The third full length by Kazakh black/death metal band Nocturnal Art. Right out of the gate this album caught my attention due to the album cover being drastically different than the rest, as well as the fact there are only 4 songs. This album is completely different then the last two put out by the band but at the same time it is my personal favourite. Not only did it stick in my head, but it also is the first album so far to receive a song rating above an 8. This is by far their most traditional black metal release and again in my opinion best.
We kick the album off with the shortest of the tracks, a song which comes in with this graceful atmosphere - a sort of 'seeing the light feel' with the sounds of animals in nature. This is short lived as it then goes straight into blasting black metal, however don't believe there will be no Nocturnal Art staples present (at least besides the intro/outro themes). There is a solo that happens in the middle and then is followed by arguably the heaviest segment in a song so far before re-repeating the earlier blasting sound of the album and fading out with the sound of a church bell. This was a shock at first because I did not expect this but started to hear it out and enjoyed it quite a bit. This is followed by a song with similar staples, those being an intro, a blasting main segment, and then a solo in the middle. While similar to the opening track is keeps itself unique and becomes the first track to receive a 9 from Nocturnal Art. The third track that follows also shares the intro/outro with another blasting song present, not much to say but still solid. The final track follows this same format of intro/outro (though I am ignoring the women having sex with a goat audio that closes the album) and blasting pattern, though the first riff heard is a very heavy and slow doomy type approach which reminds me of songs on the last album, more specifically Postmortem and Песнь Кали.
The vocals on this are also solid but have a bit more diversity ironically enough, the opening track Dark gives you a pretty good idea of the general performance on this album. I would say the vocals in my opinion peak on this release. The instruments are more basic when it comes to their performance, more blasting and heavier with approaches though there is a solo on here. Different from last records but do still maintain a sort of flavour which belongs to Nocturnal Art. Pretty good and what I expected more from this band to begin with.
Overall this album might not be the most unique release but I do believe it to be their best. I would recommend people check it out at least out of curiosity. It makes me wonder where the band will go from this point onwards, I am hoping they can release an album which takes the attitude of this as well as the uniqueness of the first two and create their own little Magnum Opus from it.
