Track 11 Vlad Tepes cover
welling within the thick fog of empty dissolution and malignant shadow, Nihil Invocation has existed since 2016 as a bleak ritual spell that has only sought the awakening of dormant emotions in its listeners; deep expressions of disparate ruin brought grinning to the fragile surface. Their first demos; Time and Death and Disease in Solitude, were the work of two creatures of the vast forest, Deathwalker handled the guitars and vocals, whilst his stalwart companion, Ankath, handled the drums. These early works - whilst oozing with earnest expressions of forsaken misery - were extremely derivative of classic early 90’s second wave black metal bands. Darkthrone, Judas Iscariot, Vlad Tepes, Moonblood and Grausemkeit, to name a few, were wonderful places to seek bleak enlightenment, but it would not be until Nihil Invocation’s first full album, Chthonian Twilight Ritual, that the project began to find its own leprous feet.
Chthonian Twilight Ritual was the first album that Deathwalker handled all duties and would essentially become Nihil Invocation on his own. the shedding of Ankath would not be missed as Deathwalker refined the sound of the band for the better. The demo and EP that followed, The Valleys Green and Journeys Mourned and Furthering the Depth of Lucid Madness, pursued this train of thought further, removing blast beats almost entirely from the composition; which allowed for a more sparse mix of slower tremolo riffing, audible bass lines and a perpetual atmosphere of despair. This pair of releases, as well as a compilation of the splits Nihil Invocation had participated up until this point, would lay the path for the projects greatest achievement to date, their second album - Strange Ones Voicing Sorrow in My Dreams.
Nihil Invocation’s second full offering of pensive terror has once more improved all aspects of the projects sonic delivery of desolate emptiness. The guitar work is sublime; relying far more on melodic tremolo riffs that are sparse and slow in nature, rather than bombarding the listener with a thick wall of tumultuous noise. Deathwalker wields these riffs as would a spreader of plague, inhuman patience allowing for the symptoms of sorrow to bloom strong in the mind of the listener, in which said melodies stick to the brain like viscous mud. Also, the allowance for a more sparing use of guitar lines has given the bass far more room to breathe on its own noxious futility. An excellent example of this would be the mournful “Blood Still Drips from My Sorrowful Portrait”, where towards the end of the song the bass carries the main melody, slipping from its usual shadowing of the guitar and stepping out separately in its own wallowing waltz of woe. The drumming is also interesting in its display of a more reserved assault of cymbal and hi-hat crashes, that further punctuate the guitar melodies and assist in creating a gloomy atmosphere. This style of drumming, again, allows the rest of the mix to breathe and does not fall prey to the trap of losing most of said mix with a barrage of blast beats that are their simply because that is the norm for the genre. Deathwalker’s vocals, on the other hand, are more typical for this style of black metal, but do not fail to disappoint with their earnest rancors of bile - laden with echoes of anguish from dungeons long forgotten.
It is choices like these that separate Nihil Invocation from its contemporaries. Instead of aiming for the same mould of sheer dissonant, violent display of noise and blitzkrieg tempo, Deathwalker has understood where his weaknesses lie in technical proficiency and relied on his intuitive talent for superlative song composition. Each track on the album feels memorable and revolves around keystones, whether they be riffs, drum patterns or bass lines, that are repeated just enough that the songs remain in the mind past the initial exposure to the listener. Whilst this method of song construction may be more typical in more traditional genres of metal; that still have ties to hard rock composition, raw black metal typically has strayed away from this kind of composition and it is refreshing to see the conventional and unconventional brought together seamlessly here.
Stand out tracks include the phenomenally majestic “The Agony That Rots Beyond” that opens with a swaggering riff full of vampiric pomp, that culminates in a crescendo of blast beats before dying in the throes of a bass line adrift - alone in its final tune. “Strange Ones Voicing Sorrow in My Dreams” is a haunting acoustic instrumental, barely a minute in length, but does much to add to the variety of the release and the harmonious clean vocals are downright ridden with hideous anguish. “From Fog Below a Setting Sun…” is the album’s longest piece and it opens with a grievous melody of lamentable tragedy that lulls the listener into a trance state, only to be broken as the song fades into nothingness.
Thematically Lovecraft or Smith themselves would have little to complain of regarding the path Deathwalker has pursued both aesthetically and lyrically. With track titles such as “Hateful Force of Unseen Landscapes” it is impossible not to conjure thoughts of unnamable horrors that the weird horror writers brought to life almost a century past. Nihil Invocation has, for the majority of its life, always taken a strong orthodox view on the visual side of the project and this album is no different, with Deathwalker himself proudly emblazoned upon the cover, rancid claws upon skull, leering tongue astray and empty eye ablaze with endless maelstroms of fury. The old photocopied visages of the 90’s reborn anew - another chapter of nihilism summoned forth once again.
In morbid conclusion, Strange Ones Voicing Sorrow in My Dreams, is the total culmination of all Deathwalker has portrayed since Nihil Invocation’s inception. A meandering lost sprit of dissolute lamentation, Strange Ones Voicing Sorrow in My Dreams, is a stark piece of raw black metal, that stands apart from its contemporaries for it’s simple, slow and outright depressing atmosphere that dares the listener to reach deep down into the bleak depths below. Anyone searching for a raw black metal sound that relies less on a wall of white noise and aggressive drumming, look no further than this album; you will not be disappointed. The whispers of things strange beckon amongst the shattered remains of lands swallowed whole by the abyss and only those of equally shattered equilibrium will beseech their demands; lest they too are imbibed by the grand maw of shadow.
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