Hells Headbangers

I won’t make the mistake of calling Nocturnal Blood original, though that’d be a pretty hard mistake to make. Before even listening to the album the sticker on the cover will tell you this sounds like Beherit, Demoncy, and Von. There’s been a spike in bands doing this, and bestial black/death metal is making a “comeback”. Though it’s never really been gone, and it never was really big, it’s soaring into the picture like a bomber, fucking up all kinds of shit in its path.

Originality isn’t needed when you produce sounds of dirty, highly distorted, echoed barbarism that distance you from anything weak, mild, timid or even lacking in total holocaust action. From the influence of the bands mentioned, Nocturnal Blood, a surprisingly singular entity, takes no steps forward but accurately and perfectly pays homage to the artists that have defined a sound that, within the spectrum of metal, is unique and original.

Guitars and bass blend in a hypnotic and unrefined onslaught always at full speed with little regard for distinguishing separate strums of the strings, or even separate chords. This musical fistfuck is the signature of what many have coined bestial black metal. This description is earned, and has implications of madness.

Ghastly Apparition is the single driving force behind Nocturnal Blood, doing all vocals and instruments on the album. His performance is devastating and Devastated Graves – The Morbid Celebration is the first full length he’s released in the two short years of Nocturnal Blood’s existence. It’s a short album that has a mission to accomplish, which it wastes no time doing. Percussion is the expected overdose of blast beats and tyrannical hammer-blitzkriegs that share an equal mix with the guitar/bass amalgamation and echoed, vocal roars.

Like Proclamation and Teitanblood, Nocturnal Blood are (is) a breath of fresh air which actually isn’t so fresh, but putrid and hateful and reeking of the disgusting sounds of decades old metal for violent heathens performing crude rituals in the darkness of night. There is nothing in the way of dynamics or variety, following closely to the blueprints of this style which doesn’t take any points away from it, but doesn’t bestow upon it some bloated number, either. It is solid, proficient, deathlike, high speed bestial black metal that provides more unholy armament against the holy in an atmosphere of total decay, death, and cave-dwelling darkness.

1.  Devastated Graves

2.  Death Calls

3.  Impure Devotion

4.  Ghouls Wrath

5.  Chaos Mass

6.  Ritual Lust

7.  Triumph of Impurity

8.1/10