To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire

Battle noise opens the second album of Nokturnal Mortum in complete alignment with the fantastic artwork. Only a few seconds later, a fanatic track rolls over the listener. The horde from the Ukraine is blessed with a tinge of Dimmu Borgir in its harshest form. But first and foremost, it is not afraid to show its "imperial" influences. Indeed, Emperor found followers all over the world with their first two albums and therefore it is anything else but sensational that some of them dwell in the somewhat outlying regions of East Europe. Anyway, "Bestial Summoning" (this is the opener on my copy, not the title track) has all that it needs to build a black metal cathedral. Desperate nagging is connected with an atmospheric yet insanely fast musical approach. Due to the slightly blurred mix, everything coalesces into each other. A gloomy break interrupts the inferno briefly, but it does not hurt the penetrating power of the track. Just the other way round, it emphasises its dynamic.

Nokturnal Mortum's breathtaking opener seems to catapult the formation at the top of the worldwide black metal scene, but the formation is not able to keep its quality level. This is not an accusation, just a determination. Anyway, songs like the following title track run in the same vein like the opener and give further examples of the band's devastating approach. They sound like the continuation of the battle which has introduced the album, only more intensive and more murderous than before. Okay, the integration of a short folkloric melody in "On the Moonlight Path" contributes a less lethal sequence, but it blends seamlessly with the remaining parts of the brutal track.

The group manages complexity in a successful way. No doubt, the fairly symphonic yet very harsh song patterns are nested and coherent at the same time. Both keyboards and guitars form fascinating, furious melodies and the band combines them cleverly. Admittedly, the pretty long songs need a little time to present all of their facets, but this is definitely not a disadvantage. One finds previously unrecognized details with every new round and this keeps the album alive. Nokturnal Mortum do not serve fast food metal and this is, despite my wretched eating habits, laudable. Furthermore, the music has this slightly morbid touch and borders on insanity. This marks always an indication for fervent black metal, at least in my humble opinion.

The band runs slightly out of breath at the end of the album, and this is more or less the only serious shortcoming. Neither the instrumental intermezzo on position seven, which provides a natural scenario with birds' twittering, nor the comparatively powerless closer are able to draw the listener into the song. Anyway, the title "To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire" does not make promises that its music cannot keep. Blasphemous and intensive, fiery and mighty - these are the keywords to describe this work (which does not suffer from anti-semitic lyrics. Quite the opposite, the first line of the title track delivers classic genre-poetry: "The day is going away and night covers the children of coldness and darkness..." - great!). Too bad that the band did not cultivate the here presented compositional approach. The more folk-inspired successor did not really match my musical "Weltanschauung".