Nocturnal

A lost Australian classic here from the Adelaide solo project Nocturnal. Sadly this band disappeared after their next release leaving behind a brief, but interesting legacy. OK, maybe he never played live and maybe his music seemed derivative at the time, but I have grown to like it. I Think that when this came out – the genre’s boundaries were much less defined, so innovation was important for success. Arathorn’s unabashed Burzum worship was dismissed as a rip-off.

An accusation not without merit, but he does produce ideas of his own that are completely overlooked when the comparison is made. He competently mimics Varg’s idiosyncrasies – the shrill vocals, the churning black guitars and the sorrowful melody overlays, even the drumstick count offs. However all that allows him to recapture the great sense of morbid drama that the first Burzum record introduced into Black Metal and it is a difficult feat, folks.

The production is quite good by current BM standards – the layered guitars are well-represented, allowing for a churning rhythm and a shimmering melody section. The bass is a lot higher than in Burzum and is also distorted – it is used for great effect to accentuate the primitive rhythms. The drums are very close in both sound and the sort of patterns he uses. Blasts are employed sparingly. The vocals performance is excellent, although the clean parts are spoken with an Australian accent that may be off-putting to the metropolitan locals.

The music then is extremely primitive, old-school Black Metal, barely rising out of the primordial swamp of rock n roll. A lot of the melodic guitar work reminds me a little of fellow Adelaide command - Mournful Congregation. Synth is used cautiously at the end of the record with a mournful atmospheric bearing towards simple, sad melody. Often enough he breaks free from the derivative approach completely and it is done through the use of these melodic parts, as contrasted against the primal undercurrent.

If you come across this release, do yourself a failure, haha, it seems that the underworld may be ready for it.