Not just content with Darkthrone and Sarke ole Ted best known to his followers as Nocturno Culto has decided he needs more in the way of true heavy metal thunder in his life. To do so he has decided to venture out and deliver his Gift Of The Gods and after several other chaps have decided to go down the same sort of path and do their own Twilight Of The Gods, the Gods should be more than happy as should those wanting to head bang away to some highly revered musicians in the ways of the old. Nocturno has gone and done this almost on his own playing all instruments and naturally providing vocals, the one exception is the help of KA Hudbreider helping out on rhythm guitar. The sound is as you would have expected, instantly recognisable here and it has to be said that if you compare it to some of the material on the last throne opus The Underground Resistance, the four tracks here do not sound a million miles away from that material. Don’t forget though that it was, if dissecting the tracks from that album, Fenriz who truly went down the more pure HM / NWOBHM route rather than Nocturno so perhaps it gave him the urge to do these tracks himself.
We start with the sound of owls and end with crows but the four tracks themselves show that this is well thought out, executed and there is nothing bird brained about it. ‘Enlightning Strikes’ (what a title) has that gnarly tone about it helped no end by the gnarly rugged vocals. Instrumentally it is a mid-paced groover and it has that Norse feel about it, the guitars and melody actually remind a bit of what Satyricon were attempting on their latest album but not quite succeeding with it in my opinion. Here though the metal licks and a slight rotten rolling canter win through even if I do feel that somewhere desperate to come out is a fetid vocal death grunt. There’s plenty of depth here and although not what I would call quite an epic number it keeps up the momentum at a determined running time of almost nine minutes. It is left to the music rather than vocals to urge this one to completion and as next and title track ‘Receive’ is actually an instrumental you could almost forget all about them here. This one has what you could only describe as lead in its pencil as it is more thunderous, fist slamming and true sounding in the metal stakes to me and despite the lack of the obvious has lots of drive about it and an impetuous melody that is completely impossible to shrug off.
On what I feel the urge to call the B) side Nocturno has unveiled some olden treasure in the form of a cover version of an obscure Swedish band from the 80’s called Universe. ‘Looking For An Answer’ does certainly have a golden age feel about it and although it sounds familiar you could only really say that on first listen as by the second it will be completely embedded in your subconscious. It’s a short, simple and with the title repeated lots a rather delicious number. Nocturno also is back vocally and the opening croon certainly helps spread the warmth of the track through you. As for whether he found his answer or not that’s left for the ‘Last Solstice’ to roll out with slow chugging harmonic gravity in a way that practically screams classic at you.
This is a great taster of what is described in the liner notes as being Nocturno’s ‘new cave to explore.’ Although the idea has been in the back of his head for 6 years apparently ‘it won’t stop here’ and on the strength of these numbers an album is eagerly awaited.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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