NOKTURNAL
Shades Of Night
(Pulverised Records)
40:04min

I hope this won’t sound arrogant, but surprising this old fart with new music is kinda hard. It takes a certain “thing” to get me on the edge of my seat although I can always find interesting bits here and there, at the very least. And then sometimes… With scarce info, Indonesian band NOKTURNAL have released their debut EP with Singaporean Pulverized Records. I can’t tell if this is the result of different performers / musicians / composers, but I don’t care. This EP has made my head turn to that region of the world again and they got me interested in their music. I mean, as soon as that first song started, I thought of POSSESSED and Mike Browning. Whoa, wait a second! Those are some pretty heavy names, right? Well, I am not saying that NOKTURNAL is copying off those bands, but the essence, the atmosphere, the attitude. Everything just felt so in place. In one of my reviews, I’d talked about certain regions and certain scenes having their own identity. For me it is not an association (like Sunlight Studio or Morrissound) but an essence, a style, a method to the madness, such as the mid to late ’80s Brazilian Death and Thrash Metal. Well, there is something in NOKTURNAL’s style that screams South Asian, yet it immediately sounded like Mike Browning and Jeff Becerra had a screaming duo over their respective band’s old songs. Now, the mix in “Shades Of Night” is dynamic; it is just so slightly muffled and unrestrained that it would’ve fit perfectly in any Metal album released back in say, 1987. The guitars are thick and raw yet not trebly or harsh, with that round bass providing a much needed rumble and bottom end. And then you have the drums with such an organic and aggressive sound. The performances are furious and a tad detached, which only made me think of MASTER’s debut album, which had that same “what you see is what you get” approach. All the instruments find their way through the sonic assault with the vocals being the perfect catalyst to fill the spectrum. And the mastering is the cherry on top, with just a tad of compression and no bricking, letting all that aggression come out rampant and uncontrolled. NOKTURNAL is playing savage, violent and good old Death Metal with a very welcomed Thrash Metal infusion. And they do it the way those bands mentioned above, at least for me, meant it to be played! So please, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of “Shades Of Night”. And I mean it: if there was ever a time to spend your hard earned cash to support a killer band, this is it! Do it now! Support the band and the label here https://pulverised.bandcamp.com and here www.facebook.com/pulverisedrecords

Alfonso Perez

Alfonso Perez

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