Onyx

Hearing this is like witnessing shadows waft along in the mist in some long-lost, forgotten tunnel where the darkness is all-encompassing and strange happenings go on in the distance, echoing along the walls. It certainly gets the atmosphere right and as such makes this a very full-bodied and immersive release with plenty of airy echoes made as prominent and as enveloping as possible like a thick fog on a long bridge. Greece's Nocternity went all out with creating black metal that flows very well and manages to capture an almost mystical element to the sound with how smooth the whole affair is, despite how much the production overloads you with sheer cold bleakness. Also, don't let the man in armor on the cover fool you into thinking this would be some kind of silly "battle metal" album with a lot of pompous guitar fanfare or medieval melodies. It is still fantastical, however in a much darker and more subtle sense, and that's where Onyx's strengths lie.

Song-wise, this is composed of a few very expansive pieces that are made that way to get the most out of Onyx's very ghostly and airy, but thick fog of production with a lot of emphasis put on frigidity. “The Song of Hammers” starts everything off with very static-loaded, slow builds and spacious, icy melodies to get things up and swaying. Any synths that show up on this album are very light and muted, only serving to further accentuate the creeping underbelly of the music which is washed over in static that makes the melodies that comprise this album feel even more ice-coated and hostile with the echoed drum hits adding even more to the desolation. The best application of these melodies can be heard on “Secreta Ayra (The Key)” where everything starts off all airy and calm and builds through gradual addition of activity from the freezing guitars into a climax of melodies that become chilling and victorious at the same time, like valiantly fending off the hordes of ice. The whole album feels very indulgent in its ability to balance grand melodies and scales with a very simple and frigid atmosphere. It maintains this consistently throughout, only changing for the fully synthesized ending, “Schwarze Nacht” which still fits in extremely well and lets you know when this album is ready to wrap things up.

One way I would summarize Onyx is that it’s like a journey and each of the songs are kind of like that as well. It makes for a fairly immersive experience, even if the song structures and guitar patterns can get a bit too wrapped up in themselves to follow coherently 100% of the time. This is black metal that is better for chilling your soul and displaying some echo-drenched glimmer of grim glory rather than charging into unholy chaos with madness and hostility put first. It’s a misty ride through forgotten landscapes with melodies that are often more than enough to simply soak in and let you feel the desolation. The guitar arrangements and drum beats themselves are rather loose in their form and what vocals there are get washed up in the tide of atmosphere, which is what makes this album so appealing and what keeps it going. Onyx may try to stretch these a little too far, but ultimately it still keeps up a very solid and mystical sense of obscurity and bitter chill. I think that Onyx is a stark (and slightly overextended), but beautiful example of atmospheric black metal that is best reserved for long dark nights of immersive blackness and solitude with just a dash of howling metallic ice-winds to keep things feeling strong.