Album Review: Nocturnal – The Great Emptiness (Seance Records)

Seance Records will release Nocturnal’s new album, ‘The Greater Emptiness’ on the 29th of October 2019. ‘The Greater Emptiness’ will be Nocturnal’s first album in 19 years and despite almost two decades passing the Nocturnal spirit has not been dulled. First conceived in the mid 90’s by founding member P. Solus, Nocturnal was for most of its existence a solo undertaking releasing two demos in 1995, the debut self titled album in 1997 and the follow up, ‘To The Far Horizons’ in 2000. This steady procession of releases marked Nocturnal as one of the earliest and most pioneering yet sadly underrated Black Metal entities in the Australian underground.

P. Solus describes the second wave of black metal from which Nocturnal began as:

A really fertile time with so much inspiration and great music realized within a very short period of time. Being free from the technical trappings of a dying death metal scene allowed me to be free to explore a more emotional, darker form of music.

‘The Greater Emptiness’ is the natural continuation of Nocturnal and with the addition of a new member, A. Frore on drums even though almost two decades on, it is as though no time has passed at all.

P Solus states that:

After being absent for so long the idea was to create an album that sounded like it was recorded straight after ‘To The far Horizons’, being faithful to the original concept and feel of the band.

It’s been a year of returns and strong ones at that. Now adding their names to the list are Nocturnal with their new album, The Greater Emptiness.

The icy coldness washes over the mind with 6 tracks of bitter and harsh sounding metal. Albeit one played at varying tempos giving a much more atmospheric sound. As well as tracks of varying length with a trio in the middle not passing the 2 and a half minute mark individually.

Whereas My Flesh Is But Rot is a tad more haunting, the title track is a much more intense classic black metal listen and Nail’s gothic tone is well and truly hammered in.

It’s back to something a bit more traditional with Song of Death and Shadows of Euclidean Spaces. The former an incredible showcase of power, the guitar rhythm alone worth its weight in gold. While the latter is a sprawling mass of heaviness that satisfies any hunger.

Nocturnal – The Greater Emptiness Full Track Listing:

1. My Temple
2. My Flesh Is But Rot
3. The Greater Emptiness
4. Nail
5. Song Of Death
6. Shadows Of Euclidean Spaces

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