Nocturnal
Arrival Of the Carnivore (1cd)
Wydane przez From Beyond Productions/Displeased RecordsRok wydania 2004Kraj GermanyNapisał Wouter6
The new wave of retro thrash is hard to get away from. From countries all over the world high quality products are being released. Demonizer (Belgium), Flesh Made Sin (Holland), Anal Vomit (Peru), Aura Noir (Norway) are just a few examples of the fresh blood that is being pumped into this scene. Germany's Nocturnal rightfully deserve a place along side these names as well, although they aren't there just yet. Bringing riff-based retro thrash names as Destruction, Sodom, Kreator ("Endless Pain" era) and Venom to mind Nocturnal have carefully observed their peers. From the massive sing-along choruses of 'Burn This Town', 'War Of Spirits' with its raw, unpolished guitar sound that brings back the days of Metallica's decisive "Kill 'Em All" album. With 10 tracks and an average running time of little over 2 minutes per track the downfall of this album is its short running time. While Nocturnal obviously has some competent musicians - they hardly manage to rise above average, compositionally. The compositions most of the time are a collage of riffs as the drums are plodding along with the riffs through out, leading virtually nowhere at times. The drums patterns aren't the most interesting you'll hear and it's nothing you haven't heard prior to this. In other words, Nocturnal is little more than a carbon copy of the bands that inspired them and thus doing an album by going through the motions. If Nocturnal manages to further flesh out the musical ideas presented, they'd be able to write some future metal classics. 'Victorious Night' has a nice groove as the track incessantly rolls by, hardly surprising to say the least. One of the finer moments is concluding track 'Awakening the Curse Of Souls' which is the longest track on the record, lasting almost a full 6 minutes. Artwork provided by Kris Verwimp is once again crafted masterfully. Nocturnal is onto something here, keep an eye on them.
www.unholythrashmetal.de.vu, www.displeasedrecords.com
Info/booking: nocturnal@deathstrike.de
