Nightbringers

Nocturnal, Deflorate, Ritual, Everblack. Some might call this a winning streak, but I call it the quad-barreled rocket launcher from Commando. Sadly, Abysmal was the equivalent of Bugs Bunny stuffing his fingers down the barrels and making everything cartoonishly explode into black soot. I found so little to enjoy about that point-blank clusterfuck of an album, that I felt legitimate dread before sitting down with Nightbringers. Little did I know I had nothing to worry about. I hold this album in dizzingly high esteem, better in some respects than even Nocturnal. Holy Mother of Satan. This album is just... Who is Satan's mother, anyway? He must have had one. I wonder what she looked like, because Lucifer himself is looking really hot in most pictures... Damn it, Tanuki, focus!

Despite lasting a mere half hour, Nightbringers feels like a complete experience, thorough in its understanding of melody-driven death metal, and designed from beginning to end with a definitive structure in mind. It is mature, thick, haughty... Sorry, I'm thinking about Satan's mom again. My biggest issue with Abysmal was the non-sequitur song structures, sounding almost AI-generated with how capricious and haphazard they seemed. Here, Baroque riffs are expertly punctuated with ghoulish guitar solos, frontflipping into the spotlight with astounding confidence. It is a marked improvement over the single stanzas of socially awkward blues licks Abysmal squirted into every composition. As crazy as it sounds, the acrobatic sweeps of 'Kings of the Nightworld' wouldn't sound out of place in a thrash-leaning USPM record like Nosferatu, Transcendence, or Endless War.

As a whole, this album illustrates what an immense journey TBDM has undertaken since the callow Unhallowed, which was just a stone's throw from IKEA melodeath like Construcdead or Enemy Is Us. I would go so far as to say Nightbringers is a technical advancement over Deflorate, commanding a vivid strata of influence that's still chiefly based around the likes of Sacrilege and At the Gates, but extends far beyond mere Gothenburg pageantry. The pungent grove and ambitious harmonics of the title track sounds very Gorod-influenced, and showcases a cathedralic solo that'd make Simon Belmont wet himself. Elsewhere, we have 'Matriarch' and 'Of God and Serpent' both riveted in place by chunky Coroner-esque tech riffs, and the trenchant blood 'n' guts riffing of 'Jars', which feels like a passionate love-letter to the mad butchery of Scream Bloody Gore and Altars of Madness.

Most notable of all is the hellacious crowd favorite 'Widowmaker'. In spite of its high velocity, this composition follows an urbane waltz time signature. Much like the song's subject matter, it comes across sounding unnervingly composed, in spite of its ruthlessness. To that end, I'm delighted to add that Black Dahlia's sinister prose came back with a vengeance here, sounding fresh and fully roused. Specific mention has to go to the diabolic 'Kings of the Nightworld' for reminding everyone that Hell is still relevant and cool, and 'Matriarch' for narrating from the perspective of a lady driven mad by inability to have a child. The exceptions are 'As Good As Dead', which is another composition that foreshadows Trevor's tragic passing, and 'The Lonely Deceased', which simply has a bit of over-edginess to it, with gratuitous descriptions of a mortician with a little too much job satisfaction. I get it, gross-out paraphilias is part of the death metal experience, but c'mon. Can't a death metal band just scream about Satan's hot mom, instead?

I spend so much of my time discovering new music, it's insane! The decade is coming to a close and I'm frantically searching for an album to call the best. In order to find that album, I've joined online groups and spoken with fellow metal fans but nothing really pops up. I mean, I'm discovering older bands and great 90s death metal albums (which is great!), but finding a good recent album is really hard. This brings me to today's topic, and how I find it unfair that I picked up one of the decade's best albums sitting right next to Beyoncé, at my local Walmart. Who would have thought? I'm online all the time looking through underground demos and obscure bands from across the world and yet, the album I've been searching for was right here. There really is no point to this little story, I just thought it should be mentioned. The album I picked up is The Black Dahlia Murder's latest offering, Nightbringers.

There are literally no bad songs here. It's a 33 minute onslaught from the beginning to the end. It's really short, gets its message across and doesn't overstay its welcome. Everything you would expect from a Black Dahlia Murder album is here. All the songs contain rhythmic, bouncy and criminally catchy riffs that mix melody and dissonance together. The drums are brutal and the lead work is catchy, memorable and occasionally hummable. This means that everyone in the band, including newcomer Brandon Ellis, is doing their job correctly. I'm no production expert, but I'd say the mix sounds about right. My only issue is that everything is really loud and it can be hard to hear certain parts, at times. Trevor's vocals really carry the band, it's just that the riffs get drowned out every once in a while. This really isn't an issue, and I'm going to tell you why.

Trevor Strnad's vocals are fantastic; there is a reason he's in the spotlight. He switches between highs and lows constantly. He's not just growling the lyrics, it's as if he's having fun with them. He keeps things interesting and keeps you interested, as you wonder what odd and piggish sound he'll spit out next. The vocals are rhythmic, hook-laden and delivered flawlessly. On top of that, his lyrics are terrific! Most metal bands have lyrics that consist of stupid metaphors about darkness and other generic metal topics. Nightbringers, on the other hand, is the lyrical equivalent of an anthology horror film. Every song is unique a tale of horror. Whether it be about a sniper, someone who does odd things with corpses in a morgue or "infinite bringers of the night", the lyrics keep you engaged from the very beginning. On top of that, they are very well written. This album's lyrical content has made me expect more from the average metal band.

This review is dragging on a bit, it's just that there is so much to say. I'm desperately waiting for another year to pass so that I can make it official: It is one of, if not, the best album of the decade. I can't see any band releasing an album in the next year that will be as fun, and memorable as this one. Nightbringers is a collection of great songs with strong vocals and engaging lyrical content. A few reviews ago, I mentioned that most new melodic death metal albums feel stale and predictable. I need to clarify that this is absolutely not one of those albums. There is a recurring style throughout Nightbringers and yet, the album never feels predictable, nor do the songs sound the same. That is a feat on its own. I don't have anything original or quirky to say. I only ask that if you haven't heard this album, that you listen to it as soon as possible. If you have heard Nightbringers, I hope that this review allowed you to see and appreciate it as I do.

I thought that this deserved a better rating overall from listeners worldwide, but hopefully my score will boost the rating average. So, let me tell you why...these guys give a new meaning to the words "intense melodic death metal." They have a unique style musically. Not to mention constant screaming doused with some occasional low-bellowing vocals. It enhances their music, though the riffs are in an utmost full roar, barely slowing down. There are acoustic bits and pieces with the guitar, but VERY SHORT. These guys are very serious about their music and it shows on the recording of this album.

I've only heard of the band for a while, not their music. But in any event, the music and vocals I'm giving the highest scores for. That's because their music is entirely original. They've got their own sound and portray that in this output. I'd have to say that the compositions were wholly in their own zone. They ripped up the eardrums with the guitars madness and vocals screaming insanely. The lead guitars too were awesome. Quite technical with extreme precision. This is (again) why I question the net average on here as being 80%. The Black Dahlia Murder deserved a much higher score(s) than they accumulated.

This is in your face intensity with fast tempos that only slow down in some instances. But those screaming vocals go all the way through the album pretty much all the way. I was highly impressed with their compositions. They really use a lot of fast and technical riffs, seemingly not letting up. They're quite in a world of their own in regards to melodic death. They seem to be along the lines of At The Gates (old) and some more technical acts maybe in the vein of death metal such as Archspire (as an example of intensity). It's difficult to hear what the guitars are actually doing because the vocals drowned them out a bit. But they're still audible.

If you have access to Spotify or YouTube, check these guys out. Fans of melodic death I'm sure will be surprised of the remarkable musicianship on here. They really give ya a boost when you're listening to this one. I don't get into the lyrics, I figure the music and overall sound are the most important aspects to cover. But in any event, since this album is more than a year old, it's available on the regular version to be downloaded digitally. It's definitely worth it first. I did the band and myself a favor and bought the CD. That's how much I like this band/album. If you haven't heard this, I strongly encourage you to do so ASAP!

Named after the notorious murder of waitress Elizabeth Short (soon dubbed ‘The Black Dahlia’ by local press) in Los Angeles in 1947, The Black Dahlia Murder (BDM) have been dishing out Detroit-originated melodic death metal since 2001’s What a Horrible Night To Have A Curse demo, with lyrical content as dark as their namesake, and blistering musicianship that has become a staple of their content. Vocalist Trevor Strnad (not a typo, I assure you) and rhythm guitarist Brian Eschbach are the only original members from the 2001 lineup, and although repeated lineup changes have plagued BDM since it’s inception, they have garnered themselves a reputation for incredibly consistent, unfathomably technical, and overall excellent releases, no matter the lineup on any given album. This reputation is added to with brand new release Nightbringers, and arguably showcases The Black Dahlia Murder at the highest point of their career.

When I began listening to The Black Dahlia Murder around the beginning of 2015, I distinctly remember finding 2013’s Everblack on Youtube, and although initially being bored by the minute-long introductory meanderings of the first track, ‘In Hell Is Where She Waits for Me’, the moment Trevor Strnad’s vicious high-pitched shriek emanated from the sides of my headphones, I was transfixed. Beginning with BDM’s Everblack, soon accompanied by the singles to then-upcoming album Abysmal, and gloriously perverse track ‘The Window’ off of 2011’s Ritual, The Black Dahlia Murder became a staple of my early death metal playlists and explorations. Now, a little over two years since the release of Abysmal, Nightbringers sees the departure of long-time guitarist Ryan Knight (remember those repeated lineup changes?) and serves as the studio debut of Brandon Ellis on lead guitar (and what a debut!). Ellis brings an energy and sheer velocity to the pacing of every track that also meticulously works to flow with the band, as well as to include injections of musical flair to keep you guessing the direction of every track. His dynamic with fellow guitarist Brian Eschbach matches that of former guitarist Ryan Knight, and at times truly surpasses it. His solos are exceptionally technical, and although excellent and face-melting (a good thing!), this technicality can occasionally risk one of BDM’s strongest aspects, that of their melodies. Both Ryan Knight and Knight’s precursor John Kempainen brought a near neo-classical approach to the riffs and solos of BDM that Ellis does not seem to prioritize entirely in the same way. Furthermore, John Kempainen’s more hook-laden style is mostly in stark contrast to Ellis. When asked about Ellis’ place in the sound of Nightbringers, friend and fellow metalhead Brennan Chaudhry concurred, adding that Ellis’ playing isn’t as “note-heavy as [Ryan] Knight’s”, following with “but I still think he stands up on his own, and the surrounding music is good enough to forgive that difference [between Knight/Kempainen and Ellis].” Ellis’ approach embodies some aspects of both former guitarists’ playing, but mainly utilizes elements of his playing from Technical/Melodic death metal stalwarts Arsis, and although largely different in style than his predecessors, Ellis also manages to bring an ostensibly simple yet largely unheard ability: to balance lead-guitar flair with truly playing as a member of a band.

Having addressed the new-comer and young gun Brandon Ellis as the virtuosic 7-string wizard that he is in this review, let’s turn to the (relatively) old guard of the rest of BDM; rhythm section Max Lavelle and Alan Cassidy (bass and drums, respectively) charge through Nightbringers as one of the tightest rhythm duos in current metal. Lavelle manhandles his bass, playing it with the calculated frenzy and low-end menace he and drummer Alan Cassidy have displayed on the previous two albums with eachother, 2015’s Abysmal and 2013’s Everblack (which saw the debut of drummer Cassidy). Although, there’s a new level and intensity to that frenzied attack with this most recent outing. Cassidy’s drumming is incomprehensibly tight, with double-kick bass rolls at machine gun tempo, blast beats that push his snare drum to it’s physical limits, all topped off with massive and foreboding cymbal flourishes. In a fashion near identical to Brandon Ellis’ guitar leads, Alan Cassidy flawlessly balances being, well, a drummer, i.e. keeping the tempo (breakneck that it is) as well as showcasing his own skills in a stylish, mind-blowing, and astounding fashion. Alan Cassidy began his time with BDM as a truly excellent drummer, but Nightbringers unveils Cassidy barreling through each track with a completely new level of skill and musical awareness that not even percussive machine Shannon Lucas (BDM’s previous drummer) captured to the extent Cassidy has. Somehow, through all of this, Lavelle’s bass playing is right there in the thick of it, nestled between Cassidy’s percussive insanity and the raw furious dynamo of Brian Eschbach and Brandon Ellis, and ties the entire band together in a way all-too-rarely seen from bassists. Brian Eschbach’s role simply cannot be overstated; the guitarist throws down riffs with Brandon Ellis that simultaneously sound fresh, yet like classic BDM, and his backup vocals for Trevor Strnad add a sincere malevolence to the already verbal onslaught that is Strnad. Arguably the centrepiece of BDM since the very beginning, Trevor Strnad’s vocals and lyrics have consistently been amongst the highest points of each BDM record, but like the rest of his bandmates, Nightbringers captures Strnad upping the ante, in his case with a vocal style and attack already near-legendary in metal. Characteristically alternating between high-pitched screams and low-end death growls that would make Jeff Walker of Carcass (or as I affectionately call him, “Carcass’ Verbal Meat Grinder”) beam with pride, Strnad attacks his lyrics on Nightbringers like they owe him lunch money, and then some. The lyrics themselves are, frankly, the best of Strnad’s lyrically legendary career, and although referencing his standard playground of malevolence, ranging from the monologue of an assassin, a far more sinister telling of Adam and Eve, to cannibalistic serial killers and a first-hand account of turning into a zombie, Strnad’s delivery spews them forth with an unparalleled ferocity and viciousness that makes Melodic Death Metal’s sister genre Brutal Death Metal (think Cannibal Corpse) plug in it’s angry skull-shaped nightlight.

With Nightbringers, The Black Dahlia Murder have taken the strongest elements of their previous releases, including the complex song-structure of 2011’s Ritual, the riff-driven ferocity of 2009’s Deflorate, and the scale and monolithic production of 2013’s Everblack (plus an insane first-track scream courtesy of Strnad!), to form a coalescence of their strengths and musical flourishes throughout their career into a lean, mean, death metal machine, worthy of the hype and praise it has garnered already. Although lamenting the departure of Ryan Knight, I’m beyond pleased with Brandon Ellis’ contribution to the album, and his performances coupled with those of the rest of BDM enable me to declare, in full confidence, that Nightbringers is the finest album to date of The Black Dahlia Murder’s astounding catalogue.

Originally written for https://qehsjournalismcbe.wordpress.com/

The Black Dahlia Murder is definitely resting on their laurels (or their master-class releases). It's not so much that I can say this is a bad album, but just that TBDM is relying on releasing an album that's main selling-point is that it sounds like them. From start to finish, it's unabashedly a TBDM release. If you are a hardcore fan of theirs, then this album is a good place-holder to tide you over until they release a more solid album. Keep in mind that all the negative aspects of Abysmal are more common here.

The new guitarist, also from Arsis, fits right in but brings absolutely nothing new or really even different from any of their other releases. There is a very strict framework he follows for any solo and varies from that rarely. The rhythm guitar sections are mostly made up of filler riffs that sound like they were never used from previous records that were deemed to boring. Trevor changed up his vocals a little bit here and it's not worse or better, just a little different. A great example is on track #2, "Of God and Serpent, of Spectre and Snake" where he says "Serpuayent". It's like he normally does but he seems to add more superfluous vowels than normal. The drums have some cool maneuvers that sync up nicely with the rhythm section, but don't impress you on their own. The most important song for the bass is the last track, "The Lonely Deceased". It is as much as a bass solo as we can get from modern metal (With a few exceptions).

As you listen to the album, you may get disheartened, but it starts to get actually interesting for the final three tracks (With the exception of track #3, "Matriarch" being pretty solid. It's more of the same but the best of the same. These last three tracks actually sound different and I could actually tell them apart, and especially tell them apart from the rest of the cookie-cutter album. "Catacomb Hecatomb" has a great composition around 0:52 and the solo that rivals the final track. "As Good as Dead" has real character with variation in vocal patterns, and "The Lonely Deceased" evokes morose emotion with it's lead melodies . Even though these three are the best on the album, if they were on any other TBDM release, they would be average or maybe even filler tracks. "Kings of the Nightworld" starts off promising but cycles into monotony quickly thereafter.

Favorite tracks:
--Catacomb Hecatomb
--The Lonely Deceased
--As Good as Dead
--Matriarch (Honorable mention)

Technical Skill: 87% Originality: 44% Songwriting: 34% Album structure: 46%

Nightbringers has been hyped up since 2016, and all throughout 2017 Black Dahlia have been hailing this fresh new slab of melodeath as their best yet. On the Summer Slaughter tour, which also happened to be their 10 year tour for Nocturnal (their breakthrough album and my favorite of theirs), they debut their then-newest title-track in a live setting and it of course kick major ass. That song, however, proved to be the odd one out among the other 8 tracks. Before the release, Metal Injection's review gave the album a perfect 10/10, and Black Dahlia made a video for Metalsucks where they have random pedestrians in NYC react to the new songs. So Nightbringers is being made out as a huge freakin' deal, so of course everyone was stoked.

And I can't say I was disappointed. I've never expected Black Dahlia to let me down, and Nightbringers has gone above and beyond my already high expectations, proving itself to be more than worthy of its hype. While definitely not anything very different stylistically from previous Black Dahlia albums, Nightbringers shows a great progression from a band already over a decade old and leading the modern melodeath scene.

Nightbringers is certainly the fastest-paced Black Dahlia album yet, in terms of both song tempo and length. Clocking in at 34 minutes with merely 9 tracks, it's their 2nd shortest album yet*, longer only than Miasma, but that is in no way a bad thing. The album's overall flow hits you like a speeding truck with a sheer brutality that even Black Dahlia hadn't achieved before. Every song hits nearly or over 200 bpm, except for the title-track which focuses on groovy rhythm that might remind one of "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse" (from Nocturnal). In many ways, this album almost seems to be both a tribute to and an improving take on Nocturnal, as many of the songs sounds similar, albeit with an improved technical ability an sense of songwriting. In addition to the former comparison, I found "Matriarch" to be very similar to "Deathmask Divine", and on the closing track "The Lonely Deceased", I could hear a bit of "Warborn" creeping in.

(*Deflorate was also 34 minutes, but that had 10 tracks.)

The speed goes hand in hand with the incredible melodic/technical guitarwork of Brian Eschbach. My favorites of his solos were previously those on Ritual (ironically, the more mellow and slower-paced Black Dahlia album), but Nightbringers has me sold - the solos on the title track and "Kings of the Nightworld" were just beautiful, and the whole span of guitar riffs and leads were catchy, tasteful, and original. This added complexity in the riffs could also be credited to their newest member, rhythm guitarist Brandon Ellis.

For drummer Alan Cassidy, this is his third album with Black Dahlia, and his performance on Nightbringers wins him the 'most improved' award, as here he lets loose with a flurry of insane double bass and fills, holding nothing back. His rhythmic sense on the title-track is excellent, as this is possibly the slowest and grooviest song he's done yet with Black Dahlia. Also performing albums tres with Black Dahlia is bassist Max Levelle, who takes up the album's heaviness as his prime directive.

And who could ever forget our beloved Trevor Strnad, a man who is possibly a fucking banshee due to his always enjoyable, ever-intense high screams and powerful growls. Lyrically, he's writing less of the super-sickening stuff from Everblack and writing stuff a little more surreal, or fantasy-oriented like you heard on Ritual and Abysmal.

Now, is this the best Black Dahlia album? No, it's not. There's not a huge variety in song structure or melody like the kind that made Nocturnal so amazing, or the moments of atmosphere and serenity on Ritual. This album focuses mainly on being Black Dahlia's craziest, heaviest album to date with very little attention to different flavors within the music. This however, is a minor drag-down that can be overlooked, and Nighrbinger works perfectly for what Black Dahlia attempted to achieve.

An automatic must-have for fans, and an essential for 2017 releases.

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.