Nightbearer - Ghosts of a Darkness to Come

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Is it required of a band to play something new? This question is a torment for bands, fans, musicians and writers, because any answer can put you in a big problem. The best way to deal with it is to have an answer similar to: no, no one has to create a new Metal genre, but the chances of playing something different decreases using models that already exist. But there are many examples of bands that, even not creating a new genre, did something personal, and earned success. And one more to be in this trench if the German quintet NIGHTBEARER, with their second album, “Ghosts of a Darkness to Come”.

Their musical work is based on a form of Death Metal that allows the use of some melodies and some subjective influences of Thrash Metal and Blackened Death Metal. It reminds the style of the Swedish pioneers of DISMEMBER during “Death Metal” and “Hate Campaign” ages with some elements of DISSECTION, but with a personal energy and a different appeal, so it means that their music has a brutal and massive impact, but with a careful set of arrangements, and it’s different from the usual. The sonority of the album is another point where things were done with care: it sounds rough and aggressive, with distorted and nasty instrumental tunes, but in a form that allows the quintet to express its musical ideas in a way that is easy to understand by the ones who hear to the album.

The songs are all in the same level, working in a balanced form that brings homogeneity to “Ghosts of a Darkness to Come” as an entire work. But some tracks can be pointed for a first time on the album: “Wolves by My Side” (the song is amazing, plenty with careful melodies and guitars arrangements), “The Dragon Reborn” (another very good song with good melodies, but the focus is on the aggressiveness, sustained by a strong rhythmic work from bass guitar and drums), “Forever in Darkness” (the slow paced rhythms create sets of morbid ambiences, with the vocals contrasting guttural tunes with screamed ones), “Blood and Bloody Ashes” (a song with that essential influence inherited from Hardcore in evidence, creating rhythmic hooks in many parts, including where Black metal elements become clear), “Where No Wind Ever Blows” (another song where speed gives place to a better technical work, with excellent guitars arrangements and solos), and “Ghosts of a Darkness to Come” (a long and darkened song with nasty melodies and arrangements in many parts, but full of a musical richness that is amazing).

NIGHTBEARER is really a very good surprise, and “Ghosts of a Darkness to Come” can become a compendium of ‘how to play an existing Metal genre with your own personality’ in the near future.

Songwriting: 10
Musicianship: 10
Memorability: 9
Production: 10