NOCTEM - Haeresis

October 20, 2016, 7 years ago

(Prosthetic Records)

By Greg Pratt

Rating: 7.5

review heavy metal noctem

NOCTEM - Haeresis

Talk about frantic, opening cut here “Through The Black Temples Of Disaster” bringing a surprising amount of black metal chaos to what I was expecting to be a relatively safe affair. But that's just because of the label and artwork; this Spain-based black metal band have plied their trade for four full-lengths now and while noisy black metal is their main talking point, Noctem adds in tempos and beats that gallop and thrash to the finish line, and guitar work that draws from blackened death... okay, so we're not going too far astray here, sure, but the point is that there's enough variety to help keep things interesting during this 44-minute album. I love the slow stomp of “Blind Devotion,” the total chaos of the aforementioned opener, and the raging blackthrash solo of “The Dark One,” the band proving that they've got enough going on to keep even those who shy away a bit from black metal (like myself) interested. And it's worth noting that I'm not a huge black metal guy, because Noctem have me pretty sold, tracks like the epic, Behemoth-ian “Whispers Of The Ancient Gods”, the blasting and majestic “The Paths Of The Lustful Abandon”, and, especially, the pure forward momentum of album highlight “Conjuring Degradation And Morbidity” totally killing it on this cool disc.



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