Diabolical Bloodshed

Old school death metal has been an obsession of mine ever sense I first heard tracks from Morbid Angel's illustrious opus Alters of Madness (with "Chapel of Ghouls" and "Lord Of All Fevers & Plague" among my most favorite tracks of all time) and Nominon continues to feed my insatiable desire.

Diabolical Bloodshed is, to me, the musical equivalent of a horde of ravenous daemons arising from the depths of hell for the shear pleasure of ripping and devouring human flesh (with the occasional desecration of something sacrosanct). In other words, the album cover does justice in representing the music. The production is rather excellent, being audible but not too clean and still gives the necessary elements the grit that they need. It also gives audibility to my most favorite and sometimes underrated element - the bass, which of course the band makes wonderful use of whether it be at the beginning of a song, such as "Servants of the Moonlight", or a break in-between (with the example being the opener "Malicious Torment").

There are some keyboards that are implemented within the structure of some songs, though it is limited to introductions, such as in "Cemetery of Life", but that's the extent of their usage that I am aware of. The riffs have the occasional melodic/atmospheric sense when not unleashing tremolo or generally aggressive riffs. The riffs featured here are wonderful, rarely do they faultier but they do. A prime example would be "Sodom's Fall" the riff that begins the song is utterly worthless and it reappears twice within the song (again at the end) but they do manage to save the song with the riff directly after the aforementioned turning it into one of the best songs on the album (mostly due to the bass solo right before the guitar solo near the end).

The drums back the music perfectly with excellent cymbal/ double bass fills and blast beats as well as precision beats when ever appropriate.
The vocals presented here are not the best, nor are they the worst and overtime i have become accustomed to them. But they are rather low in the mix and while they are intelligent they come off as weak if not forced even if that is not the case.
The vocal's more common peaks are high pitched screams with the less common being the lower pitched growl/scream although it's very hard to tell because, as I said before, the production is not too generous to the vocals.

All in all a wonderful debut (with it being the only release I have from them which I am working on improving) and i would recommend this to anyone that is a fan of death metal in general.
Highlights include most if not all of the tracks, dispite minor annoyances none of the tracks ever offend me to the point of disgust.

Enjoy the blood-lust.

I really like this debut album from Nominon, I like it a lot actually. As an avid fan of Swedish death metal knows, you can never get enough of this style. Nominon combines all the best parts of bands like Carnage, Entombed, Vomitory, Dismember and Unleashed to create a brutal and relentless album.

Let’s start with the production; this album was recorded at the famous sunlight studios in Stockhom Sweden and boasts a powerful sound. The trebly guitars, the thick drum sound, and the distorted bass are all up front in the mix. This album has a very heavy sound to it, and honestly its one of the best sounding albums I’ve heard recently.

The music is much in the vein of the aforementioned bands, but the guitar playing can be very melodic at times. The ending to the song “Sodom’s Fall” is just so ominous its awesome. Mixed in with these melodies are some brutal blasting sections that recall grind core bands like Napalm Death, and Terrorizer. The music is varied enough to keep you interested all throughout this album.

Everyone here plays their respective instruments well, but I have to give credit to this guitar duo. Mattson and Sulasalmi weave intricate melodies and leads into these songs with expertise. The lead playing is very well done, there is not much flash here at all. That’s what I like about these leads, it’s not a million notes jammed into a 4 bar measure. These guitarists understand the concept of quality over quantity very well.

There are not many weak points on this album. I guess you could say that the vocals are nothing special, and while that may be true, what would you want them to sound like? Also, the bass playing is not that special. There isn’t any area where you can hear the bass on its own. I know it sounds like I’m nit picking but I don’t know anything else you can really complain about on this album.

If you’re a fan of old school Swedish death metal then you cannot pass this up. I was very impressed by this band and I look forward to hearing some other stuff from them. If you can remember a time when the best death metal came from Sweden, and when Like an Everflowing Stream or Left Hand Path never left your cassette player than Nominon is definitely for you!