Bordering on the fringes of greatness, catching attention from unlikely and even hip sources and certainly not wanting to be lumped in with the black metal brigade which they started life being firmly entrenched within, all hail Nachtmystium. Last years sterling ‘Assassins – Black Meddle Part One’ was critically acclaimed by many and although I found it having some weak parts, it was an album that on the whole made me sit up and take a lot of notice. Whilst we wait patiently for what may or may not be ‘Black Meddle Part 2’ we have a bit of a stopgap EP, or so I thought. Looking into things though it would seem this was actually released in the USA back last April by Century Media as a precursor for ‘Assassins’ but is only just seeing the (candle) light of day over here. This was also originally intended as being part of a split with the mighty Leviathan but was delayed due to legal issues.
Opening title track ‘Worldfall’ starts in what sounds like cosmic freefall and has that spatial atmosphere that ‘Assassins’ generally invoked from the offset. This is a post-rock sounding odyssey with spoken background vocals, layers of clean crooning and futuristic keys. It is a slow and majestic number and unwinds in its own time without any rush about it at all until just after the halfway mark when a spiralling guitar weave pervades the musical cosmos. No matter which way you look at it the feral bark of ‘Depravity’ brings out the bestial blackness and space implodes into a vortex of claustrophobic hatred. A re-recording of ‘Demise’ track ‘Solitary Voyage’ follows and really kind of fuses the past and present aspects of the band together. Blake’s craggy vocals howling from the void and the instrumentation having a cold and bleak maudlin feeling about it whilst retaining that ‘lost in space’ sort of vibe.
I love the two covers. Even if I do not know the second Goatsnake’s ‘IV’ it sounds exactly like I would expect it to, heavily medicated after a bong session. More of interest to me is the Death In June cover of one of their most well known songs ‘Roseclouds Of Holocaust.’ Nachtmystium have got the depressive tone of the song spot on and evoked the mood of it really well. So not a lot else to say here but ‘Worldfall’ sits comfortably alongside ‘Assassins’ and if you loved that you should most certainly check this companion piece out.
http://www.myspace.com/nachtmystium
