Nachtmystium: Instinct: Decay (2006)
Years before he became the most hated man in heavy metal, not named Varg ‘Count Grishnackh’ Vikernes, Blake Judd (a.k.a. Azentrius) was instrumental to elevating American Black metal from a laughable concept to a viable, even highly respectable proposition.
By 2006, the Chicago-based ensemble had been haunting dank basements and bat-filled belfries in relative anonymity for nearly a decade, but I sagely predicted (for once!) that this was about to change in my effusive All-Music Guide review of the group’s third long-player, Instinct: Decay.
Here, Nachtmystium hung on to their intentionally primal, lo-fi black metal roots, while simultaneously plunging over the abyss of progressive experimentation -- resulting in music that was streaked by multiple moods, dynamic density, and unexpected twists, while remaining uncompromising, heavy as fuck.
Take first song (following a brief intro called “Instinct”) “A Seed for Suffering,” which delivers a visceral, desolate pounding before cracking like an egg to reveal a stark acoustic bridge worthy of Portland folk-metal stars Agalloch, then embarks on a violent coda filled with harmonic nuances.
Other notable cuts include “Chosen by No One,” which blends frenetic riffing with groovier sections and near-symphonic synth layers, “Eternal Ground,” with its unusually musical guitar solo and Darkthrone-like black ‘n’ roll riffs, and “Here’s to Hoping,” which turns square-dancing into slam-dancing with its folksy polka rhythms.
And, for those less inclined to deviate from the trve/cvlt path, Nachtmystium offer some pure carnage in the buzz-saw riffs and blast-beats of “The Antichrist Messiah” and “Abstract Nihilism,” prior to descending into tribal psychedelics of the closing “Decay.”
All in all, I surmised that Instinct: Decay was a masterful effort: at once retro and avant-garde but, most importantly, well composed and devilishly entertaining from start to finish.
p.s. -- Many of these words were updated and adapted from that old All-Music Guide review.
More Third Millennium Black Metal: Absu’s Tara, Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain, Cobalt’s Slow Forever, Darkthrone’s Hate Them, Death Fortress’ Among the Ranks of the Unconquerable, Enslaved’s Monumension, Horrified’s Deus Diabolus Inversus, Impaled Nazarene's Ugra-Karma, Locrian’s Territories, Melechesh’s Emissaries, Morbid Slaughter’s A Filthy Orgy of Horror and Death, Negură Bunget’s ‘N Crugu Bradului, Oranssi Pazuzu’s Valonielu, Rebel Wizard’s Triumph of Gloom, Rotting Christ’s Theogonia, Sigh’s Imaginary Sonicscape, Unholy Crucifix’s Ordo Servorum Satanae, Vattnet Viskar’s Settler, Watain’s Sworn to the Dark, Wild Hunt’s Before the Plane of Angles, Windir’s Likferd, Wolves in the Throne Room’s Malevolent Grain, Zemial’s Nykta.
