Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II

From my point of view, I know more than you.

An equitable appraisal of Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II is a feat that simply cannot be mounted without first addressing the obvious controversy and whirlwind of chaos that erupted in the few years following it's release. While I have to applaud Judd for delivering what appears to be an honest ode to the fringe under-drippings of society telegraphed via someone who has undoubtedly felt first hand it's inviting charm along with all of the repulsion that comes with it, I can't necessarily say that he ended Nachtmystium with his head held high, ultimately tacking on an unfortunate peroration to what is honestly a damn impressive album. Blame it perhaps on his musicianship, but the parlous sincerity of Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II can't help but clash with the public image of someone who appears to brag about his hard drug use, drawing unneeded attention to a subculture that already suffers from a beyond-skewed public image. Add this to the USBM scene, which has always struggled to wriggle out of the shadows of it's counterparts across the big pond, and it nearly becomes knee-jerk reaction to judge this album in a more censorious light.

Death walks in my shadow, always drawing close.

While I traditionally disregard scene darlings like Wolves in the Throne Room for their mawkish preachings and air of pretense, Nachtmystium has always come off as infinitely more sincere through the atmosphere they create. Mental images of urban decay interspersed with the secretions of the city's mass machine are prevalent. The stench of life pulls them out from their dreams, and the daily grind begins. It is through this dichotomy that Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II excels, painting a dissonant portrait of a self-evoked and self-contained hell. The polarity between nebular, Inquisition-esque cookers like "High on Hate" and the more drawn-out, hopeful yearning of the leads on songs like "Ruined Life Continuum" ends up being one of the best cards Nachtmystium holds in their hand here. Add to this an experimental character that draws from a number of atypical avenues for the genre, and the end result is a great experience. Comparisons can and will be made to more "out of left field" acts like Hail Spirit Noir, but Nachtmystium never forgets their roots, and through this the music never strays off target.

I plunged the devil's claw; injected fear.

The production is spot-on for black metal of this cosmic of a scope. Judd's tone sounds like he cranked the mid-range dial on a mid-level combo amp and just went to town. The tone ebbs and flows in crashing waves synonymous with the tempo of the music, reminding me of Limbonic Art's Legacy of Evil or perhaps some of Immortal's mid-period efforts. The tone isn't necessarily caustic or abrasive sounding, falling more along the lines of filthy and underproduced. Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II really gains some mileage when it decides to shift into waters less traveled, transitioning into a more rocking groove like on "No Funeral," which rides a simple synth line for the duration; disorienting, haunting, yet catchy at the same time. "Nightfall" is another great example, drawing from a stylistic melting pot that contains both clean vocals and droning powerchords. Truly memorable, catchy material. Perhaps these deviations from the supposed hallmarks of the genre are why Nachtmystium are so reviled in some circles?

Night falls on these filthy streets.

The aforementioned keyboards end up being the missing link that separates the positively amazing cuts from the simply good ones. "High on Hate" is decent throughout it's first half, but when the massive-sounding orchestrations come in the whole ordeal takes on a more consequential tone that really gives the neck muscles a workout. I ended up wishing there were more keyboards, as the passages that do feature them are universally spectacular. Despite some of the tracks lacking in epic appeal, the band shifts into what can almost be considered a hybrid of Omnium Gatherum and Emperor, like on the title track. While the solos would clash with a more traditional black metal act, Nachtmystium leaves just enough wiggle room to fit them in snugly. Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II drones, grooves, and does just about everything you would not expect, and it is all the better for it. Definitely a highlight of the USBM scene, and not to be missed by those willing to try anything "just once."

All I want is more, my name is Blake Judd, and I obscure my deceit with pretense almost as ludicrous as that within this review.

"Never trust a junkie."

It's a hell of a thing when bands who you think have hit their creative nadir somehow find it in them to make things even worse. Once you've hit rock bottom, how can you go any further down? How can you, somehow, lower the bar when it's already six feet under? I'd not known then, and up until this moment I'd've probably never known, and in a way, I would have bene blissfully happy were I to not know the true limits of musical festering.

And I blame this album for it...

I suppose it was my own fault; I'd had the misfortune of checking out "Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1", and it was so mind-numbingly bland and lifeless that I didn't think Blake would have it in him to find a way to reanimate the corpse...but I was proven wrong. For as bad as "Assassins" was, "Addicts" is many times worse in pretty much every area. I took this whole divorce from black metal and entry into the psychedelic rock thing in stride in the hopes that it would be a fun little distraction...but no. It didn't work. At all. There was no head-bouncin' funness that came with the older psych bands, that same spirit still existing in the Cathedrals and Bigelfs of the world. Nachtmystium, for all their local legendness, was never able to convey proper musicality no matter their genre, but this new direction of theirs is just the latest in so many wrong turns they've undertaken during these long, lonely years, leading us to this. "Addicts" is bad. REAL bad. Pretty fucking awful, actually. The main umbrage I'd always had with Nachtmystium is their general lack of energy and half-assed performance appeal, which is augmented the most on this and the previously derided "Assassins." Bad musical ideas are bad enough to suffer through (and in this, there are PLENTY...), but if the guitars, drums, synth abuse and croaking rasps come off as tired, apathetic, and, for all I know, stoned, it does NOT make for an entertaining listen, and instead bogs the listener down to the band's personal level of degenerative malaise. I want some spirit with my metal, some moxie, some LIFE, and this dire attempt at bringing back the musical dead leaves me quite bitter and disjointed. Each successive track, up 'til the very end, just got progressively worse (if that were at all a feat), where the nowheresville of "High on Hate" and""No Funeral" descend into the endless depravity of "The End Is Eternal" and "Blood Trance Fusion" at an abrupt fashion that just adds insult to injury.

In the end, "Addicts" is a broken, disjointed, almost crippled record from a band that has a general idea of what it wants to do (no matter how ill-conceived) but doesn't have the capacity just yet to see it fulfilled. Clearly one of the most overrated, underwhelming albums of 2010, this did nothing to change my mind on the sheer mediocrity of the 'mystium beast. Done and done!

Nachtmystium's highly-anticipated followup to 2008's Assassins: Black Meddle, Part I clearly shows that Nachtmystium is staying true to their concept, though not, perhaps, the concept you expected.

You may have expected them to do more of the psychedelic black metal that made them famous. But if so, maybe you didn't notice the spelling of "meddle". Instead, they have pushed their sound into industrial black metal. I've seen several sources make comparisons to Killing Joke, and I think that's as close as you can come to explaining the industrial side. The black metal part is not as aggressive as on their past work, either. It's more on the Primordial end of the spectrum, though the ultra-harsh vocals are still here. In four words, I would call it industrial gothic black metal, but that's a bit of a mouthful.

They start the album with an intro and the most straight-forward black metal on the album, "High on Hate". Then the surprises start: black metal mixed with old time rock and roll (is that a tambourine on "Nightfall"?) and a sort of gothic/synth-pop track ("No Funeral"). The remainder of the album is the Killing Joke-inspired work, with highlights including "Addicts" and "Blood Trance Fusion".

The Verdict: I didn't see this coming, and that's one of the best things about Nachtmystium. At the same time, it's lacking the aggression of their earlier work. I like the more gothic-sounding approach, but I would have appreciated it if they had done more high-speed hate to give more variety to the album in tempo and tone. It has the potential to be extremely divisive, likely alienating as many fans as it earns. Still, it's a very solid release.

adapted from http://fullmetalattorney.blogspot.com/

I remembered the time I listened to Nachmystium’s “Assassins: Black Meddle Pt.1” about two years ago (as of July 2010), thinking it was black metal that my tender ears could handle, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to handle their music. It was too weird and too experimental for me back then, so I didn’t appreciate this band back then. Well, two years later, I’m listening again to that very same band, now with new full-length, “Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2”.

Although Nachymystium was a black metal band during their inception, “Addicts…” present a kind of music very far from their roots. Well, the vocals might be raspy, but that’s it, since the overall music shows loads of influences, including hard rock and psychedelic, which makes this album very experimental indeed. Another thing I’ve noticed here is that the album doesn’t have that heavy vibe being the metal band they are, with a lot of emphasis on the vocals than any other instrument. Nevertheless, I could say that this album is remarkable, since no song sounds like another song here, ant there are no fillers, thankfully. Well, let’s check all of the songs in the album then, one by one.

We have first the album’s intro, “Cry for Help”, which is wicked enough to spell out “Nothing hurts more than being born!” Next song is “High on Hate”, which is the album’s only song which sounds close to black metal, having all that blast beats and tremolo pickings, although the song’s direction changed halfway through. “Nightfall” is the first rocking song here, and it’s not that bad, having hard rock solos and a good atmosphere to complete the song. Meanwhile, “No Funeral” is a mid-paced techno-sounding song with lots of synth swirls which brings a sense of gloom all over, which continues (and intensifies) to the next songs, “Then Fires” and “Addicts”, both of which present a slower (and a distressing) tempo. “The End is Eternal”, maintains the slowness of the two songs prior, with an atmospherically eerie twist, having the essence that black metal has. The most unique song, though, is ”Blood Trance Fusion”. With its very dissonant (and psychedelic) intro, and also the song’s ferocious force and speed (at times), it’s unlikely not to be a favorite. “Ruined Life Continuum” is another hard rock song with a dash of melancholy done right. The song’s atmosphere (even though it has no guitar solos or such) is sure to win you over. Lastly, we have “Every Last Drop”, the album’s longest (and longest) song, spanning for over 8 minutes. The song really gives that ending the album needs: an ending filled with so much desolation and despair.

This album, frankly, is so excellent, though I think you’ll have a hard time listening to this one if you’re not much used to music with a slower tempo and if you’re used to metal with a heavy vibe, or maybe if you are a newbie to such music. Even so, metallers used to extreme metal (and to a wide range of rock music, in general), will really enjoy this. What else could I say? Well, just buy this album right now and play this repeatedly, that’s what!

Originally made for http://mystifymyserie.blogspot.com

Poor Blake Judd; the brainchild of one of the top-leading USBM bands, Nachtmystium, has reached the point where they now might be considered a commodity. Pretty amazing work for a band that was once considered a contender in a sub-genre that promised, delivered, failed, was loved and is equally hated, AND the worship of hundreds of thousands black metal hipsters running around with Mac Books and Starbucks screaming how much they hated a certain Republican. That's fine and dandy, but it's more fitting/justifying for Blake when he wasn't even taken seriously. His buddy Malefic(Xasthur) went in over his over-inflated, morose ego. Wrest(Leviathan) turned out to be a band too fucking bitter for the average human to comprehend. N.Imperial(Krieg) is still a demented, violent beast it ever was, and let's not forget the few bands that have popped-up in the last few years(Wolves In the Throne Room, Krallice, Weakling) which all just reek of Indie-worship and probably have no clue about Judas Iscariot, Absu, Necrovore, Von, etc. Nachtmystium were the least likely to succeed at becoming a part of any of this, but they did....and said "Fuck it."

Nachtmystium started with "Instinct:Decay" which featured a HUGE progression and then by their next album,"Assassins: Black Meddle Pt.1", turned into this drug-fueled haze of experimental FUN. It won over critics and with their newest album album they will not keep winning them over but they are going to piss them off, shock them, and fuck with their heads again. It's great that a band coming from genre that insists on worshiping it's Norwegian grandfathers to no end. Blake's hellish chain-smoking-fueled vocals puts it out on the table with the opening song "High On Hate" with lyrics such as "We are not your leaders/we are not your friends/we are thieves and cheaters/we don't want your loyalty/we don't wan't your trust!" as the final ultimatum; They've left the drama-infested scene of bullshit and want to do their own thing. And they do it with style!

The album IS black metal folks, but it's getting to the point where it's a style of black metal that eerily seems like it's morphing into something that is more sinister, decadent, depraved, and generally fucked-up. Like a copy of 'Less Than Zero" where the emotional entropy, dug use, and partying is getting to the point where someone is about to have a nervous breakdown from it being too much to handle. Pulling in Post-Punk, and Industrial influences even more it's makes you question you what Nachtmystium really wants. The answer is clear that they want to LIVE, quite a contradiction where one of it's brother sub-genres is called DSBM(depressive suicidal black metal). Song like "Nightfall", the title track, "No Funeral", and "Then Fires" range from early Killing Joke("The Wait), early Ministry("Effigy"), and Hawkwind.

Already it's half-way through the new year into a new decade, and maybe this is a sign of a new genre of black metal that is able to take in new influences from unlikely sources. It may not be any more open-minded or life-affirming. It may not be more violent, less misanthropic, or even less cynical, but it's a different shade of darkness which may be more closer to reality; The ever self-destructive genre that IS black metal which is one of the pillars that was erected out of the ashes of burnt churches in the 90's. As Nachtmystium's main man Blake Judd penned down; here's to hoping.

Since having granted the previous album of Nachtmystium's my 'Album of 2008' for it's unique and psychedelic take on black metal it was inevitable that the band's next album was going to be a challenging listen for me. Not least because Nachtmystium are a challenging listen, but that "Assassins: Black Meddle Part I" was already some distance past the sign saying 'Thank you for visiting Black Metal. We hope to see you again soon' on the road out of extreme metal into newer pastures, and so part II was only ever going to be over the horizon and far, far away.

Following an uninteresting introduction piece, "Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II" cracks into life with "High on Hate", drenched in a sound that is wonderfully black metal, but not. Dissonance remains a clear feature even now on the band's 5th full length, both in guitar sound and Blake Judd's caustic-as-ever vocals, as the opening to this song shakes rattles and rolls like any true black metal affair until a brief, yet stylistically sexy (a suitable adjective I think so) solo quickly shows how much Nachtmystium are uninterested in sticking to stereotypes these days. While "High on Hate" arguably remains one of the most BM numbers on this record, the following "Nightfall" is Nachtmystium circa 2010 through and through. Incase any lingering doubts remained (or your corpse-painted heart might have wished for a change of heart and a dramatic U-turn), the quaint percussion usage generates a relaxed psychedelic feel that leaves the song a million miles from the cold heart of black metal yet just mere kilometres from it musically. To my mind only Darkthrone have this ability today, a facet that should be celebrated in these oft-derided Americans.

At this point in time however, with fewer listens given to "Addicts" than it's predecessor, "Addicts" begins to lose ground which ultimately it never makes up, with "Then Fires" and the title track, songs that meander along aimlessly without the impetus of either the blacker material or the brilliant psychedelic "Seasick" trilogy that closed "Assassins". This fall into a no man's land of drifting tedious psychedelia is finally broken by "Blood Trance Fusion", a slightly industrialised song (not dissimilar to Jotunspor) which is notable for it's complete rip-off of Venom's classic "Black Metal" in the chorus. Clearly, after defining their own path in recent times it was decided a bit of everyday BM plagiarism was in order...

"Ruined Life Continuum" is highlighted, not for the first time, but some of the intelligent lead work found coming out of bands' guitars before "Every Last Drop" represents a low-key end in comparison to the aforementioned "Seasick" triumvirate. What Nachtmystium have attempted with "Addicts" is in reality pretty simple: they've been brave enough to combine disparate influences into a sound uncompromising and challenging to the established and tired formula of generic black metal. While it's not come off as well as "Assassins" the psyche of Nachtmystium must be hailed for such an achievement and glorified above the cut 'n' paste market of 'true' black metal, an order I'd like to see continually challenged until people realise these guys are more important to the genre than you'd ever believe.

Originally written for www.Rockfreaks.net

So Nachtmystium is back with their second installment in the "Black Meddle" albums, eh? It almost feels like yesterday when they released "Assassins - Black Meddle Part I". Maybe because that was almost exactly this time; two years ago. And between the two albums, Doomsday Derelicts was released. It looks like Nachtmystium have nothing better to do than to release albums and EP's every single year, not that this is a bad thing.

The album opens up with a sort of Drum-esque ambient piece reminiscent of Lustmord or Merzbow, but on top of that, they spell out "nothing hurts more than being born". All I have to say about that is that it's too emo, even for Nachtmystium, who have always talked about sadness and death. The piece itself is good, but could be done better, as it's off tempo a bit and it seems to have too much effort put into a drum ambience piece. Even Ildjarn and Niddhog didn't try to make their ambience anything more then what it was.

This release was so much more experimental then the first one being that it had many tracks that used some form of background noise that almost put your mind into an acid trip. I like this type of music, but I never expected Nachtmystium to do it, which threw me off when I first heard the single "No Funeral", which used a keyboard to create a slow, almost electronic feel to the music, especially in the choruses, where the only thing that made it sound like the song itself was that it used the same drum beat. I thought this song was the weakest out of the bunch, but it was still a fun listen.

This album seemed to resemble a lot of what Leviathan had done, but I guess that is to be expected with Wrest being on the writing crew as a session musician. I think that Wrest's drumming was probably the best part of the release. As a drummer myself, I can tell when a beat is barely off, but Wrest did damn good in the fact that even slow songs, like "Then Fires", he kept a beat that was amazingly well and pulled the music together flawlessly.

Blake Judd's vocals were better then in Assassins, but I still think Nachtmystium's highlight in their career was Instinct:Decay, which was the start of their psychedelic/experimental change. His vocals seemed more punk oriented in this release, which threw me off, because they're still considered "black metal" by many, and punk vocals are on the other end of the chain then black metal vocals. He does his best job in the song "Addicts" where he actually carries a melody (mind you, not a great melody, but a melody nonetheless)

I've gone on about this album and all it's good points for far too long now. It's almost as if I can't find something wrong with it, but that's speaking to fast. The thing I didn't like about the album is that it did NOT sound like Nachtmystium. It was a major change from Assassins, even bigger then Assassins was from Instinct:Decay. It almost sounded as if their label asked them to change their sound to downplay not only their talent, but to get out of the underground and into the mainstream. I guess it's just me nitpicking, but it's still an annoyance of mine.

Highlights: Nightfall, Then Fires, Addicts, Ruined Life Continuum