Colorado’s Nightbringer is light-years ahead of most US black metal bands, both in depth of philosophy and musical composition. The musicianship on new album Apocalypse Sun is impressive, but it’s only part of the picture. Really, what Nightbringer have created with this album is a fusion music and lyrical imagery into a piercing vision of unfathomable malevolence.

Aside from their previous album, it’s safe to say you’ve heard nothing quite like Nightbringer’s particular brand of black metal. Each lengthy song is a storm of seemingly atonal, serpentine riffs that swell and shift menacingly. The guitarists sometimes tremolo pick almost inhumanly fast, which along with the robotically precise drumming gives Nightbringer a unique and singularly terrifying sound. The closest analogue would be Deathspell Omega’s recent output on the Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum album, which is similarly chaotic. One other unusual aspect of Nightbringer’s sound is their higher-pitched, banshee-like melodic riffing that appears in nearly every song, something which admittedly took some getting used to.

Another similarity to Deathspell Omega is the depth of lyrical content. I don’t normally delve into the lyrics of albums too much, but judging from interviews with this band, it sounds like fans probably won’t make much sense of the subject matter without having a good understanding of various occult and spiritual topics. Nevertheless, Nightbringer clearly put a lot of energy into making the imagery and lyrical content work well together, so to enjoy one without the other would be somewhat of a waste.

It should be noted that this album is probably one of the least accessible metal albums I’ve come across; in fact I still don’t really feel like I fully appreciate what’s going on in each song. At first the album just seems like a blur of random, extremely technical riffs that convey a vague sense of evil, and it’s only after many, many spins that the riffs on Apocalypse Sun start to make much sense.

Nightbringer do actually add a good amount of variation to their songs in the form of different tempos, different textures and dynamics and various effects like chanting or choirs, so that Apocalypse Sun ends up being a good mix of blisteringly fast tracks like opener ‘Supplication Before the Throne of Tehom’ and ‘Goblet of Sulfur and Poison’ and ominous, brooding compositions like ‘Excitium - Litany of the Devouring Earth’ or ‘The Utterance of Kasb’el’. If you’re at all a fan of this type of music, check Apocalypse Sun out, as it’s definitely worth the effort.

» Buy Apocalypse Sun from Amazon.com