Band: NOCTEM
Country: Spain
Title: The Black Consecration
Label: Art Gates Records
Year: 2019
Style: Black Death Metal
Review:
I follow this band since their debut album, more than a decade ago, and to be honest I actually thought they'd be the next Behemoth, or better said they'd soon reach Behemoth's level keeping in mind the band is touring extensively ever since and has released no less than 5 studio albums including this one. From my point of view, the reason why the band is not more "mainstream" is their reluctance to use more mellow, easily digestible elements and keeping that rough around the edges attitude intact. We're dealing with fierce, fast paced, extremely well-thought and delivered Black Death Metal with a certain dose of melody coming from the guitar harmonies rather than the use of keyboards and effects, so from this angle the band is as fair and honest to the listeners as possible. After the audition the first thing that comes to mind is the band's scrupulousness in every aspect of the album making it thoroughly methodical, clean, fresh, and at the same time evil, chaotic, shakingly apocalyptic, yet another fantastic material; to be even more plastic in expression I'd say it sounds as the anger in a cage-fight match: methodical, cerebral and calculated but at the same time visceral, vicious and punishing. All this years and I'm still impressed by how good this band is and how big it can be, The Black Consecration is a quintessential piece of Black Death Metal art...
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 10/10