Reign of the Malicious

This was the first bit of music I'd heard from this now legendary USBM band and although their current music transcends black metal REIGN OF THE MALICIOUS is "true" as true can be. The production is ULTRA NECRO even by true standards, Azentrius(Blake) is totally corpse painted out and there is a cool and there is a cool cover of BURZUM's "Lost Wisdom."

After a sort of generic BM keyboard intro the album gets the party started with the title track. Even through the production the power of this track is undeniable from the first riff. What has always made Nachtmystium special is Blake's ability to write excellent melodies and songs that stay with you after you've put the album away. The mid song Call of the Ancient is an extremely slow depressing song sort of in the vein of early Judas Iscariot an unoriginal comparison but true non-the-less. The most bad-ASSS track on this album is MAY DARKNESS CONSUME THE FUCKING EARTH!! I remember when I saw these guys at The Elbow Room I almost shat myself when they played this song. MDCTE is one of the best apocalyptic black metal songs I've ever heard simultaneously creating both a grim and epic atmosphere. The last song is the Burzum cover I mentioned earlier, it's not bad but it is tough to rate a cover of a band as great as Burzum. I mean EVERYONE is influenced by that Nazi. The bonus track is a poor quality live recording that ends the album on a sour note. Seriously, it adds nothing to the album.

Over all this is a good indicator of the great things to come. This is by no means a flawless album but Blake is definitely a talented fuck.

Nachtmystium is a band for those who cringe at the sound of crisp production levels and flowerly metal music.

That saidm, Reign of the Malicious begins with a brief, haunting intro, which basically just consists of some synths (which never show up again for the remainder of the record) and a snare drum. This successfully sets the mood, and the title track kicks the remaining 30 minutes off with a guitar screech, followed by raw, blazing, absolutely hate-filled music. The vocals are tortured and soul-wrenching, and the guitarwork is a mix of Darkthrone- and Mutiilation-type riffs.

But at what point does a band go too far with underproducing an album in order to achieve that raw, grim sound? Well, the varying levels of sound definitely detract from the attainable quality of the music. At points on the record, the drums are inaudible - masked by the fuzzy, grinding guitars, and the loud screams - and at other times, the guitars are overpowered by the drumming. It seems as though the album was recorded in different sessions at different studios, as the sound of one song can greatly vary from the next. But when you're listening to the ugliest form of music ever created, you tend to become immune to the endless race to finally spawn the messiest, grimmest sound. But i guess this is what Nachtmystium wanted: the bastard son of Darkthrone, Clandestine Blaze, old Deathspell Omega, and the melancholic tinge of Mutiilation.

To end it off, the first of the last two tracks is a cover of Burzum's "Lost Wisdom". Not much can be said here. It's nothing groundbreaking, and it just sounds like an unmixed version done by Varg himself. Lastly, a live version of "Under the Horns of Darkness" is included, with Zmij on vocals, thus explaining the gibberish at the beginning of the song (he's Polish). The live track is an utter waste of time - like most live black metal recordings are. All that's really audible is the vocals and some of the riffing...but hey, that's not much different from the rest of the album!

To conclude, Reign of the Malicious is some decent, raw black metal, but obviously isn't anything _too_ new, as it seems to just piece together the accomplishments of many great bands that have come before. And to enjoy it at all, you have to have a good pair of headphones, and a quiet place to listen to it.