Nightbringers

Every scene within metal's massive miasma cloud of influence comes with its own unique quirks, especially when getting down to specific sub-genres of this fine art form within a respective locale. Often how well a band manages to fair will depend heavily on how much the familiar tendencies of their respective scene acts as a crutch for their sound, and this becomes even more the case with a band that has reached veteran status and has arguably become the most auspicious outfit within their area. The Black Dahlia Murder is arguably near the top of the fray and among the more consistent purveyors of turn of the millennium melodic death metal with a slight helping of metalcore on the U.S. front, and with that status comes a degree of expectation for the sort of no holds barred speed and fury that typified their 2007 breakout album Nocturnal. Suffice it to say, the musical results that make up their eighth studio LP excursion Nightbringers proves to be a mixed affair, and sees a band relying too much on the familiar and forgoing the needed risk taking that goes into making a true classic.

Perhaps a part of the explanation for the somewhat underwhelming character that rounds out this album is the recent addition of guitarist Brandon Ellis to the fold. While things don't come off as wildly out of character for this band, there is definitely a large amount of similarity to these songs and something that was heard on the latest Arsis album Unwelcome, though as an interesting side note, vocalist Trevor Strnad's high-end melodeath scream has an uncanny resemblance to the one heard out of James Malone on the 2008 over-indulgent tech. session We Are The Nightmare. To be clear, the songs on here are of a highly streamlined fashion that is somewhat comparable to what was heard on this band's more seminal offerings in the 2000s, though the songwriting is a bit less varied and comes fairly close to sounding like the same song with different change ups thrown in, save the more drawn out and bass happy closing song "The Lonely Deceased", which also happens to listen the closest to a traditional Gothenburg offering of the bunch.

This isn't to say that this album is bad, nor is it really sub-par when compared to what a number of prominent American bands have been putting out in this style, but more an average outing that listens more like a competent U.S. response to the latest Carcass or Nightrage album. The opening song "Widowmaker" kicks off with a somewhat cliche film soundtrack sounding intro before launching into a blast and thrash happy frenzy that forms the template of most of the songs that follow. Along with a few riff happy crushers like "Matriarch" and "Catacomb Hecatomb", these songs would pass for a decent emulation of the sort of mainline, easy to follow yet intense formula that Arch Enemy has been putting out since the late 2000s, and the guitar soloing work does share a fair degree of commonality with the wild yet infectious character of Michael Amott shredding. Truth be told, there aren't really any weak songs to speak of on this entire album, but rather a sort of ongoing sameness that starts to wear a bit thin as the album progresses, despite it being short in overall length.

Nightbringers is the sort of album that will play well to regular consumers of The Black Dahlia Murder's handiwork, along with that of the more furious side of the American death/thrash scene like Battlecross and Revocation, but will probably win few new converts to the band's fan base, nor really stand as one of their crowning moments. Even the album title kind of lends itself to being part of the crowd, employing familiar tricks of the trade in order to remind the faithful of why they love the style, but failing to turn it into something truly groundbreaking and unforgettable. At first listen, a newcomer may be impressed by the speed and ferocity that ensues, but come to find it a bit overused and contrived by the time the album is half over. In essence, this is a good album with some impressive displays of musicality, but it was a whole lot better when it was done 10 years ago, carried a more distinctive set of hooks and it went by the name Nocturnal.