There are times when we at SonicAbuse seek out music that is subtle, melodious and possessed of almost trance-like qualities. There are other times, like now, where all we want is to have our collective faces shredded into a bloody pulp that would even make Hannibal Lecter wince. Happily, Black Dahlia Murder are on hand to satisfy this most masochistic of desires with new album ‘Nightbringers’. It’s been a mere two years since 2015’s ‘Abysmal’ was foisted upon the general public with all the elegance of a brick to the cranium. Since then, the band have misplaced yet another lead guitarist with Ryan Knight departing amicably in 2016 and Brandon Ellis coming in as the band’s fret-tormentor-in-chief. Brandon is, quite frankly, a revelation. With no disrespect intended towards his talented predecessor, Brandon nonetheless takes things up a notch and the band, seemingly possessed by a considerable number of hell’s minions, match him every step of the way, the result being BDM’s most gloriously brutal and ferociously entertaining effort yet.
From the outset, ‘Nightbringers’ aims to demolish the listener. The churning, bass-heavy intro to ‘Widowmaker’ (courtesy of Ross Trinkaus) gives way to a riff so rampant in delivery that it hits the listener with physical force. With casual insouciance, Trevor Strnad allows the band a moment to shine before launching a vocal assault that leaps from the speakers with unnerving fury, the result being a track so pumped full of restless energy, you’re tempted to pace the room just to aid in dispelling it. Barely pausing for breath, the hyper-speed nightmare that is ‘of god and serpent, of spectre and snake’ detonates like a high explosive round, and only a carefully constructed mid-section (perfectly suited to demonstrating the exceptional skill of drummer Alan Cassidy) manages to keep the thing from careering off the tracks all together. Brandon, meanwhile, delivers a tasteful solo that adds just enough melody to keep things memorable as well as brutal. Although it starts in a hellish maelstrom of snatched riffing and foundation-wrecking percussive blasts, ‘Matriarch’ has, at its core, a neck-snapping groove whilst the title track brings the band’s trad-metal influences to the fore, offering a richness of melody and a depth that is all the more impressive for the fact that the band sacrifice not an ounce of power in its implementation. The track is enhanced yet further by Brandon’s epic solo, a thing of fluid grace that will make heads spin in the live environment.
Having slowed the pace a touch, BDM seem almost comically embarrassed by their own prowess, charging headlong into the frantic ‘Jars’, oblivious to all but their own unhinged bloodlust, although the band’s mordant humour shines through with the track’s neo-classical outro. It segues neatly into the epic ‘Kings of the nightworld’, a piece of music that manages the impressive feat of pairing hell-bound heaviness with a rare elegance that perfectly matches the regal subject matter. Offering a snapshot of the band at their deathly best, ‘Catacomb hecatomb’ is a stunning track that sets the blood coursing through the veins with the rhythm section delivering a performance of near-impossible precision. Emerging from squealing feedback, the cyclical riffing of ‘as good as dead’ offers up a full-blooded metal massacre before the album proper comes to an end with lengthy and impressively majestic ‘the lonely deceased’, a track that sees Max Lavelle scintillate on bass. A varied track, ‘the lonely deceased’ showcases the band’s ambitious arrangements, as acoustic guitars and harmonised solos coalesce over the course of its near-six-minute run time. It is the perfect ending to a faultless display of technical death metal and the fact that a series of bonus tracks still await the listener only provides the icing on a sumptuous, if potentially deadly, cake.
As befits so impressive an album, ‘Nightbringers’ is available as a handsomely packaged limited edition, housed in a shiny, fold-out digipack and featuring five bonus tracks. The cross-shaped digipack is perfectly suited to showing off the doom-laden artwork whilst the bonus tracks are well-worth any additional cost. The extras kick off with an album outtake, ‘gone but not forgotten’. An insanely fast blast of caustic death metal, it’s a fantastic and yet it pales in comparison to the astonishing music that comprises the album and it’s easy to see why it was included as a bonus. Two well-delivered covers are offered up next, the first of which is a faithful rendition of Carcass’ ‘this mortal coil’. It harks back to the days when bands used to throw this sort of thing out as a b side and it’s a welcome addition. Similarly, tribute is paid to At The Gates, another crucial BDM influence, with a suitably aggressive cover of ‘the swarm’. Like ‘this mortal coil’, there’s a feeling that the band simply enjoyed cutting loose in the studio with these tracks and they’re certainly fun to listen to. Finally, we get two well-recorded live tracks in the form of ‘Abysmal’ and ‘when the last grave has emptied’. Not essential, perhaps, but a welcome precursor of the band’s next trip to these shores and a generous addition to an already stuffed package.
The Black Dahlia Murder have long been a force with which to reckon, but, even taking into account the quality of their back catalogue, ‘Nightbringers’ is quite exceptional. Extreme, and yet accessible, malevolent and yet melodic, it sees the band on the form of their lives and everything from the production to the packaging is a testament to quality control the band exert upon their work. If you consider yourself to have even a passing interest in death metal, this is about as essential as it gets. Absurdly brilliant. 10
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