped with hairy tentacles. Carcolh is also the name of a powerhouse French doom metal band from Bordeaux/Herbignac. They have two albums to their credit so far, and are about to have a third one released on February 14th by Sleeping Church Records. Its name is Twilight of the Mortals.

Thankfully, the band and the label didn’t put too much weight on the name of our site — because Carcolh‘s Sebastien Fanton sings the words (in a voice that is truly spine-tingling) — and so we have been invited, and have happily agreed, to premiere the entire album today.

The new album is an honorable devotional to the old gods of traditional doom metal, but with a steadfast orientation toward musical narratives that earn the adjective “epic.” As we discuss in greater detail below, they have created dynamic music that is earth-quaking in its heaviness, pulse-pounding in its surges, and melodically sinister and stricken, glorious and gutting. We venture to predict that it won’t be soon forgotten. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABOLISHMENT OF FLESH — “DISAVOWED”

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Feb 112025
 

As the calendar pages turn fast, as if riffled by a strong wind, we’re now 18 months past the release of Resurrecting Misanthropy, a decimating EP from Abolishment of Flesh, a band born in the panhandle of West Texas. It added to a discography that includes three albums and another EP dating back to 2008, and drove forward the band’s lyrical themes “shaped by war, violence, disease, corruption, and the systematic collapse of human civilization.”

That most recent EP also further evidenced the band’s musical evolution, which now draws freely from ingredients of death, black, and thrash metal and has found a place for melody and groove amidst the carnage of brutality. As a reminder of how good that last EP was, today we’re premiering a video for one of its three songs — “Disavowed“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HAIL CONJURER — “NEW ORDER”

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Feb 112025
 

The Finnish black metal band Hail Conjurer has been following a year-after-year album release cycle since the first full-length (Dreams of Serpent) in 2018, with other releases in between. We’re now beginning a new calendar year, and so we will have a new Hail Conjurer album, the band’s ninth. The new one, which will be released by a triumvirate of labels, is named Order of Disgrace.

For those who might be encountering this band for the first time, it’s the solo endeavor of a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who is also a member of Hooded Menace, Horse Latitudes, Ride For Revenge, and Regere Sinister (among others), but Hail Conjurer seems to be his most personal project, and a vehicle he always goes back to.

As you can see, today we’re bringing you a song from the new album named “New Order,” presented through a video. But before we get to it, we’ll share a bit of info about the new album and how it compares to the last one. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAVERNOUS MAW — “PRIMITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.

Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.

Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.

But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: METAPHOBIC — “EXECRATION”

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Feb 072025
 

Anyone who’s been paying attention to extreme metal for more than a few months knows that Everlasting Spew Records is one of the most dependable curators of dreadful, demented, disturbing, and devastating music out there. To their burgeoning roster, they have now added the thoroughly demented and impressively ingenious death metal quintet Metaphobic from Atlanta, Georgia.

What now lies ahead of us is the band’s debut album, the perfectly named Deranged Excruciations, which Everlasting Spew has set for release on February 28th. What lies ahead of you even more closely is today’s premiere of a song from the album named “Execration” — also very well named. Continue reading »

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