Nachtvorst - Stills

Hailing from the Netherlands, this new outfit released their debut album entitled ‘Stills’ which will definitely leave a remarkable impact in the sub genre of Melancholic mid-tempo/slow Black Doom Metal scene. ‘Stills’ contains only 5 diverse tracks where 3 of them are durable for around 10 to 14 minutes.

The album opens with the track ‘Dawn of End’ which consists of echoed primitive guitars blended with instrumental passages which then gets engulfed with fast lead guitar patterns enhancing an atmosphere full of desolation and grief. The next track sounds somehow monumental and the track consists mainly of a thick distorted bass guitar and drums filled with occasional guitar lead passages. On the other hand the next song ‘Stills’ consists of ravaging Blackened Doom Metal full of raging rhythm guitars and dual melancholic lead guitars. In other words yes…there are 3 guitars playing! The fourth song ‘Wandering’, perhaps is the very best song in the whole album which is also ideal to introduce the band. Mid-tempo downtuned rhythms filled with distant high-pitched growls. The song suddenly jumps into Thrash and Blast beats. This track has quite a Swedish-Death Metal element judging by the musical structures as well as the guitar harmonization. This very song is 11 minute long, and apart from Metal music, instrumental guitar intervals followed by nice drumming works is also present. Finally ‘Epitaph’ which starts with old school black metal with fuzzy down tuned guitars filled with nice sounding classical bass sound followed by dual lead guitar performance. Afterwards the song slows its tempo filled with groovy guitars and harmonization, which again it skips into some echoed atmospheres which I can describe it as a Melancholic version of Leviathan (US).

This very release is quite diverse, well performed and well recorded. By recording I mean that considering the variation of music styles, the band made a good mix between the old school Black Metal sound with a production typically found in Doom music. One remarkable aspect about this band is that this is just a 2-man-band where one is the singer and the other guy performs all instruments.

Surely this band and this very release will definitely be appreciated by listeners of Forgotten Tomb and (old) Katatonia. A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BAND - TO FOLLOW!

  1. Dawn of End
  2. Murmurs
  3. Stills
  4. Wandering
  5. Epitaph

Black Devastation Records
Reviewer: Jo
Dec 29, 2009

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