What?: The fifth album from "psychedelic black metal" Chicago band Nachtmystium.
Why?: One of the many albums I borrowed from a guy at work. I absolutely loved about 10% of them, this being one of them (others being albums from Agalloch, Absu, Katatonia, Melechesh and various other not-mainstream metal bands). I finally got around to getting the CD only recently. I love it to death
Tell me more!:
I love this album. It's brilliant.
For years... a decade or more even... I avoided most black metal because it's all just screaming and super fast double-kick isn't it?
It's bands like Nachtmystium (and many others I've since discovered) that grab my attention though, by mixing in everything from straight 70s-rock-n-rock, The Cure, Ministry and generous use of keyboards, into their black-metal soup.
If it were not for the guttural and screaming vocals, and occasional black-metal drums, with different mixing, this really could be a The Cure album in every way. It has pop choruses and dark engaging and sometimes-silly lyrics. A band like "Ghost" (aka. "Ghost B.C.") have made a whole career out of songs like "Nightfall", only Nachtmystium's singer sounds a lot less like Weird Al.
As an album it flows well, is varied enough to keep me listening, full of great melody and chorus, and short, at only 48 minutes.
I didn't enjoy the album after this anywhere near as much, but I must dig up it's predecessor ("Assassins") as many suggest it "more coherent", which may, or may not, be a good thing.
9/10
