Nightbringer - Apocalypse Sun
June 2 2010 at 07:41:41 AM
In the gloaming. Nightbringer’s
Apocalypse Sun regards well- and little-known occultist concepts. Let’s say—for brevity’s sake (and my sanity)—these concepts detail slow descent from life to death and the journey thereafter. Ben Vierling’s exceptional cover-art (once spent a quality nocturnal emitting with Vierling’s rendition of Ms. Newsom) is more effective than any dreary lifetime spent pondering Tehomat, Geh, Sothis, Draco, or other impenetrable proper names that seem likely creation of Gary Gygax rather than vestige of clandestine rites.
Towering aesthetic(s) precede the music therein, which is usually the case. (But we are not often clubbed and staggered with inchoate symbolic language unless a living is to be made spending long hours thumbing tax codes.) Vocalist/lyricist Naas Alcameth, along with Ofermod’s Michayah, is one of Black Metal’s great Dysraphists, stitching monolithic swatches of occultist middles, ends, and beginnings together in hope of engendering hopelessly dead matter. (One of the many problems with Black Metal [insofar as the genre is inextricably bound to Satanism] is its reliance on dehumanized texts and arcana as it turns further away from the grounding in flesh the music was initially predicated on. Abstruse technical subject matter is often mirrored by the music [See: Deathspell Omega, Antaeus, etc.], as it is here with
Apocalypse Sun.)
It’s slicker than owl shit mostly, and repeated listening reveals thin compositions heavy on tremolo picking and light on ideas. Advancing the D&D metaphor, the music is mostly akin to Bigby’s Clenched Fist (Evocation), where spell conjures massive disembodied mitt that never misses its intended target, but effectiveness of its blow wildly varies. Least effective: Aimless blasting, which makes for unwanted homogeneity amongst songs (See: Marduk), ostensibly triggered drums, little real estate allowed for three interesting guitarists to work. Nightbringer is most effective in Temporal Stasis (Alteration) mode (yes, D&D)—see/hear: “Excitium—Litany of the Devouring Earth,” “The Utterance of Kasab’el”) where songs unfold slowly/slower—or not at all—leaving listeners suspended, blue-balled, dependent on spell reverse (temporal reinstatement) likely uttered from some pan-handling crustie with more dogs than money.
What
Apocalypse Sun unfortunately only occasionally does is what its predecessor
Death and the Black Work did often and extraordinarily well: Posit “feelings” of enormity. Such “feelings” are subject-specific and depend little on psionics (more D&D; my apologies). They can be as base and empty as day-to-day desperation or anxiety, or as profound and consuming as watching The Begotten while on livestock tranquilizers. The record’s few great pieces remain mired in a base murk of recycled ideas. Never a good thing. Surgery is outpatient here: Nightbringer doesn’t need to decide what typifies its aesthetic; it needs to generate new ideas that match its aesthetic aspirations.
[Stewart Voegtlin]
Nightbringer
Apocalypse Sun
The Ajna Offensive
2010
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Still, I'm pretty much in awe of the covers and drawings of Nightbringer. I will at some point try again with them.
The 'too much arkana, not enough humanity' thing deserves a fuller mention though I reserve judgment on whether it's applicable on this record as I haven't heard it. I think the silver key for understanding this 'problem' (in quotations because it certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for a lot of listeners) has to do with how HM - and black metal - is Romanticist by definition and Occultism is at odds with that in essence. Romanticism is inherently metaphysically 'simple', it's appeal at profundity rests on invented naturalism and problematic 'noble savage' concepts that are ill-applicable to real life. This isn't its weakness as Romanticism isn't a social movement and makes these gloriously simple assumptions about life that lead individuals to wonderful imaginations. That imagination then might lead to a lot of different things, Romanticism is an onset.
To put it in terms we understand:
Romantic Heavy Metal = Original Dungeons & Dragons = vague, contradictory rulings that inspire participants to imagine the hell out of the nebulous spaces, make them their own. At the end of the day it's still playing 'let's pretend' but such food for the imagination!
Occultist metal = Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition = manic preoccupation with a 'complete and objective' rule-set that governs an imaginary reality, one gets bogged down with calculating their optimal movements instead of moving.