 Nocturnal Rites
- "Shadowland" Century Media 2002 I'm a bit late with this review. Band's new release got into my hands by complete coincidence. Melodic Power Metal band Nocturnal Rites came out with its best production ever. Their older sound carried emptiness within. I mean that there was a huge sound hole that divided the contrast between high tuned polished double guitar work and rhythm line with bass guitar that was hard to detach with human capabilities of hearing. Band really improved that by releasing the most evil sounding output in their career. Band's trademark is again as a blink of an eye fast guitar work. This concerns great double team work during harmony passages, fast but clean quality solos, picking over main riffs or palmuted "one string" riffing that covers the background of Lindquist's non-specific singing, which is due to a more alive production outstanding as never before. Production is undoubtedly a remarkable achievement! But on the other hand, what is going on here? Evil and vampirized sound (thanks goes here to its production) is diminished by happy figured choruses, covered mostly by choosing very (here I'm taking the liberty to use an expression of my Firegoat team dude, our huge Immolation fan) infantile back vocals. The real and only bomber that deserves description as being completely angry and evil here is "Faceless God", where also vocals are fully expressing their aggression, which is mostly obscured by trapping itself into happy sounding frames of choruses. Band's music and poetry bring alive dwarfs that are singing their songs when working in their goldmines. Completely predictable happy high melodic choruses. I can finally point out that cold rationalism of Scandinavian Power Metal again overcame the soulful approach in music. The soul is castrated here, but the most important thing is that fairy-tales about dwarfs still live on.
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