Nightwalker "Dark Sorcery" CD

Nightwalker, a one-person black metal project from Germany, has released a new EP on German label Astral Nightmare Productions.
This EP practically drips the essence of a particular first wave black metal style in the vein of Mortuary Drape, early Samael and early Rotting Christ. Not a pastiche of satanism but southern-style black magic, necromancy, and dread curses. Tremolo is there, but it is more muted, swirling within the overall atmosphere, rather than standing out in the stark fashion of Scandinavian styles. Tracks are frequently slowed down to the pace of a ritual procession. The whole sound is stuffy, claustrophobic, as if it was recorded deep within the catacombs of a profaned church.
The style is complemented and developed by the organ (synth based I am assuming) - , used in the intro to the first track – The Winged Shadow, and the fourth – Dark Sorcery. It’s decidedly unpleasant, in a good way, building that sepulchral feel. The organ actually stays in the background for much of track four, but never becomes irritating, helped by being mixed much quieter than the rest of the instruments, barely audible behind the rituality of the other instruments. The last track is an ambient one, with vocals, murmurings and the sounds of dripping water in deep catacombs, providing an effective coda to the EP.
When you listen to this you pass beneath crumbling Norman arches leading to forgotten ossuaries. Heaps of bones crunch underfoot as you make your way past defiled altars. Atmospheric black metal gets thrown around a lot to mean a particularly clean “large” and “outdoorsy” sound, but this is atmospheric black metal in the broad sense, in that it oozes atmosphere in a way that many so called atmospheric black albums try so hard to do without success. This feels ritualistic, forbidding, decidedly unholy. Music to raise the dead to.
Special mention here to the cover art. Altar-placed magic book, skull, dagger and lit candle with the band name and album in stark red is the perfect accompaniment to the music - an embodiment of what the artist is aiming for here and standing out against an ocean of 2020 monochrome landscape-based black metal album covers.
Production wise it sounds like it was recorded in a crypt, as it should.
An interesting standout release of 2020 in a sea currently dominated by atmospheric black and post-black metal.

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