2 years after their debut album “The Holy Law in Total Ruin“, Finnish Nocturnal Sorcery are back with their sophomore album, “Captive in the Breath of Life“. The CD came out on the 9th of October, released by the Finnish label KVLT.
What we have here is a record created in the pure Finnish tradition, which never disappoints: a high quality (raw) black metal assault on your senses which takes you way back in time, when things were much more simpler. In almost 50 minutes, Nocturnal Sorcery creates the perfect soundtrack for those nostalgic souls out there hungry for fast, evil and in your face black metal. I mean, just look at the creepy black and white cover and you’ll already figure out what you’ll be dealing with. What you see is what you get and you cannot go wrong with it.
When building the album’s cold and oppressive atmosphere, the band doesn’t shy away from using some noisy elements which are scattered in between tracks: “The Dark Secret“, “Spectral Force“, “Joyless Dance of Shadows” or “Along the Path of Fire“. These 4 “instrumentals” are supposed to bring an even more unsettling feeling to the album, but in my opinion they are completely unnecessary. They extend the album for no reason and I don’t see their point, especially when all the other tracks are top class (“Oath on Mt Hermon“, anyone?). Regardless, don’t get discouraged, the 4 mentioned tracks don’t affect the listening experience at all and can be easily skipped.
The rest of the 7 “standard” songs follow the classic black metal recipe, giving you chills and absolutely no time to catch your breath: vicious vocals, angry bursts of blast beats and walls of cold and furious riffs attack you relentlessly from the headphones (“Lucifer’s Shade” is mind blowing, it would have been the perfect album closer). Occasionally, slower, mid tempo passages make their creepy way during some songs, adding more heaviness and atmosphere to the table (“Cry of the Wounded Heaven“, “Captive in the Breath of Life” or the fantastic “Redemption at Daybreak“).
There are no keyboards on this record, so if you’re looking for symphonic sounds you should search elsewhere. I do not mind having synths on a black metal record at all, but some albums are simply better off without them. This is the case with “Captive in the Breath of Life“, as the music is very straight forward and the ice cold riffs create enough melody and catchiness by themselves.
Even though I complained about the album’s length, don’t be discouraged by those “noisy” tracks I already mentioned. The overall choice of songs is very good and makes you want to come back to the album again and again. Everything falls well into place, from the cool cover to the song quality and malicious atmosphere, so in the end “Captive in the Breath of Life” is a solid piece of raw, hateful and honest black metal with a strong ’90s feeling, just as I like it. “Suomi Finland Perkele!”
Nocturnal Sorcery – Captive in the Breath of Life Track List:
1.The Dark Secret
2.Oath of Mt Hermon
3.Cry of the Wounded Heaven
4.Captive in the Breath of Life
5.Spectral Force
6.Beyond Salvation
7.Joyless Dance in the Shadow
8.Redemption at Daybreak
9.Damned by the Law of the Stars
10.Lucifer’s Shade
11.Along the Path of Fire
Nocturnal Sorcery Line-Up:
Maledictus Vult – vocals / bass
Vorr – guitars
Genius of Perversions – guitars
Epaluoma – drums
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