Nachymystium : " Resilient"

I stand by the fact I don't want to hear music by anyone who is not in some kind of struggle or pain. I have written reviews before where I have said "these guys would be better if they got out and did some drugs and lived a little" . Blake Judd has them covered when it comes to that. It seeps out of every pore of every note. I also will stand by the fact that these guys are one of my favorite black metal projects. They are not all blast beats. In fact it's just a dark tortured pulse. Very similar to depressive suicidal black metal, though Judd is just not being melodramatic about it and has tried to kill himself in other ways than the most obvious , which I think is also a metaphor for his music. The first song finds more melodic and melancholy elements creep in as it progresses.

The band's first album for Prophecy Productions finds a Lyrical shift as there is a darkly romantic theme to  the beginning of "Sliver Lanterns"  then it goes back into the more familiar subjects of emptiness, silence, darkness, sorrow and addiction.  Musically  this song is more aggressive than the opener working off of more of a gallop. The vocal remain in a scathing mid range rasp. They slow to let the guitar tone clean up a little and shift into a more melodic passage. There is a sample of a spoken narrative about a trip in an ambulance after an over dose. When the song builds into it's nastier blast section it still works rather than being a sloppy cop out.

Then things enter a more wandering landscape of psychedelic sound with "Desert Illumination". I sat on this review for about a week because it had not clicked in my head enough for it to come together in my mind to put into words. I can now here it has more of a Black Sabbath groove and when I say that I mean their more experimental moments, so think "Sabotage". The vocals are spoken and screamed. I'll give this album a 9.5, it might not be as perfect as some of their previous releases, but pretty fucking close and better than most black metal acts have mustered since it is not at all redundant.