NOKTURNAL MORTUM - The Taste of Victory
Band Website: http://www.thepaganfront.com/oriana/nm/
Label: Oriana Records
1. Weltanschauung
2. The New Era of Swords
3. The Taste of Victory
4. As the Steel Eagle into Golden Svarga
A 42 minute, 4 track EP packaged in a DVD case, artwork with the unreadable band logo pivoting on a wooden shield emblazoned with 4 mean looking Nazi swastikas. (Theyre especially mean looking because theyre covered in thorns. Ouch!) Of course, the bigger picture is that of a German WW2 infantry soldier laying dead in some desolate wheat field. The title of the EP? The Taste of Victory. Welcome to the National Socialistic world of NOKTURNAL MORTUM, abandoned protégés of The End Records (although you can still buy all their albums from the mail-order curiously enough), and creators of Ukrainian folk-laden Aryan metal.
From their entire discography, this is perhaps the third incarnation of the band, where they started on their musical path with atmospheric pagan metal (Lunar Poetry, Goat Horns), exploded into a battle cry of war (To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire), and now settling into a personal comfort zone of NSBM (NeChrist, The Taste of Victory). Interestingly enough, perhaps their best musical output has emerged from their last two politically controversial offerings, although admittedly, their entire catalog is more than worthwhile and stacked neatly together in the N section of my CD collection (whether they like it or not).
Anyway, on to the music. Mid-paced, heathen metal, fusing together an assortment of traditional Ukrainian instruments that probably look as odd as they sound. To call this atmospheric is an understatement to say the least. What started on NeChrist eventually matured into The Taste of Victory with cleaner production, more emphasis on the folk instrumentation, and better overall song writing. With the number of notable side bands that some of the band members play with, such as ASTROFAES or MISTIGGO VARGGOTH DARKESTRA, make no doubt that there is some seriously good songwriting on display here. The first three tracks, by the way, are taken from the upcoming Weltanschauung album, so fans wait with baited breath if this is a taste of things to come.
Not exactly hatecore SKREWDRIVER material, although obviously happy to sit side by side with them at your local white supremacist distro, NM are too good to ignore for their impossible personal beliefs whether genuine or not. So swallow your political pride and support the resistance ..and while youre at it, up the irons, death to false metal, and away thee with your cheap intrusion of hardcore rubbish upon the sanctity of metal. And that goes to you too, Nuclear Blast (having released Goat Horns in Europe) and your latest signing the survey said Aryan Front, not Agnostic Front. Tsk, tsk.
9.5/10
