Gates of Nocticula

This is a rather confused and confusing release, which is understandable given how early this is in stunningly prolific Slavic BM artist Lucifugum's career; clearly the band was still hashing out the precise style they wanted to pursue. The content on this disc is a semi-coherent mash of Slavic style symph BM ala Nokturnal Mortum and more traditional Norwegian styles along with a heavy dose of thrash here and there. The mixture is unique but not executed in the most professional fashion, and you can often hear the band struggling under the weight of their somewhat overly ambitious ideas. Still, as one of the first entries in Lucifugum's discography, it's a well-executed demo with a lot of good ideas and memorable moments, though it's easily dwarfed by many of their later works.

This demo has a really bad problem with logical song structures. You can clearly understand what's being executed with each individual song section; one clearly worships Mayhem, another at the altar of Bathory, another at Nokturnal Mortum, etc. But the shifts between these sections are often awkward at best and completely incoherent at worst. It wouldn't be a problem if they were sequenced more logically: a Bathory style opening leading into a Mayhem blast section makes sense, as would simply keeping the musical ideas to their separate tracks. But Lucifugum at this point sees nothing wrong with a Bathory chug section going directly into depressive, symphonic material and then into a clean guitar interlude. Some would describe this as avant-garde; I say it's dumb and evidences a rather rudimentary songwriting skill. It's somewhat excusable because this is just a demo, but come on, did they really listen to this and think it completely made sense.

If you view this more as a mosaic of isolated musical sections, it's a lot better, although certain points definitely require some suspension of disbelief. The band is probably at their best during the segments which most resemble Nokturnal Mortum. At this stage in their career, crude as the structuring may be, Lucifugum had a clear knack for writing great riffs and keyboard lines in the 'Goat Horns' vein, and some of the more traditional black metal sections aren't bad either. There's an intuitive melodic sense on this demo which alters very conventional black metal melodies ever so slightly, but manages to make them surprisingly fresh; the usage of melodies longer than a measure or two certainly makes this seem more ambitious and interesting than your average black metal demo, and the band generally succeeds when playing to their strengths; it's just when all the parts are assembled into songs that it starts to fall apart.

The production is pretty bad. The instruments are balanced and everything is audible but the individual tones leave much to be desired; the guitar tone in particular has a very cheap and synthetic tone which makes some of the burlier riffs sound flimsy, with squeaky palm muting and erratic tremolo occasionally popping up. In this regard, the instrumental performances aren't really a hundred percent from everyone; the band overall has a sort of 'Seven Churches' hesitance to it, as though the members are perpetually unsure of whether they're playing the right thing at any given time. It does give the CD a bit of amateurish charm, but at the same time, one craves something more professional after a while. Such is the world of black metal demos, though.

It's hardly the worst black metal demo I've ever heard though it certainly doesn't approach the best. It gives a good overview of where Lucifugum was at this time and some inklings of where they would go, though you could be forgiven if upon hearing 'Gates Of Nocticula' you thought that such potential would go unrealized. If this is the first Lucifugum release you've heard, press on and explore their later career; this is certainly one of the weaker entries in their catalog although it's not entirely without merit.