CD - Nachtmystium - Blight Privilege

1CD - Import

Nachtmystium are back! And after all that was said and done, mastermind Blake Judd is still standing. Not only that, but Judd has also clawed himself back from the abyss of a most extreme life imaginable to a much more quiet, observant, and matured artist and person.

His return will not be met with universal applause - even from the black metal scene. For anybody following the tumultuous career of Judd and his pioneering band that has pushed the borders of their genre into new territories, this comes hardly as a surprise.

With their ninth studio album "Blight Privilege", Nachtmystium present a masterpiece that can even compete with the trilogy of albums that many view as the peak of the earlier career of the American black metal trailblazers: "Instinct: Decay" (2006), "Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. I" (2008), and "Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II" (2010). All the darkest elements, required and longed for, are there: harsh, rasping vocals, the fierce hum and whirr of guitars burning with an ice cold fire, moments of ecstatic and exalted beauty in hellish soundscapes.

Yet there are also those fine details that the musically well-versed Judd has always cunningly hidden in the general sonic onslaught such as post-punk and wave elements, and now even a knife-tip of outlaw country.