Andy Synn Archives - Page 2 of 149

BLUT AUS NORD – ETHEREAL HORIZONS

Nov 252025

(Andy Synn ventures towards new horizons with Blut Aus Nord, whose new album is out on Friday)

Although it often seems like we spend most of our time here at NCS playing catch-up… and that’s because we do… on rare occasions, such as this one, we do manage to get something published in advance of an album’s release.

Not necessarily by much, it’s true, but we’ll take what we can get when it comes to getting ahead of the curve for once.

Of course, few bands out there have as much of a claim to being “ahead of the curve” – not just once, but multiple times throughout the myriad variations of their sound – as Blut Aus Nord, whose long career has been characterised by a near-constant sense of musical motion and creative evolution.

THE END APPROACHES

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Nov 242025

(The days are growing darker… which means it’s the perfect time for Andy Synn to get doomy and gloomy)

Last week I received my first promo for a 2026 release… which I guess means it’s time to start thinking about wrapping up 2025?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to be stopping writing about releases from this year just yet (I still have several albums set for release in December on the docket, for one thing) but at some point I’m going to have to shift my focus to my usual series of round-up posts.

Before then, however, I feel like I need to make amends for the fact that I haven’t spent much time focussing on the doomier side of things over the course of the last eleven months.

And the best way to do that, in my opinion, is to highlight the work of three artists – Lera (Italy), Oneironoia (Germany), and Sun of the Dying (Spain) – who I’m ashamed to have overlooked.

BEST OF BRITISH: ASIRA / FALSE REALITY / GNASCH

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Nov 202025

(Andy Synn presents another terrific trio of albums from the UK underground)

I’m going to level with you, I’m running out of time… I’ve got recording to finish off, my annual work review coming up, and then I’m off on my mini-honeymoon at the start of December… and I still haven’t properly started work on my yearly round-up of all the “Great”, “Good”, and “Disappointing” albums of the year.

But that’s not stopping me trying to highlight as many examples of the “Best of British” as I can before the year is out, and today I’ve got a killer mix of “blackened” Prog, Metallic Hardcore, and nasty Sludge that should appeal to a variety of tastes.

So, without further ado…

BORE – FERAL

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Nov 192025

(Andy Synn has gone Feral… and thinks you should too)

My love of Hardcore (mostly of the more “Metallic” variety) has been well-documented by now.

After all, many of my earliest, and longest-lasting, musical loves had their roots in Hardcore, and many of the genre’s ideals (or, at least, what I still think of as the genre’s ideals) – of promoting community and collaboration, of building bonds and breaking down boundaries – are ones which still resonate with me today.

That being said, I’d never claim to be an expert on the current state of “the scene”… I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, truth be told, and rarely do I have any idea what (or who) is currently cool (or not), which means I’m often late to the party (if I even get invited at all).

For once, however, I feel like I’ve got my finger if not smack-dab on the pulse (today’s band already have a couple of EPs and splits to their name prior to this release) then at least pretty close to it considering that Bore‘s debut album, Feral, was released just last week but is already making some well-deserved waves.

PHOBOCOSM – GATEWAY

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Nov 182025

(Andy Synn enters the gateway… and likes what he finds there)

One of the biggest issues, for any band at any level, is finding a way to stand out from the crowd.

I’m not saying that every band has to be totally unique by any means – hell, there’s an argument to be made that the more “mainstream” side of the scene actively favours bands all sounding the same way (that’s how trends work, after all) – but, at some point, you have to have at least something distinctive to offer, right?

It’s an issue that Canadian catastrophists Phobocosm have been dealing with from the beginning, as the sound they’ve chosen – although perhaps “chosen” isn’t the right word, as it’s clearly more of a “compulsion” than a conscious choice – is one that sits smack-bang in the middle of the increasingly crowded and intensely contested sonic territory between Immolation and Ulcerate… two bands who cast some very long shadows indeed.

But while the influence of these two seminal acts has continued to loom large over Phobocosm throughout their career – beginning with their 2014 debut, Deprived, and then continuing to make its presence felt on 2016’s Bringer of Drought (a personal favourite of mine that year) and 2023’s Foreordained – the band have stubbornly persevered, refusing to divert from their chosen path in an attempt to assert their mastery over this particular brand of dense, dissonant, and doom-laden Death Metal through sheer force of will.

And now, with the upcoming release of Gateway, we get to see them take their next step towards domination.

BEST OF BRITISH: DIVINE HATRED / VANDAMPIRE / WAR CLUB

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Nov 122025

(Andy Synn has three more bands from the UK underground for you to check out today)

There’s a passage in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (which I’m currently re-reading) where he talks about his experiences as a young journalist and his desire to tell “stories of consequence… stories that, had you not read about them in my articles, you wouldn’t have read at all.”

And while the whole book is an excellent piece of work – engaging, insightful, and unapologetically devastating in the way it dissects and analyses why the world is the way it is, right here and right now, and what that really means when you strip away all the constant obfuscation and abnegation of responsibility by those who bear the lion’s share of the blame – this particular passage stood out to me a little more this time around.

Because, really, that’s something we try to do here at NCS – albeit, obviously, on a much smaller scale – when we focus on covering bands who we believe haven’t received the attention or acclaim they deserve (which, in some cases, means any at all).

Sure, we’re not afraid of writing about bigger bands who already have a decent level of exposure – they help bring eyes to the site after all, which in turn benefits their lesser-known cousins – but the ethos here has always been to try to use our platform as a place for articles and opinions you might not get elsewhere.

So, with this in mind, today I’ve chosen three debut albums by a trio of bands who don’t necessarily have the biggest profile outside the UK – even Divine Hatred, who have crossed the channel a couple of times already (and if they want to share some info about that with us, that’d be appreciated), don’t appear to have received much coverage for their new record – but who could (and should) all benefit from this article.

ASTRONOID – STARGOD

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Nov 102025

(Andy Synn continues our unexpected love affair with Astronoid on their new album, out now)

It’s funny to think about it – especially given the name of our site (which, again, should be taken with at least a pinch of salt and tongue firmly planted in cheek) but we’ve been supporters of whatever it is that Astronoid do (Post-Rock? Post-Metal? Prog-Pop?) for a long time now.

Heck, if you go all the way back to their time as Vattnet (formerly Vattnet Viskar) then our shared history goes back even further… and while that history hasn’t always been smooth sailing (I still stand by my opinion that their 2019 self-titled was a big let-down after their absolutely stunning first album) we’ve always tried to encourage our readers to give the band’s distinct, yet oddly divisive, sound a chance.

That being said, there’s a couple of things you need to bear in mind before giving Stargod a listen.

The first of which is that Stargod is not Air, and shouldn’t be judged as such (in fact one of the biggest mistakes you can make, whether as a reviewer or just as a listener, is to judge an album based entirely on what it’s not, rather than what it actually is… or, at the very least, what it’s trying to be).

And the second is that if you weren’t a fan of Astronoid prior to this, well, there’s a pretty good chance that Stargod won’t change your mind about that… in fact, if anything, the band’s decision to not only double-down on certain aspects of their sound (their self-appellated brand of “Dream Thrash” always been more Coheed and Cambria than Carcass and Coroner, and that’s even more apparent this time around) but to also give their early 80s Synth-Pop influences (think Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, A-Ha, etc) even more prominence will probably be a deal-breaker for anyone of a more musically “conservative” bent.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give the album a try if you’re curious… I just want to make sure you’re in the right headspace to appreciate it, and aren’t caught by surprise by what you’re going to hear.

SHORT BUT SWEET: CELLAR VESSEL / MALADIE / SPLITJAW

SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Nov 052025

(Andy Synn has three more EPs for you to check out today)

It might be controversial to say so, but I don’t think that 2025 has been quite as strong as 2024.

That’s not to say there haven’t been some truly excellent albums released this year (there’s only about a month or so until my regular annual round-up, where you’ll get to see the evidence for that statement) but I feel like there’s been fewer soaring highs, and a few more unexpected disappointments, compared to last year (don’t quote me on this though, as I still need to run a final analysis).

The exception here, of course, is in the realm of the short-but-sweet release (aka, the EP), as I’m constantly finding new bite-sized morsels of brilliance to sink my teeth into (for a while, anyway), with all three of today’s records being prime examples of what you can find if you just keep your ear to the ground.

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Nov 032025

(Andy Synn highlights six gems from October you may have overlooked)

I’m going to say something controversial here, but… if you see someone talking a big game about how they “listened to 500 albums this month” they’re probably lying.

Ok, maybe not lying (though some are probably doing it just for clout and clicks) but definitely stretching the truth a little, because there’s a big difference in my book between hearing an album and actually listening to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do wish I had time to listen to that many albums each month, and I’m sure there are other writers/reviewers out there who legitimately rack up bigger numbers than I do, but chances are that anyone making a hyperbolic claim like that isn’t giving the albums in question the time and attention they deserve… especially if they’re a writer/reviewer who is supposed to actually be offering some insight into the albums/artists in question (something which takes more than just a couple of cursory spins to do).

So while I can’t, at the moment, give a full-throated and whole-hearted recommendation to everything I heard last month – the ones I’ve chosen to feature here are the ones I feel most qualified to comment on, but there’s still many more I need to spend time with and process properly – I would encourage you, once you’re done with this article, to go check out the latest releases from Galge, Scorching Tomb, and Torture Machine (if you’re of a Death Metal-y persuasion), Haeresis, Scalding, and Sunken if you’re more into Black Metal, and Mriodom and Stonebirds if you’re looking for something on the groovy, Stoner-y side of things.

Before then, however, here’s some albums I definitely can recommend to you.

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 188): GORYCZ

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Oct 312025

Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, White Ward, Grey Aura

It’s been a busy month, and time is short, so let’s dispense with the preamble, shall we?

Suffice it to say that if you’re looking for some richly textured, darkly evocative music that combines the best bits of “Blackened Post-Metal” and “Post-Black Metal” (of the more avant-garde kind, rather than the more populist one) into something that can best be described as “post-genre”… then Poland’s Gorycz might just be for you.

And with their third album, Zasypia, having just been released back at the beginning of the month now seemed like the perfect time to shine a spotlight on the band.

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