THE SYNN REPORT, PART 46: LECHEROUS NOCTURNE

(In this 46th edition of The Synn Report, Andy Synn reviews the discography of Lecherous Nocturne.)

Recommended for fans of: Hour of Penance, Nile, Aborted

Lecherous Nocturne play Technical Death Metal – not Tech-Death. There’s a subtle, but important, difference there. Because this shit is brutal. With a capital B. And possibly a lot of other capital letters too.

The disgustingly violent quintet from South Carolina have three full-length albums under their belt, the last of which was only released last year. That’s three albums of stunningly technical riffage and sheer metallic mayhem, devastating drum work and bleeding-edge bedlam. Utterly merciless and unforgiving.

It’s an appropriate time to be covering the band too, as next month they’re joining Abigail Williams and Panzerfaust on a massive US tour sponsored by NCS. So if you like what you hear (and you will, if you know what’s good for you…) then make sure you catch them live in May/June! [the schedule is here]

 

ADORATION OF THE BLADE – 2006

“Kampagne” kicks things off in a whirlwind of blistering aggression and technical terror, immolating the listener in a deluge of napalm-drenched vocals and gut-wrenching blast beats.  Utterly relentess, it rolls over the listener in waves of cleansing fire, finally coalescing in a brutish, staggering finale. By contrast “Release in Flame” is a more controlled demolition, still ineffably brutal, but more tightly controlled, mixing in some welcome moments of ugly groove.

The murderous sonic stranglehold of “The Divine Wind” mixes lunatic aggression with lethal precision. Its blazing blast beats (courtesy of one Mr. Dallas Toler-Wade) and scalding riffage overwhelm the listener with blasphemous brutality, stabbing, switchblade riffs and cauterising leads creating unmitigated aural pandemonium.

The album’s title track is a sub-2-minute assault of blasting malevolence and stop-start savagery, while “Singe Esta Viata” is a mechanically precise barrage of hammering drums and firestorm riffage, matching pneumatic, punishing rhythms to a dark and ominous undercurrent.

“A Path To A Deity” explodes out of the gate with a three-pronged assault of cacophonous drums, skin-tearing riffs, and Jason Hohenstein’s viscerally guttural vocals, blasting through 3 and a half minutes of Cryptopsian chaos, leading into the berserker bludgeon of “Phalluscidal”, a crushing fusion of armour-plated riffs, machine-gun drum work, and bleak, menacing groove.

The album closes with the murderous rage of “Whorrified”, which intertwines evil melody and torturous technicality in a frenzied dance of death, pushing the boundaries with its mix of remorseless extremity and hook-filled butchery.

Sample song: “The Divine Wind”

 

 

 

 

 

THE AGE OF MIRACLES HAS PASSED – 2008

With “Just War Theory” Lecherous Nocturne immediately introduce an air of melodic menace to their sound – grimmer, grander, darker – married to the same sort of demonic devastation which made their debut such a blistering listen. The song’s crippling technical guitar work and strangled tremolo runs deliver a textbook bombardment of clinically precise death metal madness, topped off with Hohenstein’s blast-furnace death roar.

There’s a blackened edge to the material on this album that sets it apart from the early Nile-isms of the band’s debut. The blinding ferocity of “We Are As Dust” unleashes a toxic tornado of whirling blast-beats and bleak, nihilistic fury, while the claustrophobic intensity of “When Single Shines The Triple Sun” is tied together by a searing, ominous tremolo hook, and the tumultuous technical torment of “Edict of Worms” breeds crazed fretboard dynamics with brooding occult malevolence.

For all their feverish aggression the band aren’t afraid to ease off on the accelerator once in a while, with the title track being a slow-burning cataclysm of volcanic chords and asphyxiating darkness. Of course this is balanced out by the maniacal death-grind of “Requiem for the Insects”, a sickening melding of swarming tech-death insanity and juddering kerb-stomp riffage.

“Death Hurts Only The Living” bombards the listener with searing salvos of nerve-shredding sounds, mixing brutal low-end detonations with scything high-end shrapnel, while simultaneously unleashing an apocalyptic orgy of maniacal drum work. It’s not all about pure brutality though; there’s a method to the madness, the song incorporating subtle touches of grim groove and vicious tremolo into the mix.

It all climaxes in the destructive depravity of  “The Preponderance of Fire”, a ceaseless torrent of acidic vocal venom and mind-melting riffage, built on a foundation of rapid-fire blast-beats and high-explosive kick-drum artillery.

Sample song: “Death Hurts Only The Living”

 

 

 

 

 

BEHOLD ALMIGHTY DOCTRINE – 2013

The pestilential poison of “Ouroboros Chains” shows no mercy and takes no prisoners. Its razor-sharp guitars slash and scythe, its bone-shattering drums burst and bludgeon, while its vicious vocal hooks rend and tear with face-ripping ferocity.

The internal reshuffle – ex-Nile man Chris Lollis moving from guitars to main vocals – has done nothing to reduce the merciless extremity of the band’s brutalising death metal, as the dissonant delirium of “Bring The Void” so aptly demonstrates with its colossal percussive power and skin-shredding guitar work.

“Archeopteryx” is a targeted airstrike of ground-shaking drums and bunker-busting riff-charges, exploding with concussive force and leaving behind a ruptured aftermath of cold, cleansing devastation. Following this, “Those Having Been Hidden Away” reaches almost grindcore levels of intensity, three minutes of unrelenting blasting belligerence, culminating in a killer final refrain which shifts smoothly into the unexpected piano instrumental of “Prelude No. 2”.

“Judgements and Curses” achieves a perfect balance between demented aggression and inhuman precision, its torturous, barbed riffage spinning wildly through a series of rapturous, ravening contortions, taking in more than a touch of blackened melody and horror along the way.

“Lesions from Vicious Plague” fluctuates between lurching, monstrous chords and scathing, finger-snapping riffs, backed by some crawling, skittering bass work, before things shift, mid-song, into Immolation territory – juddering, headbanging death metal riffs providing a backbone of megaton heaviness for the track’s titanic title refrain.

“Caustic Vertigo” is as violent and corrosive as its name implies, a dizzying descent into acid-drenched dementia via rending guitars and spindly bass lines, leading to the album’s withering finale, “Creation Continuum”, whose crushingly heavy guitar work provides the perfect backing for Lollis’ primal roar.

Sample song: “Caustic Vertigo”

 

 

Lecherous Nocturne’s Facebook page is at this location, and all three releases discussed above are available for streaming and download here:

http://lecherousnocturne666.bandcamp.com