Nargaroth - Apocalyptic Steel (2026) Review

Believe it or not, one of the defining moments in my relationship with black metal came the first time I heard Nargaroth's Jahreszeiten, and specifically the repetitive riffing on the last track, "Winter". This was my introduction to this band, before I knew of their earlier, more notorious records, as well as before many of the genre's foundational names. This kind of monotonous melodic austerity captured what I found to be essential in black metal, and shaped how I continue to appreciate it today. 

Through the 2000s, Nargaroth had a remarkably consistent catalog of releases, but the following decade felt emptier. Era of Threnody left me largely indifferent, and I sort of lost connection to Kanwulf's (now Ash's) musical activities. Nine years later, Apocalyptic Steel arrives curiously as it diverges from the band's established character, yet consists of material that is anything but new. According to the band, the album was initially recorded in the United States back in 2014, only to receive newly recorded drums and decade later and finally being presented in its complete form in 2026.

Rather than drawing mainly from black metal, Apocalyptic Steel embraces the traditions of classic heavy metal and old-school death metal, through Ash's own personality and his attachment to home and heritage, as well as his lifelong devotion to straightforward heaviness. Gone are the skeletal riff cycles like on "Winter", the melancholic interludes, and the monochrome visuals. In their place stands an unabashed tribute to traditional metal, expressed through two of its all time favorite words: apocalyptic, and steel.

Even the song titles quickly reveal a new perspective. "Metalheart" can't avoid inviting comparisons to Accept's landmark 1985 album, while "I Drink Alone" inevitably made me wonder how George Thorogood & The Destroyers had found their way into Ash's record collection. Whether intentional or not, the track is one of the album's most aggressive, alongside the title track and "Twisted Steel" on the record's first half. Despite the overt framework, I still detect a clear black metal instinct embedded in the guitar lines, yet the death metal influence is also evident, recalling the militant aggression of bands like Deicide and Angelcorpse.

The first moment of a broadened palette comes with "Dresden", whose restrained clean vocals stand out in the album, yet naming a track after a city is not new even within black metal (remember, e.g. Shining's Halmstad). Tha pace is eased considerably towards the closing stretch of Apocalyptic Steel, as "Shelter the Faithless" moves in modest, mid-paced tempo and "Man of Mayhem" frequently shifts between anger, clean chord progressions and slower passages — a title I seriously hope is a node to Sons of Anarchy, since Ash is also probably into the motorcycle culture.  The record ultimately amounts to a grand finishing with "Requiem Germania" (completely sung in German), clearly the most epic composition on here.

What makes Apocalyptic Steel an interesting case is not the stylistic departure from a stricter black metal border, but the feeling that Nargaroth has finally managed to express Ash's personal experiences and vision without any limitation in terms of approach. You can hear all his influences on the record, without missing a certain appeal to the elements that most fans have been used to hear from him over the decades. Yet, we may inevitably long for the stark, repetitive melodies that first drew us into the band. Nargaroth of today might not feel pressured to satisfy that particular craving, but it's all in all an honest and respectable return to action from one of black metal's most familiar names.

Release: June 26th, 2026 | Season of Mist Underground Activists
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Website: Facebook 

Haemoth - Black Dust (2026) Review

If you had dealings Haemoth's second full-length album, Of Vice, Suffering and Destruction in 2004, you're certainly one of the bookworms of this scene. The band's run of demos and few records since the late '90s is of a semi-legendary status, yet I've always felt they never got the recognition they deserved due to numerous French black metal bands operating at the time. 

When they signed up with Debemur Morti Productions for the release of the excellent In Nomine Odium (2011), I thought things would then get rolling for them, but no — what followed was another 15 year-long silence. Today, we can finally witness the sun turn black with the project's fourth album, Black Dust, this time on Agonia Records and with a never-forgotten, unique trade of black metal malice.

The record evokes a constant oppressive aura, built upon foundations of razor-sharp riffing, relentless percussion and screeching vocals alongside frequent passages of drone / noise electronics manipulation. The terrain feels unstable, energy does not dissipate even when the music slows down, and sonic violence is present everywhere, but never feels out of control. 

A blighted ritual act of demolition, where atmosphere is hostile and comfort is eviscerated, Black Dust is a vortex of blackened entropy with harsh production that not only lives up to Haemoth's name, it also unsettled me in a way I haven't been with black metal lately, and in the same way I always wanted the genre to manage.

Flickering transmitted signals and mid-paced guitar lines set the tone on the opener "Ashen Remains", which introduces the obliterative first set of tracks, "Blood Atonement" and "When the Dust Finall Settles". Haemoth's corrosive sound quickly overwhelms the experience, as tightened riffs parade in a stomping manner with celebratory black metal radiance, followed by instrumental and heavily distorted dark ambient infrasounds on "D = IX" and "Human Defects". 

Noise detours are expertly used in the album, as in "Fragments Of The Sign" and "Void Theory", as well as the beginning and end of the final, haunting track "Stigmata". Highlight moments also include the clouds of ashen riffing of "Incense Of The Last Rite", and for me, the high-pitched short sound strokes on the majestic self-titled track.

Words like true or pure black metal get tossed around easily, but I doubt most people can pinpoint the bands that truly fall under such labels. Haemoth's practices of this long-held creed in the form of Black Dust, still feels like news spread through whispers even at the age of the internet. 

I'm glad for a little bit of more recognition from a new label, general presentation (like this totally necro cover art), and expanded musical horizons. If you've enjoyed Mysticum, Spektr or Drastus in the past, then this record is a kind of venom from the same serpent.

Release: May 22nd, 2026 | Agonia Records
Rating: 4 out of 5
Website: Bandcamp 

Grave Pilgrim - The Pungent Wine of Pride (2026) Review

Grave Pilgrim have been on the rise in the American black metal underground. After releasing a remarkable self-titled debut album in 2021, the band initiated a conceptual trilogy of follow-up releases starting with 2023's The Bigotry of Purpose — a record you must listen to immediately if you haven't already. The Oregon duo's sound is rooted in black metal, but also carries traces of Americana, folk, and a martial grandeur. Most importantly to me, it's always driven by ideas. The Pungent Wine of Pride is the second chapter of this planned trilogy connected to the Nietzschean concept of transformation, specifically revolving around the figure of the Lion. This represents the spirit that breaks free from obedience and asserts its rightful own will.

The band's titles are always so very revealing. The intoxicant of pride is examined, as the symbol of self-importance and unchecked ambition is smartly referred to as the pungent wine, a nice metaphor for the seductive nature of the hybris of arrogance. As with The Bigotry of Purpose, the record's cover art is again a portrait image, this time of Julius Caesar, who is mentioned twice in the track titles. Last piece "With This I Plough, With This I Reap" is one of the most interesting references I have seen lately, quoting a lyric from an ancient poem and specifically of Hybrias the Cretan, who lived in 600 B.C, and hardly anything is known about him apart from that weapon and power-loving poem. A piece of obscure knowledge even for Ancient Greek scholar standards, and perfectly suitable for this album.

After a short cello / acoustic guitar introduction, cutting edge blackened americana reshaped by the palette of black metal, grinding on the thrust of fairly catchy and easy-to-follow guitar riffs, a leaner flow and dry, almost coughy vocals parade on the first three tracks of the album. Conventional structure is then dismantled on the intriguing tune "The Master's Son", which has wonderful clean high-pitched female vocals at the beginning, then a non-canonical pace built on distressingly melodic guitar lines alongside barely any percussion. At the moment, as well as at the self-titled track that follows, Grave Pilgrim's tempo reminded me a lot of Peste Noire's L'ordure à l'état pur-era more accommodating sections between tracks.

Lastly, the song of Hybrias is as combative as mythos wants it to be, featuring a delightful clean string outro after some of the record's most memorable riff patterns, and particularly the solos. On The Pungent Wine of Pride, thoughts and sound reinforce each other. These songs must have been written somewhere between a battlefield, a barren field or a frontier church, being engaging and thought-provoking without overloading the listener with philosophical fanfare. I was on the look out for Grave Pilgrim since their early days, and they seem to build up the momentum with every release — excited for the final third piece of this puzzle, whenever it is complete.

Release: May 29th, 2026 | Death Prayer Records
Website: Bandcamp
Rating: 4 out of 5

Funebrarum - Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence (2026) Review

After 17 years of anticipation, the dream has finally become reality. Among the countless bands and albums of the "cavernous" death metal movement throughout the 2010s, Funebrarum's first two albums have been endlessly cited as predecessors and essential points of reference. Their 2009 masterpiece, The Sleep of Morbid Dreams, in particular (alongside Dead Congregation's Graves of the Archangels), is so complete that it almost renders further listening of this genre unnecessary. You don't feel the need to listen to anything similar once you have consumed it. 

Nevertheless, the band's return with their long-awaited third full-length record, Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence, presents them in probably their most overwhelming form to date. Aesthetic presentation is immediately captivating, with the subtly refined logo (by Turkka G. Rantanen — RIP) and Daryl Kahan himself drawing the magnificent black metal-ish, frostbitten front cover. The production is equally impressive, to a point that I may prefer it to The Sleep of Morbid Dreams. That characteristic dusty guitar tone, the subtle echoing sound of the snare drum and the sense of space between the instruments, makes the album sound more natural in execution (even though the band's earlier work had that undeniable crushing aggression). 

Vocal work has descended into a near-constant torrent of gutturals reminiscent of Demilich, and more recently, Artificial Brain, beneath of which crawl colossal old-school death metal riffs that frequently submerge in doom-adjacent necrosis. The record is also characterized by remarkably hyperactive and expressive lead guitar work, undoubtedly aided by the contributions of Phil Tougas (Worm, Chthe'ilist, Zeicrydeus, a lot more), who clearly adds a sense of heightened guitar activity. Meanwhile, drumming by C. Koryn of Ascended Dead is phenomenal, and ex-Untergang bassist Sam Osborne is also involved in the songwriting pedigree. 

At several points, particularly within the album's interludes, Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence briefly assumes the full mantle of symphonic black metal with nightmarish keyboard melodies. More than once, I was reminded of Cruciamentum in the way track parts were built and unleashed, and the record concludes with an absolutely masterful, almost nine-minute instrumental, nothing short of a perfect closing statement. For the sake of discourse, I find myself eager to elevate this album above Funebrarum's back catalog. 

Between the exceptional quality of the music and collective death metal brainpower of the musicians involved, the expanded vision and subtle infusion of a black metal flair, Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence achieves in embodying the spirit of total death. This is what the end sounds like.

Release: May 29th, 2026 | Pulverised Records
Website: Facebook
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Grabunhold - Frostheim (2026) Review

I remember anticipating Heldentod eagerly in 2021, due to the great impression I had of German outlet Grabunhold from their 2019 EP, Unter dem Banner der Toten. The debut album proved remarkable, and the band continued on a positive note with 2023's split release with Circle of Shadows, slowly drafting their own continuous landscape of Tolkien-inspired, triumphant and vigorous black metal. Half a decade after the first album, Frostheim is still characterized by mystique of the old world, winter imagery, and a higher than average aptitude for guitar-fronted melancholy in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep.

As with the very first demo and all that followed since, everything is in strict black and white fashion. Frostheim has a slightly cleaner sound than its predecessor, but the general approach has not deviated much from what Grabunhold has been doing so far. The record is radiant and filled with energetic riffing in its entirety, giving out a strong feeling of pagan black metal that reminds me of other German bands like Odal, or Ulfsdalir (but quite more polished). One may ultimately find the compositional source of inspiration in older legends like Windir, and whoever enjoys this work should definitely search for Vampyric Tyrant, a project by a previous member of Grabunhold.

Frostheim opens with "Der Tod wohnt in Carn Dûm", and a wistful clean guitar melody that quickly dives into a set of boisterous riffs, the first one weirdly reminding me of a motif I still remember from Akitsa's "Espoir Vassal" from Credo (2018). Of a similar mood and sprightly character is "Grambergers Fluch", which also constantly has guitar lines in the forefront, grounded in steady tremolo that runs rampant across the whole album. Third track "Der Mondturm" starts with might and main, but then undergoes a slower, quite more woeful mid-to-end section, that stood out to me alongside the echoing clean chord middle part of the next piece, "Rerirs blauer Schatten".

The only instance of divergence comes on "Über Grat und kalten Gipfel", a straight-up magnific dungeon synth track, and a nice intimation of Grabunhold's talent in this kind of instrumental music. Frankly, if they ever decide to put their heads on a pure DS mini-album, we'd be down for it. Frostheim gets lightly more assertive on the faster and more tense parts of "Schreckenszauber", and especially "In Mordor, wo die Schatten drohn". The last track "Eärnurs Verderben" runs at eight minutes and is the longest in duration, full of radiant, just about joyful melodies that stay on repeat until the record ends.

Sticking to the German language, the band's lyrical themes remain strongly tied to the world of Tolkien, and there are Lord of the Rings references everywhere. This, combined with an engaging musical framework of aboveboard black metal, makes Frostheim a clearly admirable listen. Personally, I would have welcomed some slightly bolder drumming here and there, or a broader variation across the general arrangements, but that's just Grabunhold not overcomplicating things by choice. One of the albums I'll be returning to this year whenever in the mood for black metal of impetus and fantasy.

Release: June 5th, 2026 | Iron Bonehead Productions
Website: Facebook
Rating: 4 out of 5

Pharmacist - Vertebrae After Vertebrae (2026) Review

There ain't a more entertaining early Carcass-worshipping force in the modern underground than Tokyo-based duo Pharmacist (among the many, a lesser known but totally admirable case is Finland's Galvanizer). The band has been around since 2020 and immediately made impact with the scene through the debut Medical Renditions of Grinding Decomposition, a true grindfest of grotesque medical imagery and pathological terror in the most Symphonies-of-Sickness-esque manner possible. While having been quite active until 2022 with another full-length album and several mini-releases, a four year break (an eternity in goregrind time) was taken before the release of third record, Vertebrae After Vertebrae - another round of valuing disgust as a charm.

Crisp yet crunching production with a certain appeal of analog warmth is the only source of comfort you might find on this record, as Pharmacist's world remains repellent in both music and text. From all phlegm-soaked screams to guttural lows, I fully enjoyed the Jeff Walker carbon copy execution of the vocals, and they couldn't have been otherwise. These guys enjoy sounding exactly like themselves, but there's expressly evident introduction of more dynamics to the record compared to before. While tracks like the opener "Propelling Inwards", "Lazure Sphacelation" and "Mimicking the Organics" are mostly relentless in speed and diction, one can notice more melodic the self-titled track and "Endogenica", more reminiscent of the later, melo-death era of... You know, the other band.

There is smartly placed groove across all tracks, and an almost clear breakdown section at the closer "Zenith of Mnemonic Forensication", which features a gorgeous stop-time riff over mid-tempo drums that could be the record's highlight. Vertebrae After Vertebrae feels to me as a more concentrated record from a band that now doesn't aimlessly try to shock and provoke anymore (they have already achieved it), allowing for space to be catchier and more dynamic, but always eventually within great goregrind. It's not going to convert skeptics into liking the sewage, but it surely has the grit and effectiveness of a well-done (pun intended) album of that style.

Release: May 29th, 2026 | Hells Headbangers Records
Website: Facebook
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Godless - Adversus Parousia (2026) Review

For me, absence never killed momentum. Despite being active since the late '90s, Chile's Godless released their debut full-length album in 2010, and circle back to studio action 16 years later with the second album, Adversus Parousia, having sparsely released only a handful of EPs and demos in between these three decades. My first experience with the band was on the Omega Omnipotens EP (2017), which left me an impression good enough to explore previous material, but I still almost didn't recognize it's the same band when I glanced at the news of Adversus Parousia earlier this year. The record's kernel, if you haven't already guessed, is one of archaic death metal, with a bombastic delivery and an undeniable South American harshness embedded to it.

Minimal but compelling art done by Fenomeno Design (also responsible for Barshashketh, Blut Aus Nord and Merrimack covers) alongside an excellent production is what immediately leaves the first positive feedback. Godless understands that clarity and filth aren't mutually exclusive, sounding massive on Adversus Parousia without it being overproduced or too loud. The crispiness feels organic, all instruments retain their definition and front-end presence yet the band gives the impression of still operating within a larger structure of darkness. 

Musically, the strongest influence here is Incantation, both on structure and riff variety, but the band's far from a passive imitator, keeping an abrasive intensity hardly contained across eight tracks and a total of 40 minutes of antediluvian death metal. The curtain-raiser, "Ingenitus-Ekstasis", is also the longest piece on the album, and throws caution at the wind with violent tremolo riffing, persistent tension and controlled tempo switches throughout. It's also perfectly linked with the second track, "Omega Omnipotens: Hosanna in Nullificatio", which underlines how Godless excel at flow and pacing all across Adversus Parousia. The record's brutality rotates between fast-paced hysteria and slower, doom-heavy stomping that creates regular passages of transitional heaviness through naturally emerging shifts. 

Some tracks work more in favor of these unhurried sections, such as on "Pneuma-Khaos", "Ekstasis-Cosmogravis" and the gloomy closer, "Et Verbum Nihil Factum Est". On the other side, the band turns totally furious on "Plaga Vobiscum (Et Cum Spirit)" and "Numenlagneia", highlight tracks that capture the album at its best. Apart from the thunderous guitar lines, the bass work is also remarkable, as well as the grotesque vocal delivery (listen to the voice twists and rumbling bass on "Pneuma-Khaos" to feel this at its clearest). In total, the undertaking is deeply indebted to the classic pillars of the genre, and remains unique among kindred bands. Highly recommended.

Release: June 6th, 2026 | Nuclear Winter Records
Website: Facebook
Rating: 4 out of 5 

Mansvara - Sable Odes to Nihility (2026) Review

Since the earliest days, Polish black metal has maintained a firm presence in the underground scene and has notably evolved its psychological darkness over the years. What once was an obscure force of paganism and profanity later gauged interest into the avant-garde, the melodic and the theatrical, with a few names eventually landing their feet well into the mainstream. The younger generation of bands has a lot to absorb from their national markers, but it would be a mistake to assume you know what to expect. Fresh blood Mansvara formed last year and have already garnered enough firepower for their debut full-length album, Sable Odes to Nihility, a carefully organized black / death metal acrimony.

The band draws its inspiration from two main sources for its own approach on black metal, characterized by heightened melodies and Icelandic impulses. Not only the name reminds me of Sinmara, the particularized logo (by Entitatem.Null.Arts) also bears some resemblance, as the band's visuals invite engagement even before the listening starts. The record's fantastic cover, courtesy of Patrycja Wrona, and the clean-cut production, both show the additional professionalism on how the release is treated. On "Deathsentence", Mansvara introduces open note melodies, comfortable middle-paced semi-dissonance and a triumphal ending, showing a rich song writing attitude already from the get go.

It's hard not to notice the apparent Mgła influence in various riff progressions and especially at these middle-paced sections, most clearly to me at the soaring guitar lines of the second part of "Lingering Void's Echo" and the two final tracks, "Ephemeral Winds" and "Sable Ode to Nihility". Thankfully, Mansvara are not too self-limited on that distinctive but effective play style, and are driven by other compositional elements, like the quasi-distorted post metal passages in various pieces, e.g. in "Grief Doctrine" and "Consigned Doom". One of the record's heaviest moments is at the end of the shortest track, "Obsidianize", where a tremendous guitar line lifts it to an irresistible headbanging moment.

With Sable Odes to Nihility, Mansvara demonstrates control over the album's volatility in a way new bands sometimes are totally oblivious of. There are numerous velocity and mood changes across the tracks, remaining within the lines of modern black metal that could musically and stylistically be described as a half-Icelandic, half-more hostile version of Mgła kind of soundscape. As much as I have been a fan of the aphoristic scene of these Northern countries over the last few years, I miss the activity of multiple artists that we experienced in the mid '10s until about 2021. Mansvara, out of their own accord, make a really good case for claiming piece of that land with this debut.

Release: May 22nd, 2026 | Godz Ov War Productions
Website: Facebook
Rating: 4 out of 5 

Frozen Soul - No Place for Warmth (2026) Review

I've been really eager to listen to this album from the moment I saw this fantastic front cover: a step further than just encouraging your fans to play MTG during your live show is to adopt the aesthetics of the legendary game. The art of third full-length album No Place of Warmth by Fort Worth, Texas mammoths Frozen Soul features a fantasy-drifting art by James Bousema, who has a stunning RPG-inspired portfolio and has also designed actual MTG cards. As per proper promotion strategy, a few singles dropped before the release date and mistakes were made, in the sense of, checking a track before the album's out (something I usually never do). Then and there, I turned doubtful.

Looking at a band with a rather clear intent for larger and larger reception, choosing a weirdly murky production that is hard to appreciate if you don't have high-end equipment is an debatable decision. Instruments sound far from each other and the guitar tone is sort of a slapstick, revealing more of itself only under perfect conditions, while otherwise being too rough around the edges. This perception is boosted by how simplistic the compositions are, and essentially left out there exposed by the record's mixing. To me, No Place for Warmth sounds like what musicians and producers think old school death metal with a radically natural production would sound like. If you have the chance, choose best headset possible to listen and enjoy it.

The album's eleven tracks barrel through in about 36 minutes of direct, mostly middle-paced death metal that's effective at a handful of moments, never unforeseen and often indolent due to a familiarity that's more to its detriment than credit. One of its most engaging moments immediately hits with the opening, self-titled track and the wonderful vocal addition of My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way (yes), who offers legitimate higher-pitched lines along Chad Green's usual inhuman growls. Tracks like "Ethereal Dreams" and "DEATHWEAVER" also succeed at feigning menace, adopting a cogent Bolt Thrower stance that Frozen Soul have re-iterated only that much across their whole discography. 

Even the presence of Robb Flynn (Machine Head) does little to salvage a track as generic as "Invoke War", and yet the rampaging bass and snare tone (again, remember to get a peak sound system) that erupts at the beginning of "Dreadnought" (with Devin Swank of Sanguisugabogg) are impactful enough to distract the listener from the otherwise substandard response of these compositions. Elsewhere, the slower tempos between "Chaos Will Reign" and "Eyes of Despair" tend to blur into indistinction if one excludes the hackneyed solo of the latter. Here, direct comparisons to previous efforts sadly favor the band's past. The penultimate piece, "Frost Forged", is a great example of a track aspiring for impactful conclusion, but frustratingly wears out halfway through and resorts to stereotypical one-note groove dragging.

Lastly, I am sure crowds will enthusiastically chant along the shouted lines of "Killin Time (Until It’s Time to Kill)" in concerts, but really this last track lands with a hook as thorough as the title's Scary Movie-level word play. For its guest appearances, guitar solos or extra little elements, previous albums had a punch I didn't find on No Place for Warmth, which often exalts hardcore grooves in a way that is meant to appeal to the hardcore sphere rather than to death metal fans. Time will tell, but this might be one of the most accessible death metal albums of the recent years and a possibly excellent entry listen for people unaware of the genre's dismal depths. With its real dungeon-crawl, dragons-and-sorcery vibe, and the neat pulp-fantasy sensibility, it is however worth to have a go with No Place for Warmth, which lands at a sweet spot that somehow doesn't let you be that mad at Frozen Soul in the end. 

Release: May 8th, 2026 | Century Media Records
Rating: 3 out of 5

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Immolation - Descent (2026) Review

Instances of monumental awe are so rare, that they remain unforgettable. Only at a handful of cases have I had so rapid a transition from analytical to overwhelmed when first listening to an album, one of them being my introduction to Immolation and their 1996 masterpiece, Here In After. For a band of this magnitude and everyone else, time has carried with it no small measure of change. To fast forward to the twelfth full-length album, Descent, bypasses a lot of context. Related at least to most recent affairs, it's the third installment in a loose thematic arc following Atonement (2017) and Acts of God (2022), in what seems to be a period of growth and opulence under the wings of Nuclear Blast Records. 

Everything about Descent is as formidable as the circumstances demand. Stunning artwork by Eliran Kantor reflects the album's hellish plunge into the complex of spiritual degradation and anti-religious sentiment, which Immolation discuss as adroitly as ever. The production sets the bar for modern crystalline extreme metal, and the record's duration has been adjusted to the algorithm-favored perfect ballpark of around 40 minutes, something I am sure they noticed and fixed compared to the slightly excessive length of Acts of God. Staggering precision in delivery and bona fide metaphysical suffocation by the band that itself shaped these landscapes of death metal.

I still find myself confronting a familiar paradox, listening to another admirable work by one of the genre's most meaningfully successful names ever, that somehow stops just short of arete. Immolation moves efficiently with a lean but expressive album that directly presents the rather specific elements that make them great, spearheaded by the idiosyncratic and dominating compositional style of guitarist Rob Vigna and the frightful growls of leader Ross Dolan. The band has never quite fitted the Tampa mold or the Stockholm royalty, and Descent is full of both aggressive and mournful guitar lines alongside marvelous solos on a multiplex of tempos, bending death metal's common sense with great aplomb.

Scanning through the tracks of the album, as systematically tailored for impact as they are, makes me miss the infernal darkness I was forced into with past releases. Descent gives me an impression that not an extreme amount of effort is required from Immolation to amaze the audience (including me), who now follow a familiar immediacy that forcefully works. The ominous clean guitar notes of the opening piece "These Vengeful Winds" rapidly announce the tone, as the track soon unleashes the first salvo of ferocious riffs and dissonant contours you know and love Immolation for. The tension of the album's first half speaks more to me, as both the notable "The Ephemeral Curse" and "God's Last Breath", or even more so the clearest highlight "Adversary", are the ones that tend to speed alterations and unfolding melodies the best.

For these standards, the mid-paced main guitar lines of "Attrition" are so catchy that you might miss just how stripped down to the basics the track is, and I felt the same for "False Ascent" as well as Descent's weakest, "Host". That's where Immolation is at their slowest, where they almost narrate the album's topics rather than fluently communicating them with kinetic energy through the tracks - it works only if I shut down part of my brain that tries to break each second of the composition down to its decisions. "Bend Towards the Dark" is still limited, but commendably more epic than adjacent tracks, while the highly discussed piano / guitar instrumental "Banished", is to me just a filler. 

Thankfully, Descent ends with the compulsive, punishing self-titled rocker and not only leaves a sweet aftertaste, it magically achieves what Immolation always does for me: whole fully enjoying the album despite the criticism. I have returned to it repeatedly these weeks with a feeling of certainty and comfort, proving it quite possibly may be one of my most-listened releases for the year. I don't even know what I think I expect from the band, if not a polished and potent record as this, maybe a little bit more uniform nerve, surprise, or a challenge. Taking into account the fantastic aesthetics, lyrical direction and their attachment to a cathartic presentation of worldview, it all ultimately coalesces into substance.

Raise these walls
Of blood and stone
This Kingdom you've built
Becomes our tomb

Release: April 10th, 2026 | Nuclear Blast Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Gadget - Coerced (EP, 2026) Review

First of all, The Funeral March is one of the best grindcore albums of its time. Secondly, I hope Gadget doesn't make it a habit to put out a major release once per decade, as The Great Destroyer came out 10 years later, and now this new EP, ten years after that. There hadn't been complete silence all this time if you think about the split release with Retaliation in 2021, but I don't mind being patient if it's to witness evolution and artists refusing to rest on their laurels. A comeback after a not so linear timeline (departure of original vocalist, pandemic struggles) sees Gadget in their most audacious form, with a mini-album of eight tracks and a duration as long as Unsilent Death - a golden standard.

The band pre-released "Gnistan" for the EP's promotion, the shortest track and a true grindcore speed stalwart, but Coerced isn't merely a collection of such bursts of aggression. Opener "Nonsense" instantly explodes into blast beat fury, which is maintained at maximum capacity across the remarkable guitar lines of "No Sense of Self" and the massive middle-paced groove on "Who Doesn't Serve You". New vocalist Emilia Henriksson (who has previously screamed her lungs out in Radium Grrrls) does a remarkable job on all tracks, and along the presence of new guitarist Kristofer Jankarls (Livet Som Insats, Axis of Despair) brings a fresh ferocity to Gadget, still testing the levels of intensity the band can reach with this new lineup.

An older track, "Funerary Rites", finally found its appropriate release space, and slaps the face as much as the fast-paced "Flatline", which has a wonderful open chord introduction and a slightly noisy ending that connects perfectly with the most experimental piece on Coerced, the five-minute "False Pulse". Here, Gadget expand upon a fully noisy / dark ambient texture that gets more and more uncomfortable as it moves on and reaches the second longest track of the EP, "Violenty Silent". The doomy sludge inclinations of this piece would surely make Eyehategod giggle in happiness, and concludes a rather bombastic and interesting work by these grindcore legends.

If you've tripped with the bizarre album covers of Pyrrhon, know that the stunning artwork of Coerced was done by the same artist, Caroline Harrison, who apparently mixes repulsive imagery with unexpected beauty as if it's sugar with coffee. The EP is short enough to leave you wanting more, but it's also notably diverse for its kind and hints how Gadget's new configuration is a work in progress, and at a period of renewed, and even darker inspiration. Let's hope for the next full-length to not be a product of distant futures and distant galaxies.

Release: May 8th, 2026 | De:Nihil Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Werwolf - Satanic Terror (2026) Review

Formed back in 2005 and only sporadically active until recent years, you would prove to be a real book worm if you had Werwolf (no relation to the Finnish pseudonym of similar spelling) from Freiburg, Germany in your listening archives. The thread of releases in smaller formats the project in the current decade should have suggested an impending buildup to a full-length album, yet I still never saw Satanic Terror coming. The record sounds exactly like something that has been rotting far away for far too long, and plants itself in the soil of the earlier era with the fearlessness of a band with more experience than it might seem.

Satanic Terror is burrowed in the basements of the oldest Scandinavian school, yet more reminiscent of 20th century bands like Celestial Bloodshed and Cornigr, while in pursuance of black metal sanctity as treated by, e.g. Watain or Chaos Invocation (with whom they share a member too, as far as I understand). The production is predictably cold and the tremolo is honored throughout, as Werwolf don’t feel the pressure to consistently boost speeds to norsecore, but instead lay out mid-paced sections often in the album. Of course, it has its accelerated feral moments, like e.g. in “Whore of Dead Heaven” (damn) or the opening of “Temple of No Light”, but the slower anguished parts (“Unholy Trinity”, “Infernal Devotion”) occupy more of the album’s space. 

Apart from the notable self-titled opener, one of its finer moments is when the band combines the frantic and hypnotic tension like in the track “...of Cursed Places and Desegrated Graves”, which takes its time to start and then is slowly adorned with thunderous, memorable guitar melodies. Here and there, Werwolf possibly (and intentionally) sounds just a little bit too familiar (“Shrine of Faith”) but I didn’t find myself disillusioned with it, especially by how disciplined and palpable of its intentions the whole of the record is. Its uniformity of buzzing guitars, harsh vocals and coarse sound gives Satanic Terror a nostalgic quality, but only in the sense of reasserting old doctrines at just about the ideal album duration of ~30 minutes.

You won't be sucker punched by this album if you have the idea of what it is about, but it's efficient enough to bash you to submission. Mostly aggressive and fairly immersive at its slower turns, Satanic Terror is as blunt as its title, and a statement that could go on a banner about the state of black metal, or what it should be. Werwolf proceed to engage using mostly the same tonal palette across all their tracks, but it wouldn't make sense to shuffle things up. Terror.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Dominance of Darkness Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 

Black Cilice - Votive Fire (2026) Review

At what point does organic consistency become its own form of artistic statement? Seven full-length albums in (not thinking of all the demos, splits and EPs in between) since 2009 clearly accentuate Black Cilice’s absolute indifference to expectations of progression, a project convicted to a certain vision from day one, and having stood its ground from that very moment. I discovered this Portuguese hermit somewhere around Banished From Time (2017) and Transfixion of Spirits (2019), and worked my way both backward and forward to get the full idea of what this is about, a noble practitioner of the dark arts as utilized by compatriots such as Vetala, Mons Veneris, and later Candelabrum.

With four songs, and none shorter than seven minutes, Votive Fire still carries the devotion of the project to obscurity, and presses further into its own essential nature. Despite the apparent strata of lo-fi haze and the intentionally smothering production, I found the album’s sound to be the least impenetrable to date, as it’s now even possible to decipher riff sections a bit more clearly even from the first listens. Black Cilice has achieved compositions with distinct borders, yet still bound to a seamless, standoffish flow that the band exercises for the last 15+ years now. Isolated and deeply esoteric, Votive Fire doesn’t casually deploy its imagery, yet it might be the “easiest” starting point for someone getting into this soundrealm. 

Under the thick chunks of raw black metal distortion lies genuine melodic presence, and the guitars manage to stay descriptive and evocative while generating texture. Melancholic, compelling riff work is a cornerstone of artists in this territory, and Black Cilice’s energy manipulation has repeatedly kept me hooked in the past, even more so now with its slightly more flagrant posture. Parallels to our own Μνήμα can be drawn, but Votive Fire never bellies up to that much outward hostility, instead it burns quietly by handling monotony in moderation and with a steady hand. The record opens with a load of echoing tremolo on its longest piece, “Released by Fire”, and the uniformity, for its own sake, never really breaks for the next 36 minutes.

Tracks “Vows Sworn for Centuries” and “Into the Inner Temple” advance with various levels of velocity, as the forlorn guitar lines towards the end of both these tracks approach the numinous and are among the album’s most memorable moments. These kinds of melodies bleed straight from raw black metal’s main arteries, and Black Cilice has tapped into them. Woeful howling vocals waver at the edge of perception and feel like transmitting from somewhere unreachable, while the drums also occupy their own space in the project, not embedded but not separated from the mix at the same time. On the middle part of the last track, “Deconstruction of All Realities”, the guitar leads are lifted briefly to the surface with a small gesture, and march firmly toward Votive Fire's noise-boosted outro.

At first blush, there’s no obvious development in the formula of the album, which looks like it doesn’t reach beyond established framework, as great as it is for those attuned to the style. From my standpoint, the slight change in production makes for a significant difference in outcome, as the project withholds way less than before while remaining as hot-blooded for dreadful black metal as before. By gaining this sharper contour, the inner mechanics of Black Cilice’s mystique are more evident, but it’s still grim as hell. Still for fans only, and plainly recommended. 

Release: May 1st, 2026 | Iron Bonehead Productions
Rating: 4 out of 5

Devoid of Thought - Devoid of Thought (2026) Review

Devoid of Thought hail from the Lombardy region in Italy, and spent the better part of the last decade honing their powerful self-defining debut record, Outer World Graves (2021). With that album, the band attempted - while not leaving the crater - to handle death metal’s most perplexed branches and reassemble them into something new, and as immune to passive listening as possible. I admit to having missed the initial shockwave at the date of release, but measured Devoid of Thought a bit later and was fully aware of the next step in the form of this self-titled offering, as it approached.

The album runs five tracks across about thirty six minutes, structured in a way that may appear baffling at first listen. Initial track “Panspermic Bio-Dome” is, in the best sense, an affront to introductory patience, as it scatters a load of dissonant riffing below fiery vocal layers, and on disharmonized movements without any appetite for pattern pursuit. It presents the record’s most daring moment before Devoid of Thought establish themselves with it, specifically the inconversable, deconstructed jam section in the middle of the composition, bringing instrumental psych bands to mind, and binding to a more classic prog / tech-death reading that ends as abruptly as it starts.

A more fluid, almost conversational writing style traverses through warped temporality, with tracks constantly juggling irregular tempos with evident ease and pleasure. Like the challenging first track, follow-up “Chronos” features a gnarled voice that now states: “what you call man, we call time”. I could be mistaken, but this might be a paraphrasing reference to ethnobotanist Terence McKenna who said something starkly similar, reflecting his philosophy that humans don’t simply live within time, but time is a fundamental element that humanity itself is composed of. 

With just a handful of words, it then becomes easier to decipher the band’s conceptual and aesthetic corpus, which is also successfully transmitted through the album’s atypical, significantly stranger musical substratum. In its brighter moments, “Chronos” is a kinetic shapeshifter of boiling avant-garde progressive death metal and one of the easier tracks to get into, as is the even more straight-forward “Putrescent Mireborn”, heartily reminding me of Blood Incantation in its delivery (not the only moment in the album that I made such a parallel). Bass lines are marvelously audible and the drumming is excellent, handled by new member C.I. (of Occultarum, and as of 2026 playing for Putridity too).

What reminds of a more demented Autopsy line at the slow-paced starting melodies of “Oblivionauts” soon develops into a roller coaster of contorted riffing that makes no concessions to conventional song structure. The dissolution of epic proportions that takes place in the 10-minute closer “Entheogenic Ritual” features the band at its fullest, squeezing the logical terminus of everything the record was building toward. Fine classic death metal, non-idiomatic expression, and a dreamlike ride into a cerebral atmosphere that batters the gates of psychedelic death metal. Or, whatever this is!

I feel like Devoid of Thought often attend to deliberate inaccessibility and will likely frustrate listeners seeking handholds, but will also reward most richly the suspension of that expectation. Often genuinely difficult, but more often genuinely interesting, the album’s viscerally satisfying approach slides all around checkpoints but still manages to impress. The band appears idealistic towards experimentation, actively pushes around to make more space within death metal, and in my opinion, has all the confidence and vision needed in its quiver. Just shy of an outright masterpiece.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Unorthodox Emanations
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Mylingar - Út (2026) Review

Following the malignant trilogy of dead roads, dead dreams, and dead souls released by anonymous Swedish (?) project Mylingar between 2016 - 2019,  we were left stunned and aghast but also almost forgot about them thereafter. Nearly seven years is a long time to wait, as the band’s return to action with their third full-length album, Út, and first chapter of another trilogy, begins something new without a single edge softened, picking up where it was buried in 2019 with Döda själar. The long break has only allowed the darkness to insistently seep into Mylingar’s domineering black / death metal anticosmos, crying out in phrases of ritual and dissonance from a wound once opened, and now re-torn. 

The new record consists of seven tracks, whose titles form a sentence in old Norse that translates to the grim following: “May my blood cultivate the soil from below” [1]. Út’s production provides a distinct sense of a cold enclosure, a chamber sealed and echoing riffs sometimes distinct, sometimes under impenetrable layers of buzz. Mylingar’s ever-present pressure concedes to some unsought blurriness, however there’s an appreciable level of compositional intermixture and rhythm fracturing that not only destabilizes the listener’s footing, it also adds to the album the intrigue and substance necessary for such works to float. Both sound and music are disturbing, a cohesive descent to places of unlight with disharmony woven into every formal decision the record makes.

A strange tension between motion and stasis is established under the overarching wall-to-wall carnage, where it’s not directly clear when the band slides from one track section to the next. Closest relatives to this kind of relentless, compressed savagery would be bands like Altarage or Abyssal, with moments distantly reminding me of Serpent Column / Impetuous Ritual at times, however Mylignar also use restraint as a weapon, unlike their tempestuous contemporaries. Opener “Megi”, alongside following tracks “blóð” and “mitt” are overtaken by this trance and keep pummeling to a point of meditative disconnect. Slower passages are dragged along for extended torment, and the first side is not even the most unsettling of the album.

Alongside the surplus of primitive force encountered on the vehement lines of “raekta”, lies the complete surrender of the band to its bestial self, as Út slowly introduces elements of harsh noise electronics in the beginning and end of “jarðveginn”, one of the most punishing pieces of the album. Inside the turbulence, one can also notice the verminous, Cruciamentum-esque death metal riffing on “af”, as well as the truly monstrous middle part. The closing "neðan", the longest track on Út, opens with what could be a seriously malformed, late ‘00s - early ‘10s era Krallice guitar notion, and then indulges in distorted electronics that completely liquefy the album into abstruse harsh noise. 

Mylingar always proceed with a playing style that defies segmentation, and the overall musicianship nails it: uncanny and foundational bass work, drumming that articulates the record’s processional rhythm, and the highlight of these absolutely agonizing vocals moaning against sizzling magma (most notably, for me, on “raekta” and the high-pitched screams of “jarðveginn”, but really, everywhere). By the time it ends, and due to the album’s otherworldly denouement, it feels like Út has taken the listener somewhere fairly far from the point of departure, despite an apparent homogeneity.  Considering the period in which the band released their previous trilogy, it’s only safe to assume there’s more from Mylingar in the works, and maybe closer than you think.

Release: April 17th, 2026 | Amor Fati Productions
Rating: 4 out of 5

    [1] AN NCS PREMIERE: MYLINGAR — “ÚT”. No Clean Singing. (2026).

Guyođ - Death Throes of a Drowning God (EP, 2026) Review

I came in contact with Guyođ from Austria quite abnormally a few years ago, around the time of their first split release with Lehm and before their debut album, Heart of Thy Abyss, was even on the horizon. The band hit the mark with that album of abyssal doom / death metal and left overall positive impressions to anyone who came across it, especially when convincingly communicating it live during their concerts. Latest effort, Death Throes of a Drowning God, extends the foundations of the debut and pushes its vision to darker, more introspective territories.

The EP consists of four main tracks, interspersed with short dark ambient / drone interludes, all titled “Signal” followed by specific numbers. While the structure may seem unconventional at first, for people who dwell within the discographies of bands like Teitanblood or Necros Christos, this is no mysterious domain. From the start, the record establishes a dense, claustrophobic sonic field nurtured by the drone waves of “Signal 00347”, and then the deathlike pressure exerted by the oppressive first full track “A Thousand Invisible Eyes”. 

Despite Guyođ’s dim lit setting and gritty sound, guitar melodies are discernible all along as riffs undulate between a variety of tempos from speedy considerably slow. Along them, the remarkable vocal performance often takes the lead and faithfully serves the needs the composition, be it growls, shrieks or hushed whispers. The band steps on the aggression in the following tracks, "Behind Walls of Ice" and "Vortex of Infinite Despair", which feature furious blast beats surfacing from the murk before tempos drop to depths, structurally providing distinct moments when the EP embraces its doom side, and when it moves in frenzy. 

For me, the last piece “Hestia Drowning” is to me the most complete compositional statement on Death Throes of a Drowning God and the most successful in suffocation. A church organ introduction (which can also be heard earlier, on “A Thousand Invisible Eyes”) and a series of inescapable guitar lines and agonizing vocals, continued by the last short distorted ambient outro, “Signal 79357”, finish the EP off in panegyric terms. A few efficient tracks connected with brief intrusions of oceanic static and drone to reset the atmosphere, Guyođ’s authentic presence on Death Throes of a Drowning God has enough to compel you. 

Release: January 23rd, 2026 | Grazil Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Pig's Blood - Destroying the Spirit (2026) Review

With less alarm and greater eagerness we seize the third full-length album by Milwaukee-based war metal moniker Pig’s Blood, whose first two drops of venom I absorbed with foolish confidence. Seven years after the release of A Flock Slaughtered, and after a sensible transfer to the ghastly carriage of Dark Descent Records, the band’s imposed brutality presents itself with a refined sound, and a constant pressure of blackened death that never ceases to shock. Destroying the Spirit doesn’t shy away from the usual constant bashing and blasphemy, while also now harnessing an attenuated conception of buoyancy across its 33 minutes of duration that boosts the outcome above the genre's bar of mediocrity. 

The first and most notable aspect on the album is the sharpened production, which is less clouded than in previous works, and yet not at the expense of heaviness. A tightly mastered sound offers the instruments discernible space, it’s audible and binds everything into notable cohesion, finally exposing all the grisly tools of the band openly to the listener. Destroying the Spirit's core still remains what is expected from Pig's Blood: the band operates on all speeds as guitars, drums and vocals erupt and spill molten phrases that violently march with clear delineation in the liminal zone between old-school death and black metal. 

The tracks on Destroying the Spirit are immediate but deceptive, as the small rhythmic changes and recurring patterns indicate an exquisite compositional grasp on war metal. “Rabid Dogs” and “Satanic Hammer of Justice” lean the strongest into that direction and praising the corpses of Archgoat, while there’s an odor of Incantation everywhere, especially e.g. in the main riffs and transitory soloing of “Power to Stop It”, or the opener “Standing In Depravity”. Nothing but pure delight is to be experienced when listening to the bestial madness of tracks like “Tartarean Infection” and even more so “Ravenous Hellslaught”, which also has a Profanatica flavor in its logic of scale riffing that always delivers.

Same goes for the opening lines of one of the Destroying the Spirit’s standouts, “Aftermath”, which draws from all the aforementioned and also features well-implemented higher-pitched howls, unlike the orkish growling that takes place for the most part of the album. You’ll find the same vocal terror on the convulsive closing piece, “Strikeforce of Isolate Will”, where the band finishes things off with an epic blast. Across the record, strains of blackened thrash (for example, in the middle part of the title track) can also be picked up, and there’s a fixed feel of forward momentum akin to early Deicide, but through a considerably more blackened lens and militaristic cadence.

Ultimately, the tenets of the genre are not reinvented, but with Destroying the Spirit, the grip is certainly tightened. Pig's Blood remain ruthless, the desecration is controlled and happens in broad daylight. The album is offered for repeated listens, seeks to overwhelm with precision and brute force, resonating with the savage legacy of old assailants from Blasphemy to Order From Chaos. I found its clarity to be a big advantage in appreciating the new material and its impact, hinting how the band can manage just fine based on musical merit alone. The spirit has been destroyed.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Dark Descent Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Ultha - A Light So Dim (2026) Review

With an overly potent series of full-length albums that peaked with 2022’s remarkable All That Has Never Been True, Ultha have slowly outpaced most of their contemporaries the last decade, in a way that one not even have noticed if one hasn’t been observant. As fine practitioners of misery-fueled atmospheric black metal, the band’s low-key confident, promotionless release of fifth record A Light So Dim stands at the crossroads of a well-settled sound and experimentation that feels quite natural, given their individuality.

We’re looking at a considerable expansion of the atmospheric black metal skeleton, which now houses, even more distinctly, some of the band’s impulses towards ambient, darkwave, post-rock or even dream-pop, without losing the thread of what makes them Ultha in the first place. I found several characteristics that I love from the band in A Light So Dim, especially in the soaring guitar riffs that made them so effective to me in the first place. At the same time, there’s an accustomed focus on a more widespread, anguished sound that hangs over you like a sky that refuses to clear.

Right off the bat, the band doubles down on what, in my opinion, they do best. Long-form black metal heavily into post-metal territory, with the guitar lines having an unmistakable potency on “Love As We’re Falling Down”, the first longer piece after the three-minute, nonconformist introduction “The Unseen World”. Bracketed sequencing rightfully earns Ultha’s conceptual ambitions, and there’s constantly new elements to discover in each track, or part of a part of a track. Most sections take minutes to fully reveal themselves, and no matter how long it takes, there’s always a tremolo that finally surges.

A Light So Dim has a less of a pugnacious viewpoint compared to previous records, one that can also be found on the ominous “Hex Upon Our Heads”, mostly fast-paced tension with death metal growls before a last minute of ambiance. At other times, Ultha defy the metal backbone completely, as for example on “The Quiet Current”, fully on clean vocals and guitars until right about the end, where a switch is flipped again. The record is wholly characterized by vocal diversity, and apart from the band’s known black metal howling or growls, there is frequent both male and female clean singing. 

A personal highlight is the avantgarde track “What's Yours Is Yours To Carry”, which relies on a beat-like opening tempo and then is embraced by angelic female vocals. In the middle of the track, the band introduces perilous slow-paced riffing that is essentially carved out of classic Black Sabbath, coupled with a female voice that makes you think it’s someone like Windhand instead of Ultha. Interchanging with lower growling and a distorted opera sample at the end, it’s one of the most interesting tracks of the album.

Listening to this could be a test of patience, as passages are conveyed with repetition that might be too much for some to put up with. This was more evident to me towards the latter part of A Light So Dim, particularly in the closer “To Part The Abelia Springs” (i.e. a handful of melodies across 11 minutes) as well as “Pink Lights Soiling To Copper” (monotonous but on the heavier side). If you have trained yourself in the likes of, e.g. Ash Borer or Fauna though, there’s nothing to be afraid of here. The production is polished but with a raw edge, melodies and textures are clean and always present, even at the album's most repeated moments.

"Cherry Knots (The Sun Shines Through You)" is track that dwells outside what's strictly metal, pressing with a sharp noise / dark ambient introduction and a powerfully emotional, and highly memorable echoing piano melody (strangely reminding of an older track, "Peccatum" by doom metal band Isole, from their 2009 album Silent Ruins) with dark clean vocals. The electronic / trip-hop twist in the track is one of the multiple instances Ultha shows their predilection for experimentalism on A Light So Dim. However, this must have already been clear from the eerie voices, synth handling and gnarled guitar riffs of "Her Still Singing Limbs" earlier in the album.

Taking a clear step towards unexplored soundscapes, the band doesn't seem to be out of ideas for new music, which now grows into its completely own form. With all its poignant melancholy, A Light So Dim manages to drift into something approaching devotional beauty, and it doesn't feel forced or overblown. I've struggled with similar mutations of atmospheric / post-black metal bands in the past, but here it seems to click perfectly, once you let it. It's not the instant eye-catcher, but real splendor lies within.

Release: April 2nd, 2026 | Vendetta Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Incendiary - Product of New York (2026) Review

Compilations like this make a lot of sense. Surely, Incendiary fans waste no time hunting down copies of their main LPs, especially since band's considerable rise in fame after the release of Cost of Living (2013), but it's always more difficult to trace smaller-scale releases, or long-time sold out mini albums. So now, we get the chance to enjoy almost all the early material (debut EP, three split releases) in one neat package, freshly remastered by Will Putney (Fit for an Autopsy, End, Better Lovers), walking down memory lane and getting fists bloodier and bloodier as it goes. 

Tracks are then also smartly placed going for the most part backwards in time, starting from the split with Xibalba in 2012, and arriving to the Amongst the Filth 7" inch, released originally in 2007. After the opener, "Not Your Prophet", which is actually an unreleased song from the sessions of the band's latest album, Change the Way You Think About Pain (yet another reason to get on this), listening to this material made me hit my head in annoyance of how I had forgotten how awesome early Incendiary were. 

Who doesn't remember the band's rampant fury on the split with Suburban Scum, where both "Victory In Defeat" and "God's Country" are absolute demolishers. The whole debut EP is a favorite, especially the guitar's short sludge adventures on "Angels With Filthy Souls", while the breakdown on "Rome Is Burning" truly is unbelievable. What I had heard the least were the tracks from the split with Unrestrained, and I was unfamiliar with "Bond and Break" (another unreleased song..?). 

The aggression is clear on the album as lyrics, voice and guitars seem to strike with an honest moral insistence, nicely showcasing the blazing early days of one of the best modern hardcore bands worldwide. Product of New York closes with an incredible cover of "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, a track you didn't know you needed in a crushing hardcore version. What a bass sound on that one. The grand city across the water so often promises, and now also delivers. One listens, and one feels implicated. These streets are the veins of Incendiary.

Release: March 23rd, 2026 | Closed Casket Activities
Rating: 4 out of 5 

Cryptworm - Infectious Pathological Waste (2026) Review

No bait and switch, no genre tourism, and no delicate handling on the latest album by Bristol-based swampy death metal band Cryptworm, who have been out and about for a few years now aiming to convince you of their obsession with filth and all things rotten. I've kept these guys within listening range since their debut Spewing Mephitic Putridity in 2022, and interest just went on growing with Oozing Radioactive Vomition shortly after, both albums being convincingly listenable on repeat without stretching the genre's limits. Blending the rawness of Autopsy with the elasticity of Demilich, the band brings forth a recognizable approach, formidable when done well, and that's exactly what one gets with their third effort, Infectious Pathological Waste.

Getting past the gruesomely beautiful cover art and the tracklist that reads as a kind of blackly comedic taxonomy of bodily catastrophe (often encountered in these woods), the music is more considered than the nomenclature implies. With a coherent, almost constant flow of malformed chunks of riffs, old-school death metal groove and tempo magic, Cryptworm ditch the idea of surprising you completely and collude to leave you gasping from all the well-set grotesquerie. I am in favor of the record's production especially compared to Oozing Radioactive Vomition, which makes this paradoxically accessible, as if one would walk in an abattoir kept in order. Vocal structure is completely torn apart in Tibor Hanyi's possibly anatomically inadvisable manner of spewing words on these tracks, yet it's one of the album's instant highlights.

I particularly enjoyed the times the band shamelessly embraced an almost bouncy flair to the already thick riffs, like in "Maimed and Gutted", opener "Gallons of Molten Hominal Goo" or the middle of "Gastrointestinal Seepage". Middle-paced hammering like in "Emanations of Corporeal Pyosis" or the self-titled track feel right any time they surface, but I always opt for speed and bludgeon, e.g. on "Drowning in Purulent Excrementia" or the best track of Infectious Pathological Waste, "Embedded with Parasitic Larvae". Cryptworm knows their pustulant death metal inside and out, sometimes overstate their fixation on sickening grooves, but it never plateaus. 

Enjoying this could be entirely up to whether the listener thinks familiarity is a virtue or a flaw, yet the album is straightforward, deceptively nuanced, and undeniably catchy all around. Cryptworm's sensibility towards death metal's legends still comes across in a form that feels their own, and they don't even strive for reaching a peak in the traditional sense. I can't argue further than relaying how enjoyable I find this approach, and how well the band treats it, maintaining the nauseating pressure as it was on Oozing Radioactive Vomition, with an even better sound. Beware, as you know what you're getting into.

Release: March 27th, 2026 | Me Saco un Ojo Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Store: Bigcartel