Review Summary: THE LORD OF THE NIGHT HAS RISEN!
There has been a recent wave of raw black metal bands heavily incorporating dungeon synth into their brand of demonic madness. Like any genres, the blending of these styles is a bit of a mixed bag. Some bands can't get the ratio correct or they simply meander along with no real direction. Order of Nosferat's newest album
The Absence of Grace is the latest example of a band meshing these two medieval loving styles of music and doing it better than a lot of the rest.
The first thing that really hit me about this album is how epic and uplifting the atmosphere is. Of course there’s an underlying darkness, but similar to Coldworld’s
Autumm, the hypnotic trems invoke feelings of warm triumph. Kind of like walking through a forest on a freezing winter day but the sun is shining on you the entire time. Black metal has evolved immensely since its inception in the way that an album like this can feel “warm and fuzzy” and yet have a constant cloud of vampyric energy behind it. Every single riff is trance inducing in the way that Burzum’s early albums were. It may be repetitive but ultimately it enhances the feelings that Count Dracula himself was hunting you down. Vocals aren’t really anything special, but it doesn’t matter. They go well enough with the music and don’t detract in any way from the atmospheric blizzard going on around them.
As far as the synths go, they are perfectly incorporated into the black metal madness. While synths in this genre can often sound cheesy and too bombastic, their inclusion on
The Absence of Grace is tasteful and not too in your face. They have an almost “church organ” type tone to them, as if you’re at Nosferatu’s funeral only for him to rise out of his coffin and slay every person in the room.
It's hard to find much to complain about here boys. The only thing that might annoy the casual black metal listener is the lack of variety, but once again, this album is meant to be hypnotic. Its goal is to transport you back to the age of vampires and all the chaos (and lustful beauty) that came with it, and in that way, this album is a complete success. If you dig the good ole fella Dracula, do yourself and listen to
The Absence of Grace.
