Twilightfall

A number of bands have started off quite different from what they would later become, with Darkthrone being the most obvious example from black metal. There are some others, from Rotting Christ to Behemoth, but the majority opinion is that their early periods are nothing more than periods of intrigue and novelty for hardcore fans. Just as Soulside Journey is my favourite Darkthrone album, Nokturnal Mortum's debut demo/album, Twilightfall, is my go-to for these Ukrainian black metal gods.

All the elements here are so typically post-Soviet: cheap amps, cheesy keyboards, electronic drums (programmed or played, I cannot tell), and a mishmash of extreme metal styles that had already peaked. Though I'm sure that Emperor and Cradle of Filth were known to this Kharkiv band in 1995, there are more parallels with Nocturnus, Tiamat, and early Amorphis. The guitar and keyboard work is especially nice--there's a lot of the layering/dichotomy for which Nokturnal Mortum is known, just with a more death metal oriented approach. The overall style is very much similar to the early works of the Greek scene with its tendency towards melodic elements, but Nokturnal Mortum crafted some truly epic numbers here that cover a gamut of styles and moods without betraying a certain fundamental vision. I guess you could call it progressive/melodic death metal...

There's a certain doomy feel to the album that hits you with "Autumn Opposition" and "Glass Coffin" (total Iommi worship right there) that Nokturnal Mortum never really revisted, but you've also got some speed/thrash/power metal moments, most notably on "Cry of Ukraine." None of that feels particularly jolly, just hopeful in a rather dreary situation, so it doesn't break the metal feel of Twilightfall. The climax of "Glass Coffin" is epic as fuck, and makes me want to mosh around in my kitchen. The ambient intro and piano outro don't do too much for me, but the clean guitar instrumental "Oriana" is a delicate interlude for those intimate Ukrainian nights. Oh, and the little acoustic ballad "Where Rivers Flow Into the Sea" shows the pagan direction Nokturnal Mortum were heading and sounds absolutely wonderful, like a sexy slow dance before they burn the Wicker Man for Odin.

The five "real" songs are really long numbers, that could potentially bore you to death, but Nokturnal Mortum did not listen to those old Metallica and Mercyful Fate albums in vain--they all transition seamlessly through myriad moods and metal terrain, whilst wholly avoiding most of the black metal sound that would later become Nokturnal Mortum's sound. The tremolo picking is rarely used, instead opting for a mix of palm muted down picking and catchy melodies. I have to keep returning to the arrangements and songwriting, because they show a real mastery that even most veteran bands cannot touch, let alone a band producing their first demo.

The musicanship on display is top notch: these guys probably spent countless hours practicing and perfecting their sound in grimy garages and cramped bedrooms...there wasn't much else to do in the 90's in the former USSR, after all. The keyboards don't sound one bit out of place, something I can't say about Twighlightfall's otherwise godly successor, Lunar Poetry. Though they usually provide another layer of texture, when they carry a melody like the break at 1:55 on "On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset," they evoke epicness...by the way, it's beautiful how the guitar melodies build off of the end of that, go into total guitar showoff territory, and then quiet down (listen for the cowbell in there...yeah, that fits, too). Some people might not like the flashy guitar leads, but they fit in perfectly with the melodies and death/thrash riffing. Even the programmed drums have tasteful fills!

The production here is shockingly good, though it could be summarized as a budget version of the Greek scene. A lot of the demos from American bands sounded way shittier, and here every instrument gets its own room to breathe, even the bass. Varggoth's vocals are sometimes mixed way too loud, but his approach is all over the place and kind of insane so it matches the music. He does some black metal screams, but they're more out of control than his later work, opting more for a really good death growl. It's like his dog just shit in his favourite slippers--not quite homocidal, but really frustrated and lashing out in inappropriate directions. His clean vocals are amazingly good, as well.

I wish I could have gotten this in 1995 when it was new. It would have blown my mind at a time when certain bands toyed with melody and keyboards but these Ukrainians for some reason were able to perfect the style. Everyone was jacking off over Tales from the Thousand Lakes that year, when we should have been listening to Twilightfall.

Possibly one of the most well-known and "successful" black metal bands from the Ukraine, Nokturnal Mortum is a band I have been listening to for about five years now. I first discovered them with their masterpiece "Goat Horns" and was really surprised by their unique, keyboard driven folk- influenced sound. At the time, this was a brand new concept to me. There are plenty of other bands I enjoy that have a very similar sound, but Nokturnal Mortum was among one of the first to find my ears. Released in 1995, "Twilightfall" is the band's first demo out of the two that truly matter, the other being the classic "Lunar Poetry" released a year following this one. The sound of this demo is unlike anything the band would do afterward. Instead of symphonic black metal with heavy influences of Slavic folk music, this is much more a melodic death metal recording with heavy influences of the aforementioned folk music.

Black metal, for the most part, alludes this demo. There are certainly some influences within the atmosphere and some of the dark guitar sections, but this is certainly closer to a death metal recording than a black metal one. We usually are treated to heavily Swedish-influenced death metal riffing and at times, we can pick up on influences of doom metal, such as the sinister sounding "Glass Coffin". This really is a unique demo and it really cannot be described with a single genre. "Autumn Opposition" is the first real song on the demo, and one of my favorites of the lot. There is a beautiful acoustic section that really brings the folk influence to the front of the fight, such is also the case with “On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset”. "Autumn Opposition" also contains a furious death metal riff and a blastbeat shortly after that contrast quite a bit from the melodic break. Speaking of death metal, the demo's third track “Cry of Ukraina” really works the whole duality effect. It begins with a beautiful synth passage and then explodes into a melodic yet aggressive thrash/death metal riff. These songs all contain highly melodic breaks that, while they definitely sound good, they make the music sound inconsistent at times and some may find this awkward. There really isn't a set musical idea going on here; it's really a mash-up of different sounds and influences. Guitar soloing is also very prevalent on this demo which all sound very melodic and even technical, definitely nodding to the overall death metal atmosphere of this demo.

The vocals are also highly death metal influenced. They are more akin to growling and I guess you could say chanting rather than high-pitched black metal rasps. There are even moments of clean singing, for example, on the acoustic "Where Rivers Flow into the Seas", which ends with a very cool implementation of the mouth harp. The vocals do in fact fit quite well with the sound Nokturnal Mortum was going for on this demo so I really can't complain about them. They do sound very different than what Varggoth would do on the following albums, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Production wise, this is nowhere near "demo status". The sound is very clean and all the instruments are mixed in very well with each other. Everything is audible, including the usually-excluded bass. The drums do seem a little too loud and overbearing at times, and this is also another example of the death metal sound this record produces. This works more like a full-length album than a demo, although I have been referring to it as a demo. In all honesty, I was quite shocked upon hearing this for the first time as it really doesn't sound like a demo. It is much like the following release "Lunar Poetry" in terms of production, as everything clear, except it is also different, as it is very bass heavy unlike "Lunar Poetry". If you have yet to hear it, this is definitely a good listen, if only a bit inconsistent. It is definitely worthwhile for those interested in hearing Nokturnal Mortum's death metal roots.

When I first got into Nokturnal Mortum, I was a big fan of albums like Lunar Poetry and Goat Horns. While I was looking through their discography, I noticed they had another demo released around the same time as Lunar Poetry, called Twilightfall. Thinking it was going to be similar to Goat Horns and Lunar Poetry, I decided to check it out; after all, the cover art was similar. I think the only song I heard was "Dark Flower of Temptation" and not even more than a minute into it, I stopped listening and dismissed the entire album as crappy and boring thrash metal. I sure was an idiot, though, because a few years later I came across different songs and found that this was some pretty awesome metal I missed out on! Now for the past couple of years, Twilightfall has been one of my usual listens because it really is an exceptional piece of work.

So what does Twilightfall actually sound like? For starters, everything here sounds nothing like the rest of Nokturnal Mortum's discography. If I had to point out a genre, I'd fail miserably because there seems to be a big blend of heavy metal, black metal, thrash metal, and folk metal. "Melodic" metal could describe the music here, but that's still being too vague. Keyboards are still used, but there's a much bigger emphasis on the riffs. There are a ton of guitar solos scattered throughout each song and they never get old. Wotherax does an awesome job at leads and it's too bad he has only appeared on a few more releases. Production is solid, but incredibly light. You can hear all the instruments well - the bass is very audible on "Glass Coffin." What I mean by light is that you could blast this music into your ears, but somehow the band picked the right frequencies so the music is never headache inducing or too much in your face.

The vocals are interesting. Varggoth is known for sounding silly sometimes, but here he's incredibly consistent. Most of his vocals are growls not deep enough to be considered death metal vocals, but still quite low. On songs like "Autumn Opposition" you can hear him do kind of a singing growl. I haven't really heard this effect anywhere else, so I thought it was pretty cool that it happened on Twilightfall. I don't recall any shrieks like that on the NeChrist album. There are some female vocals scattered around, but they are supplements to the whole song. They're well placed and I can't complain.

Twilightfall may not have that atmosphere found in Goat Horns or Lunar Poetry - in fact, despite recognizing a Ukrainian band when hear one, I probably would have had trouble doing so with this demo if I didn't know it came from Nokturnal Mortum. Fortunately, the songwriting and musicianship makes all of that a non-issue. These five metal tracks are rich, sporadic, catchy and versatile. Play ten seconds of some track and I'll be able to tell which song it is almost immediately. I cannot say the same about most Nokturnal Mortum albums. As I said earlier, the guitarwork is amazing and the riffs are the main driving force between these tracks. Wotherax's shredding really steals the show, especially on tracks like "On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset." There are even interlude tracks that serve as nice breaks between the metal. These tracks are by no means exceptional, but they do give the album a lot more structure and consistency. Much of the atmosphere in the album comes from these short tracks too.

My only complaint is that the lyrics aren't available. Apparently the band wasn't confident enough with their English, er, Engrish, to release them to the public. It's a bit of a shame because I would have been curious. As it appears that nearly all these tracks are in English, I was indeed able to pick out a few verses from songs like Glass Coffin and Crying of Ukraine. It would have been nice to fill in the gaps, as this is a rare form of Nokturnal Mortum where they stray from political and religious ideologies and warfare.

Twighlightfall is an album that should not be overlooked by anyone who appreciates some good metal even if it's not completely clear exactly what genre Twilightfall falls into. Nokturnal Mortum will probably never make an album like this again, so it's a classic in its own right. There's enough here to last for many listens and more. Even better, the demo was re-released in a full length album several years ago so you should be able to find it pretty easily in the market. It's pretty rare when a popular band's demo beats some of their well known full lengths, but this is definitely one of those cases.

Nokturnal Mortum's demos (if you can call them that- they're really more like full-lengths) are just as important as their commonly accepted LPs, and 'Twilightfall' is the first bizarre volley from the Ukrainians. It's a good example of Nokturnal Mortum's demos all revolving around the same general idea: a slow circling around the eventual sound and style they would perfect on 'Goat Horns'. 'Twilightfall', though, is a decidedly different beast, and the furthest away the band ever was to their more conventional Slavic symph-black sound. It's a patchy and inconsistent record, but it does have enough worthwhile material on it to make it a worthwhile purchase from most metalheads and definitely the more historically-inclined among Nokturnal Mortum's fanbase.

The most obvious and dramatic difference on this release from the others is a matter of technicality; at no point since 'Twilightfall' has Nokturnal Mortum's music ever been so technically accomplished. It actually sounds as though the technical abilities of the musicians degraded since this record- while complex, speedy solos are delivered perfectly on this release, there seems to be much more fumbling about simpler riffs on releases like 'Goat Horns'. This goes hand in hand with the musical style of the record, which is a very curious combination of melodic death metal, some early British doom/death, and the more typical symphonic black metal sound the band would become known for. Varggoth's vocals hover somewhere between death and black and the riffs do the same, alternating from almost Gothenburg-inspired bouncy riffs to more straightforward black metal tremolo numbers. It's a credit to the album that the disparate musical influences on this release are actually combined rather than segregated across tracks; while some songs certainly lean more towards one style than the others, there's really never a track where you won't hear a myriad of different styles played.

It seems that 'Twilightfall' was meant to be an expression of the sum total of influences on Nokturnal Mortum's music, and while it does make for a staggeringly varied release (compare the ambient intro to the doom dirge of 'Glass Coffin' and again to the almost Dark Tranquillity inspired 'Dark Flower Of Temptation') it also makes for one with little of the way in a very solid identity. None of the tracks are bad, though the difficulties the band has flowing from one riff to the next are obvious and the production is a little flat, but they're not very whole. This is meandering in a very similar way to little-known American band Reverie's debut album; I think the band just sort of connected one riff to the next to the next without any real idea of where things were going or how to get there. This disc has nine tracks, all of which are basically good, but don't make any sense paired with each other and ultimately make for an album which is a less than holistic listening experience.

Certainly there's some very solid riffing and songwriting moments despite the album's inconsistency, but I find I'm not quite able to enjoy it like I do other parts of Nokturnal Mortum's career. That being said, there's enough solid material on this disc to make it a worthwhile purchase and to see what Nokturnal Mortum evolved from- certainly it's very different from what anyone could reasonably suspect.

It appears that many of today’s most well-known black metal bands started out by playing completely different kinds of music, either in their early stages or under a previous name. Alongside bands such as Marduk, Darkthrone and Immortal, a place must also be reserved for Ukraine’s Nokturnal Mortum among them, whose beginnings truly make one wonder as to what motivated them to change their sound. Nokturnal Mortum’s example is perhaps the most interesting, since they began playing a kind of music which doesn’t quite exist elsewhere at all, and all that lasted only for the duration of their first demo, which in terms of length may be considered, for all intents and purposes, as a full album: the mighty Twilightfall.

What’s so special about this recording? The kind of metal played here is something which doesn’t have any exact equivalent anywhere else in the world. Twilightfall is a very special blend of death metal, which I’d say is the demo’s core structure in terms of genre, heavily mixed with doom influences, traditional heavy metal-style guitar work and a certain black metal approach to the vocals and the overall aesthetic, not to mention the slight folk feeling that appears every now and then. This makes Twilightfall one of the most varied and recognizable recordings in the entire world of extreme metal.

Even the intro, The Unnothingness from Beyond, is a bit unexpected since it consists primarily of a loud heartbeat sound, with some nature sounds (birds singing and such) in the background for the first two minutes, before proceeding with thirty seconds of chanting which is highly reminiscent of religious chanting, in this case particularly of Eastern Orthodox monks or priests during that denomination’s liturgical services. The first full-scale song, all five of which are long, lasting between seven and ten minutes, is Autumn Opposition. It gives the first real signs of what we’re dealing with here, beginning with a rather doom, slightly folk-like series of riffs and clean vocals before continuing with harsher, black metal-style screeches and becoming what is basically a death metal song with all of the aforementioned influences. The interesting aspect here is that the melodies are achieved with acoustic guitars instead of keyboards, although those are also used often later during the demo. The drumming is reminiscent, if nothing else, of the style used by most melodic death metal bands’ drummers, being varied and strong in the mix without being as prominent or as pounding as is the case for most standard death metal bands. Lead guitarist Wortherax’s riffs are mostly melodic and inspired by classic heavy metal and not the more extreme genres, not even thrash, although some are similar to the style used by doom metal guitarists.

No single song can be categorized based on a more focused use of each genre by the band: they maintain their unique mix throughout. Cry of Ukraine is, however, a bit more fast-paced and aggressive than the previous track, all the while retaining the same type of melodic passages. Of particular note here is the rather good production, which elsewhere on the demo makes the guitar sound a bit muffled. Here it’s pretty good, sounding heavy and well-produced, which is surprising enough considering the fact that this is the band’s first-ever recording (not counting their previous incarnation, Suppuration). The large number of short acoustic tracks which separate the main songs is also worth noting: with the intro and outro, these amount to four tracks, out of a total of nine. Not one of these is the same, Where Rivers Flow in the Seas being a beautiful cleanly sung mini-song in which the clean vocals can get a bit cheesy, though the female vocals used are great. Oriana – Waterfall of Twilight isn’t much, an instrumental-only minute of acoustics while the outro, Tnematset Wen: Nocturnal Mortum is a beautiful, highly melancholic piano piece which goes a great job at ending the album. It’s the culmination of the overall atmosphere of melancholy and great sadness which prevails from the very beginning, except perhaps during the more joyful “When Rivers…” interlude.

Not much more can be said about the other long songs since they follow the same overall formula of Autumn Opposition and Cry of Ukraine, with their own variations of course. That said, the definite highlight here is On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset, which is a melodic, keyboard-supported death metal song which uses death metal growls extensively and to good effect. The keyboard usage here is reminiscent of what the band would later do, most notably on their other masterpieces that are Lunar Poetry and the official debut album, Goat Horns. The song’s midsection is very melodic and has a vocal style which is very easy to understand, more of a clean yelling than anything. Additionally, the production’s shortcomings are at their most evident here, because it’s evident that the kind of music played on this demo would indeed benefit from better production. This is painfully demonstrated by the fact that this song was re-recorded by Saturious and Wortherax for their Finist project, technically a cover but since it’s the same guys who wrote the song… anyway, that version has better production and the benefit is definitely visible. Unfortunately, the original is still a better overall song by a good margin since Finist’s musical talents are a bit sub-par, especially when compared to early Nokturnal Mortum.

Twilightfall is a unique effort by a band who’d end up making great music (and, judging by their Voice of Steel album, they still are). The influences mentioned below by others, of early Katatonia and Amorphis, are correct, but this is certainly no copycat. Those remain only influences to a much greater and distinctive whole, a unique achievement which is definitely worth hearing by anyone who likes death metal mixed with doom and other original touches. This is the Nokturnal Mortum recording which if perfect both for the band’s fans and for those people who may happen to dislike any the band’s later efforts. This is a highly underrated and oft-overlooked gem.

Nokturnal Mortum - Twilightfall



I remember when I found this, I was hunting for any and all Black metal that I could find, and I stumbled upon this at the same time as Drudkh's Swan Road.
This is possibly THE most underrated metal album I've ever heard. It's also definitely one of the best. It's such a huge shame that such a great work is overshadowed by Nokturnal Mortum's other works, such as Lunar Poetry or Goat Horns, not to say that the formentioned albums are not works of art, when they definitely are.

Atmospherically this album is stunning, it holds a certain melancholic and majestic feel to it, with the terribly gorgeous 'Autumn Opposition,' to the pure and beautiful 'Where Rivers Flow Into The Seas.' This lacks the dark feeling I feel a lot of Nokturnal Mortum's later work does, which makes it all the more beautiful.

One thing I was particularly fond of in this work is the fact that the drum lines in this album tend to follow the guitar, almost as if it was trying to pick up a counter-melody. This is only part of the time, of course, we have the usual black metal blast beats in there, too.

The vocals are like nothing I've ever heard, they're gruff and grunty, like a lot of metal, but they're also very melodic, a sort of singing growl. No other vocalist I've ever heard has managed to capture such a unique sound. It really adds to the beauty of this album.

The guitar work is full of clean sections, something that a lot of black metal bands nowadays are trying to do, with hardly any success, Nokturnal Mortum do it with such a grace and finnesse that is really missing these days, the transitional sections are just...flawless.

Mortum have also made use of orchestral instruments, mouth harps and female vocals, all used to great effect.

Standout Tracks: Autumn Opposition and Where Rivers Slow Into The Seas

All in all, a great metal album, overshadowed by inferior Nokturnal Mortum works, and worth a listen for anyone who hasn't heard it.


I give this album 99%

For a long time I wondered where I could get this demo. Then Knjaz decided to re-release it on CD through his own label and so I was finally able to get my hands on it. Sadly, no lyrics are included but one cannot get everything. Musically this demo differs pretty much from subsequent Nokturnal Mortum releases. The production is bass laden and quite heavy, this is more of a death metal type production actually. The guitars are down tuned and the bass is loud in the mix. More treble could have been added to the guitar sound, since the guitars sound a bit muffled.

It’s difficult to describe the music but I’d put it like this: melancholic death metal with doom and heavy metal influences. Some of the faster passages hint at what was to come on “Lunar Poetry” but this stuff is still very different. Although there a few blast beats in some tracks, most of the time the music is mid-paced or slow, totally unlike latter blastfests such as “To The Gates of Blasphemous Fire” and “NeChrist”. At times the guitars play twin melodies a’la melodeath but most of the time the melodies are in the vein of old Paradise Lost and old Amorphis. The band switches musical style a lot in the songs and it’s clear that in 1995 they hadn’t become a full-fledged black metal band yet.

The vocals are a mixture of growls, harsh shouting, black metal screams and sad “Into the Pandemonium” like clean singing. Sometimes it sounds like Knjaz is a bit unsure of what vocal style to use but in general I think his performance here is OK. Only the some of the harsh “shouty” vocals aren’t to my taste. Acoustic guitars are employed quite a lot on this release. “Autumn Opposition” and “On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset” have some nice acoustic guitars in them. “Where the Rivers Flow into the Seas” is an emotional acoustic track featuring female vocals from Tatiana Gapon (she also does some vocals on “Glass Coffin”). “Oriana – Waterfall of Twilight” is a beautiful acoustic instrumental.

Lead guitarist Wortherax does a great job on “Twilightfall” and he is responsible for most of the heavy metal influences I was talking about. Just check out his shredding on “Glass Coffin” and “On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset”, classic heavy metal shredding at its best. By the way, keyboardist Saturious (who wasn’t even a member of Nokturnal Mortum when “Twilightfall” was recorded) later re-recorded “On the Wings of Scarlet Sunset” for the Finist album “Nightmares”.

The best track in my opinion is “Autumn Opposition”. It carries a desperate and sad mood and is one of the best melancholic metal songs I’ve ever heard. It has great melodic riffs and a good theme melody. The blast part at 7:23 comes as a total surprise, one would not expect that from a calm track like this. Hell, they even use tambourine on this track! Another favourite of mine is “Cry of Ukraina”. It starts with a nice keyboard riff, then the melancholic guitar melodies come in, after which the track becomes a great atmospheric death metal song.

“Twilightfall” is worth getting if you like Nokturnal Mortum but don’t expect it to sound like the band’s other releases. It will most likely take some time getting used to. I also recommend “Twilightfall” to people who don’t like Nokturnal Mortum’s latter stuff but who do like e.g. Paradise Lost’s two first albums, Amorphis’ “Tales From the Thousand Lakes” and Katatonia’s “Dance of December Souls”.