A Spectrum Beyond Black

Much as I love metal and it's myriad subgenres, it suffers from one big sonic problem in particular, namely an extreme paucity of imagination when it comes to guitar sounds. Playing thrash or death? Boost the bass and the treble, cut the mid and compress it to fuck. Worked fine for Slayer et al in the 80s, but come on people, that was 20-odd fucking years ago, surely you could have thought of some new sounds by now. Just because you've spent ages writing an incredibly convoluted series of riffs and chord progressions it doesn't mean you can then just drag out the same fucking guitar sound as everyone else.

Black metal is probably the worst offender in this respect, 90% of bands having that same buzzing droning Peavy amp with the midrange and presence redlined guitar tone*. Done right its an awesome sound, but Beherit, Darkthrone, Burzum** and all the other old school loons patented that sound a long time ago. Obviously there have always been exceptions to the rule, like Enslaved or Blut Aus Nord, but you've always had to search through a mountain of shit to find the blackened pearls underneath.

But there is hope (obviously not contained within the grooves of the records, this is BM after all) in the shape of groups like Melechesh, Haemoth, Meads Of Asphodel, Nortt and in particular, the USBM underground hordes such as Xasthur, Absu, Leviathan/Lurker Of Chalice and my current favourites, Nachtmystium, whose new album, Instinct: Decay (Battle Kommand/Southern Lord) is a whirling blackened kaleidescope of throbbing and flailing psychedelic brutality. And when I say psychedelic, I mean it in the true sense of the word, this really is some mind-expanding shit. Imagine (the sadly defunct) Craft getting Helios Creed and Simon House in on guitar and synths respectively, allied to a skill for songwriting and arrangement that's still all too rare in what passes for the "experimental" end of BM. Expansive and dynamic, Nachtmystium's pallette is broad enough to encompass some truly stunning acoustic passages that avoid the normal "folkloric" pit that too many BM groups fall into alongside Barrettesque echo laden disorientation and some monstrously good spacerocking that Hawkwind would have been proud of alongside the normal icy tremolo guitar, throat-shredding shrieking and bellowing and drums of splintering bone. The fact the fact that the intro sounds like it could have been lifted from a prime Chrome album doesn't hurt either. Nactmystium have raised the fucking bar with this release. Go listen.

*The worst offenders D.I. their guitars in the studio. Dudes, this shit is supposed to be heavy. If you ain't got any fucking air moving your sound ain't gonna have any weight.

**Yes, I know that Grishnackh is a convicted murderer and a hideous cross between Hitler and Phillip Glass, who makes atrocious digital synth viking-ambient records from prison***, but the vile little fucker did make a few killer albums before going completely fucking apeshit crazy.

***Which some could use as evidence in an argument against liberal prison regimes...