Nightbringer - Terra Damnata

By Bryan Camphire. If the music you’re listening to does not give you gooseflesh, you are listening to the wrong music. A relative of mine told me that when I was young, and I have found those to be words to live by.

By Bryan Camphire.

Artwork by David Herrerias.

If the music you’re listening to does not give you gooseflesh, you are listening to the wrong music. A relative of mine told me that when I was young, and I have found those to be words to live by. Terra Damnata by Nightbringer is nothing short of hair-raising. In a sea of seemingly innumerable metal bands at present the music can tend to blend together. In turn, it becomes increasingly difficult for bands to distinguish themselves. How does one continue to sound extreme in 2017 when seemingly nothing is shocking, one wonders. If a metal listener begins to think that things all sound the same, that it’s all been done before, I say, look harder. Discover Nightbringer.

Three things are really impressive about Nightbringer. Firstly, their philosophies run deep. Recent interviews from this year alone (here and here) will enlighten the curious and open-minded reader into an inkling of what the band’s lyrical content and spirituality is all about. They certainly do not mess around with what they do. Their seriousness and conviction befits the intensity of the devotional music they produce. Secondly, the fact that they function as a live band gives their music a living breathing feeling. This is not a bedroom project. This is not music with a thousand guitar overdubs that could not possibly exist live. These men mean to come to a town near you to spread their blasphemic gospels. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, the music itself impresses with its sheer ferocious potency.

The music on Terra Damnata is complex. It is symphonic. It is the sound of an uprising, the sound of an overthrow. One thing that stands out almost immediately are the soaring lacerating lead guitar lines, way high up on the neck, tremolo-picked. It conjures up images of a rapidly spreading brush fire engulfing everything in its path, coughing up smoke, reducing all the eye can see to charred hapless embers. The heat of these leads feels like a laser. This is the sound of something that will make conservative parents nervous that this music may just irrevocably corrupt their children. The rhythm guitars are crisp and clean and ablaze with fury. Three of the band’s six members contribute vocals to this album, which certainly keeps things interesting. The vox range from vicious screams to chanted spiritual incantations. The synths are sinister, supplying the tunes with sorrowful minor key melody. The drums are breakneck. The patterns change up often. The playing is immaculate.

A highlight of the record comes midway through the release, "Let Silence Be His Sacred Name". After a demented piano waltz serving as an intro that sounds like it’s being played by some sickly count in a high collared black cape high up in some castle spire, the full band break into a furious riff in ⅞. That meter can often sound off kilter, but you might not even notice the odd time if you blinked. By two minutes into the tune, the band have broken into half tempo, and the riffs are murderous. It’s a tune worth listening to on repeat.

Terra Damnata is indeed a perfect soundtrack to this ‘cursed land’. From the stentorian opening of "As Wolves Among Ruins" through to its final cut, "Serpent Sun", on Terra Damnata, Nightbringer tear you apart worse than a vulture’s beak. Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'entrate.

Nightbringer - Ego Dominus Tuus

Written by Craig Hayes.

Cover art by David Herrerias.

Esoteric and enigmatic are obviously words and concepts embedded in the vernacular and culture of black metal. Chiefly because seemingly every band from the sub-genre would have us believe they are either one or both. However, if all a band is really doing is dispensing the same old B-grade Satanist schlock, then calling yourself esoteric or enigmatic is not only a suspect claim but also evidence of a complete misunderstanding of the nature of both concepts.

Esoteric and enigmatic aren't defined by hackneyed ‘more evil than evil’ histrionics, because both entail far deeper and often cryptic levels of knowledge being conveyed. Even if you don’t agree that there are supernatural beings at work, you’d know those bands that are truly esoteric and enigmatic because they’re the ones communicating a profound sense of enlightenment; no matter how tenebrous and terrifying that enlightenment may be. Those bands make you want to believe by releasing darkly devotional music that is overwhelming in its presence.

You can find that presence, and all that genuine esoteric, enigmatic, and diabolic glorification in the works of Colorado-based Nightbringer. The band’s arcane sonic artistry demands a level of consideration and investigation that exceeds stock standard theatrics, and Nightbringer was expressly created as a, “conduit for the contemplations on the mysteries of death as it is understood in the tradition of the art magical”.

Of course, that’s all well and good (or well and wicked, if you prefer), but plenty of other bands would claim to be voicing the magical and mysterious too. What makes Nightbringer’s claim valid is that the band’s releases have exhibited no shallowness or overworked play-acting. Nightbringer has remained firmly fixed on taking the climate of darkness that underscores our lives and amplifying and manifesting that through powerful and transformative expressions.

In essence, Nightbringer doesn’t speak of the mysteries of the great beyond in the abstract. The band directly communes with those nebulousness forces beyond the veil, beckoning them into being in the here and now. That’s been the case since the band’s first full-length, 2008’s Death and the Black Work, it’s right there in 2010’s Apocalypse Sun too, and more than evident in the band’s many split and demo releases.

Their last full-length, 2011’s Hierophany of the Open Grave, was a magnificent achievement in summoning a gnawing and malevolent presence. The album was dense and grandiose, and exhibited more complex and sophisticated songwriting. The swirling and dissonant chaos of orthodox Nordic black metal met the exploratory mettle of esteemed bands like Dødsengel, Deathspell Omega, or Blut Aus Nord. And Nightbringer’s scorched-black tremolo storms, bitter vocals, and technically masterful passages were all set within an orchestral framework.

What made Hierophany of the Open Grave so effective and captivating was that its aura lingered long after it was finished. Combine that with the album's strong sense of transcending the normative and a conjuring of the extramundane, and it seemed as if Hierophany of the Open Grave was going to sit in Nightbringer’s oeuvre as the band’s defining release.

At least, that was the case until their latest album, Ego Dominus Tuus arrived. Ego Dominus Tuus brings more of the same bone-chilling and pitch-black menace that Hierophany of the Open Grave possessed, but there’s even more to admire in Nightbringer’s ability to evoke the unholiest of atmospheres in the most reverential fashion.

That sense of veneration isn’t surprising. All of Nightbringer’s releases have praised the darkness, and in a recent Decibel interview multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Naas Alcameth compared the band’s compositional approach to a mason constructing a cathedral. There’s no more apt a description for the awe that Ego Dominus Tuus inspires than that. Because, as Alcameth pointed out, Nightbringer’s songs are cathedrals of sound – meticulously constructed edifices extolling the virtues of the band’s chosen Lord.

On Ego Dominus Tuus you’ll find intricate craftsmanship and a sense of worship imbued in every note on tracks like “Lantern of Eden's Night” and “Things Which Are Naught”. Both songs are iniquitous prayers, rich with symbolism, and attuned to stir the soul into action. But then, you could say the very same about the enshrouding darkness of “I Am the Gatewayy”, “The Witchfires of Tubal Qayin”, and epic album closer, “The Otherness of Being”.

All of Ego Dominus Tuus’ tracks are forceful incantations in their own right. All contain elements both ferocious and dynamic. And even the more ambient crawl of “Call of the Exile” still embodies the feel of apocalyptic times fast approaching. Any track from the album taken in isolation serves its purpose well – erasing the boundary between this existence and more unearthly realms. Yet, taken as a whole, the 70-minutes of Ego Dominus Tuus also serves as a breathtaking ceremonial suite, where performance and spiritual practice are one.

There is no separation of art and invocation on Ego Dominus Tuus. The album’s impassioned riffs, interweaving vocal lines, and swells of keyboards drive a sinister and symphonic saga forward, but what Ego Dominus Tuus never feels is overlong or melodramatic. That’s not to say the album isn’t dramatic or even bombastic in parts, because you don’t a create a release like Ego Dominus Tuus without having grand plans, and you don’t tear a rift in reality without a sense of extravagant gesturing. Also, Nightbringer are clearly a band that admires classical compositions, so the album is charged with momentous musical and emotional surges.

However, Ego Dominus Tuus is never too exaggerated. Nightbringer tell a tale that is impressively ornate, yet never overblown. Every riff, melody, harsh vocal passage, and beat of the drum has been expertly arranged to evoke exactly what is needed. It’s a considered approach by Nightbringer, one threaded through a cacophony that is savage and ungodly, but always mindful of its overarching purpose.

Ultimately, Ego Dominus Tuus baptizes all in triumphant and diabolic liturgies. Nightbringer is fervent and unnervingly intense throughout the album, and whether you’re a believer or not, the band’s devotion to the dark arts is certainly a testament to its convictions. Ego Dominus Tuus sets a new benchmark for Nightbringer, and for any likely contender for the esoteric and enigmatic USBM crown.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Nightbringer / Dødsengel - Circumambulations of the Solar Inferno

Written by Zamaan Raza.

Artwork & Layout by Antithesis

This high concept occult black metal split from the ever excellent Daemon Worship Productions features the USA’s Nightbringer and Norway’s Dødsengel. The four tracks follow the sun on four parts of its journey from death, through the underworld, to ascension and finally rebirth. The mystical tone is immediately set by the gloriously unsettling artwork, a pentacle-like sigil surrounded by images of the Egyptian sun god Ra.

Nightbringer’s side is undoubtedly the more challenging: a roiling chaos anchored by an atonal, serpentine, tremolo-picked riff. If you are familiar with their superb 2011 album Hierophany of the Open Grave, you will have some idea of what to expect --- although, thanks to new drummer Menthor (Necrosadist, Lvcifyre, Corpus Christii, Enthroned), this one somehow feels more dense and claustrophobic.

The tracks by Dødsengel are a shade closer to second wave orthodoxy, which is not to say they are short of ideas, by any means. These two songs slowly build momentum, with doom metal mutating into black. The standout track of the split, “Watchtower of the South: Drunk on Innermost Fire” starts as with a crushing riff before morphing into a weightless cosmic pilgrimage in the mould of Darkspace.

Whilst Nightbringer’s contribution is a frenzied, blood-soaked ritual, Dødsengel’s is almost meditative. In keeping with the theme, Nightbringer’s side is a destructive descent; Dødsengel’s is creative, a summoning; The former’s production is diamond-sharp and caustic, the latter’s is murky and subdued. These two starkly contrasting styles are proof that that there is still room for creativity in black metal. A must-buy.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]