Nocturnus Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD: MARYLAND DEATHFEST, NECROPHOBIC, UNCOFFINED, AND NEOLITHIC VOID

Sep 262013

Here’s a round-up of noteworthy things seen and heard over the last 24 hours.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST

The organizers of MDF XII have been slowly announcing the names of bands who will appear at next year’s edition of the best metal festival in the US. The most recent announcement came earlier this week with four new names: Cancer, from the UK, who will be making their first US appearance since 1993; Sacrifice from Canada, who will be making their first appearance since 1992; Nocturnus (who for legal reasons must call themselves Nocturnus A.D.), who will be playing the entirety of their debut album The Key; Crowbar; and Death Toll 80K from Finland.

I have several friends who are especially hot over the return of Nocturnus, including NCS writer BadWolf, who reviewed The Key in retrospective back in July 2012 (here). There seems to be some uncertainty about which of the band’s original members will be appearing, other than drummer/vocalist Mike Browning. However, Nocturnus performed songs from The Key live in Mexico City last April. Photos of that show can be found here, and videos are on YouTube, too. I wouldn’t recognize the performers, but presumably it will be the same line-up at MDF.

Here’s one of those videos: Continue reading »

EFFIGIES OF THE FORGOTTEN: NOCTURNUS – THE KEY

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jul 132012

(In this post, BadWolf looks back at an album he calls the progenitor of progressive death metal — a 1990 release by Florida’s Nocturnus, a band whose members including some significant names in the annals of extreme metal.)

Progressive death metal, now far from its maligned beginnings, is in full bloom. Certainly, the genre is a blog-darling, and NCS is no exception to that trend. Many of the most successful and critically acclaimed bands in contemporary metal—Opeth, The Faceless, Between the Buried and Me, Periphery, Obscura, Meshuggah, and others—could all very loosely fall under progressive death metal flag, or at the very least would not exist without that genre’s long and sordid history. Which means now is as good a time as any to reflect upon the art form’s history.

Where is it going? Well, where has it come from.

Well, I have dug into the past and given some extensive listening to, according to my research, the progenitor of progressive death metal. Some of my co-writers at Invisible Oranges turned me on to Nocturnus during my stay at Maryland Deathfest 2012, and it’s been in heavy rotation on my iPod since. Nocturnus released their debut album, The Key, in 1990 on Earache records, but it still scorches.

Continue reading »