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| NOCTURNAL - Storming Evil LP | |
HRR 337, 300 x orange vinyl + black vinyls, 425gsm heavy cardboard cover, poster, 4 page insert, 2nd pressing, orange/ black splatter vinyl, 3rd pressing: ltd 500, 200 x black + 300 x bone vinyl, 4 page insert, poster | |
| Tyrannizer - Vocals Avenger - Guitars Vomitor - Bass Skullsplitter - Drums | |
| -Storm from the Graves -Rising Demons -Tyrants of Damnation -Preaching Death -Perish in Darkness -Crushing Thebones -Taken by Fire -Ripping Knives -Blessed Death -Ruthless Darkness | |
| SOLD OUT! | |
Nocturnal don’t need a long introduction. Formed in 1997 from the ashes of Bestial Desecration, they set out to play riff-based old school thrash in the vein of Destruction, Sodom, Exumer, Assassin and Kreator, to name just a few. Their first two albums speak for themselves, being a feast for everyone who’s into good old 80s thrash. Their debut “Arrival of the Carnivore” from 2004 was an amazing piece of unholy pure 80s worshipping underground thrash, and the second output “Violent Revenge” from 2009 was no less great, being the first album featuring Tyrannizer on vocals.
As the two full length-albums before “Storming Evil” got mighty fine reviews, comparing Nocturnal to Tankard, Kreator, Possessed, Venom and of course Destruction, it would be a shame if the new album won’t follow the same path. There’s no need to worry, as guitarist Avenger assures: „There won’t be many changes to the sound... We only tried to write more varied songs, and we tried to focus more on the guitar work than we did on the second album. Also, the new material clearly is our most mature stuff...“ That’s proven at first listen: “Storming Evil” is a relentless riff attack, straightforward and uncompromising, also showing how massively Tyrannizer improved her already brutal-as-fuck-vocal performance. “Tyrannizer focused a lot on her vocals for the new album, and we took a lot of time in the studio to get them right...”
Produced by Mersus, who is known for his great work for Attic, Ketzer, Deathfist and Gospel of the Horns, the album manages to keep the perfect balance between a clear and brillant sound and the rottenness we all crave for in thrash metal. No wonder the band is perfectly contented with him: “He is still at the starting point with his studio, but for us it was the best choice to work with him since he has been a fan of the band from the beginning and knows what our sound needs and what not... We are very satisfied with his work! Sound- and production-wise I think we finally achieved what we always wanted...”
There’s another guy who took a hand in making “Storming Evil” a ghastly pleasure not only for the ears but for the eyes as well: The artwork was delivered by no other than Philip Lawvere, who used to work for Noise Records back in the days. Flick through your collection, you will find his artwork adorning some real classics, namely the early outputs of Kreator (Pleasure to Kill!), Celtic Frost and Deathrow! „He is a great and friendly guy... We really wanted to have something special for this album, and we thought getting the guy whose artworks represent teutonic thrash metal like no other is just mandatory for our album...”
Having been around for over fifteen years, it seems a bit strange that “Storming Evil” is only the third full-length release, especially as the band have been very active ever since, releasing a good deal of EPs and Splits. Is there a special reason for concentrating on smaller releases? “The EP’s usually contain other versions of the songs released on the album... try to see it like this:
The time we needed to complete the full-lenghts would not have been any shorter if we had concentrated on making albums. I think releases like this are interesting for the die-hard fans of the band, and they keep the name circulating...”
For Nocturnal, it’s extremely important to get their music out on vinyl: “In our opinion, vinyl is the only format that matters nowadays... If you just want to listen to an album on the side, MP3´s are the more convenient format, but if you really want to celebrate an album, you put down the needle, sit down on your couch and take some time to look at the artwork and read the lyrics in a proper vinyl size.”
Signing with High Roller was therefore the best option for the thrashing vinyl lovers: “They offered the best deal and seem to be overall the right label for us at this point. The fact that they are based in Germany is a plus as well... makes everything easier...”
Recently there were again some changes in the line-up of Nocturnal: Drummer Hellbastard was replaced by Skullsplitter, and second guitarist Teutonic Slaughter left the band. What effect does this have on the sound of Nocturnal? ”The second guitar was more an experiment to sound better in live situations, but because we live far away from each other and because we were not that well-rehearsed, we did not sound too good with two guitars... So we decided to skip that and stick with one guitar only. As for the drummer change, I guess if you compare the two previous albums with the new one, you will see a huge difference. With Skullsplitter we found the perfect drummer for Nocturnal.”
Nocturnal used to share their former vocalist Metallic Mayhem with their fellow thrashers Witchburner. How has the relationship changed since he left? “We have a great friendship with the Witchburner guys... with Mayhem we have some loose to zero contact... he is not making music anymore as far as I know.”
One thing remains to be asked: Do Nocturnal get mixed up a lot with the Swedish retro rock band Nocturnal? “Not at all... I just heard about them a year ago maybe... I don’t know what to think of that...When I took the name Nocturnal in 2000 I barely had an internet connection nor sources like Metal Archives to check if that name had already been taken... So a couple of years later I found out that there were already two bands with the same name... One Australian black/doom project which had already ceased to exist at that point and a Polish black metal band which I think are still active, but I never got across any of their releases... They also never contacted us about the name issue, so I guess they also don’t care or think it causes problems...but when I checked Metal Archives for Nocturnal after I had heard about those Swedes, I found out that there are eight bands with the same name in total, ha ha!”
Still, looks like there is only one band called Nocturnal that really matters: On the cover of the Darkthrone album “Dark Thrones and Black Flags”, the Nocturnal logo appears on the leather jacket of the drawn figure. So, Fenriz and Ted must be big fans of Nocturnal? “I guess they are...”
Ulrike Schmitz