I had something of a passing fascination for Greek metal in the late 90s as at the time I had got into Rotting Christ, Necromantia and Nightfall. Each has their own unique take on dark or black metal and Nightfall was no different. Admittedly I found “The Lesbian Show” from 1997 a bit tougher to take after the bands early dark metal dirge. From there I passed the band by for metallic pastures new until now that is. The band split in 2006 but has reformed to reveal their latest dark metal opus, the lengthy titled “Astron Black And The Thirty Tyrants”.
Most will scream that this is very similar to Rotting Christ, with plenty of gothic overtones, keyboards sprinkled for atmosphere and gruff vocals to keep the music dark and heavy. After the prerequisite intro “Astron Black” bursts in with a dark melodious riff that has a touch of melodic blackness which is where the Rotting Christ comparisons will come flooding in. However Nightfall has a trademark lead guitar sound and here it is in full force as virtually every song has a great lead that has melody without becoming over pompous. I couldn’t help thinking that the music on this comeback release has a gothic horror rock feel. The riff that starts “Astromonica/Saturnian Moon” is dark and foreboding with a lavish amount of keyboards adding to the sumptuous vibe in the song.
The goth tones flow fluidly on “Astra Planeta / We Chose The Sun” as the first appearance of clean vocals comes through. “Ambassador Of Mass” is the first prominent stand out track as the lead and keys intro has a classical flavour before the huge melody is infused with an influx of double bass and a choir which works well together. By far the most commercial tune is “The Criterion” with clean vocals and a sweet melody, but don’t misinterpret me here the music is still darkly heavy. There are parts on this album that I enjoyed immensely such as the dark rich melodies and gothic textures but equally I didn’t like some of the vocal styles like the radio style echo for example. Also in places the album plods along very safely though the mood created by it is faultless, just a little boring. There is very little in the way of all out speed here as well apart from the closing song “Epsilon Lyrae” which has a blast start and plenty of dense rhythmic pulsation. This is of definite interest to anyone into goth black metal, especially Rotting Christ but the extra selling point if you need one is the impressive lead work that is prevalent.
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