| Reviews for Nethervoid's Sirens of the Blistening Light |
| Expressive and evil tones - 75% |
| Written by autothrall
on November 4th, 2009
|
| Iowa must be a pretty grim place. To whatever, wherever or whomever inspired this young USBM act to create these eight acts of glorious blasphemy, I say continue! I can't cite a lot of originality on this debut album, but what they create is a successful and driving form of black metal with grungy guitars, searing vocals and the perfect level of atmosphere. Every track on the record is darkly consistent. It begins with the knockout combination of the epic title track and the thunderous "Wyrm of World's End". "The Nethers Nativity" is a wall of somber riffing, delightful bass note selection and a nice breakdown. "Southern Convex" is fucking eerie, with a dour acoustic presence accompanying the vile black guitars and terrifying vocals. "Of This Sacred Circle" rocks with a low end, menacing riff. "Vines in a Virgins Body" is a crawling morass of black doom. And for possible song title of the year, you have "1000 Hands of the Assiduous Specter", a killer track to finish the album. This is seriously one of the better releases this year in US black metal. It's not totally original, it's not extremely dynamic, but it is expressive and goddamned evil sounding and I enjoy their choice of guitar tone. Recommended for those cold countryside evenings, digging graves and resolutely placing your hope and dreams in them. Hail the Midwest. -autothrall http://www.fromthedustreturned.com |
| Nethervoid - Sirens Of The Blistening Light - 55% |
| Written by ravenhearted
on November 1st, 2008
|
| Since the turn of the century, American Black Metal has evolved into a many-headed beast, and as such it’s no longer sufficient to toss them all into one common genre. However, NETHERVOID are not the most unconventional of the lot, and any fancy and pretentious classification is therefore completely unnecessary in their case. It’s obvious that these guys have taken lessons from listening to the second wave of Scandinavian bands, and they seem to wear their influences on the sleeve. They do a very acceptable take on Black Metal, with evil and somewhat epic riffs and croaky vocals, but as you might have guessed there is very little originality being thrown around. NETHERVOID are capable songwriters and musicians, but listening to “Sirens Of The Blistering Light” makes me wonder if they followed some textbook-example of how to create a Black Metal album, without ever stopping to think about if they really want to sound just like everyone else. The final track, “1000 Hands Of The Assiduous Specter”, is the only one to really grab my attention, by mending elements of the second and third wave of Black Metal together with evil results, a formula I can see working in the band’s favor in the future. If you’re really into mid-tempo to fast Black Metal, it wouldn’t be a huge mistake to check out “Sirens Of The Blistering Light”, but it wouldn’t be a masterstroke either. My main problem with recommending the album is that there are countless Black Metal bands that deserve your attention, and there simply aren’t enough high points on this album to convince me that NETHERVOID is one of them. (Online November 1, 2008) Ailo Ravna Written for the Metal Observer |