Nighted made me feel old. The intro to ‘Aeons’ the first offering is distorted electronica which plunges into a hellbent riff and suddenly I’m back to early Necromantia circa Scarlet Evil Witching Black; great driving black metal with weird electronic buzzing and blips threaded through. Eventually it offers a little more of an atmospheric and kind of feel, a cosmic horror with a voice over about alien terror following the path back to earth (sure I should know the sample but I failed). Fine melodic black metal song though.
This weird trip continues as ‘Sigil’ has that space black metal industrial feel pounding away like The Kovenant on Animatronic. It has a gorgeous refrain here too.
At this point I should say that this nostalgia is not to mean it sounds old fashioned, just walking a branch not often travelled these days in black metal circles. The track ‘Nighted’ for example has unabashed electronica in its thoughtful pace but and definitely has its era of influences neatly stitched to its sleeve but the great swathes of melody and finely judged vocals are timeless.
With ‘Blind’ we are sent further into a dark cosmos on slowly building keyboards and a little guitar. The way Nighted build up to the eventual boiling over into maniacal assault is excellent, the atmosphere held tight as wave after wave of maelstrom keys and riffs whirl out of space. It has a gravity wave strength to pull you in and even if most songs lap over the shores of five, six, seven minutes the movement between passages makes them flow by seamlessly.
A very Stranger Things intro for ‘Acronyc’ gives this an almost cyber goth decoration amid darkwave to the extravagant Kovenant-eqsue black metal and old CoF drama. Some excellent bass heavy drumming makes the windup into a headlong surge into darkness perfect. Coupled with rhythmic bleeps and stutters this is rich, hugely over the top and frankly glorious bit of horror.
‘Crimson’ slots in another mental hook that has been lurking with the vocals. The wonderful malevolence brings to mind Gehenna’s ‘The Killing Kind’ but devoid of the death metal touches. With a rapid, huge keyboard break and the speeding drumming once more delving the melodic opus on, it’s another great moment. ‘Bleed’ with its jittery feel and warning of “be careful what you wish for…” is another fine entry and closer ‘Relinquish’ rounds things out with an eerie touch of melancholy to it.
This debut full length with its weird mix of older influences (Necromantia, The Kovenant, early Cradle Of Filth extravagance, Gehenna standard of excellent vocals, maybe Limbonic Art too) is such a pleasant surprise. With their own sound and fine song-writing skills, the electronica and their rightly shameless flamboyance allied to tight arrangements, Nighted have produced something that harks back maybe but also still stands as itself in the twenty first century.
Class, focus and performance; Nighted have it all. Well done indeed.
(8/10 Gizmo)
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