Nycticorax "Black Raven... Dark Night" CD

Well, what do we have here, a nice little Black Metal band from Latvia? How exotic can you get? Now I have to admit, I don't listen to a lot of Baltic Black Metal, or Baltic music for that matter, so I can not tell whether the music here is typically influenced by any cultural reference in their region, but nonetheless they sure manage to sound solid. The music we have on this CD is a little bit watered down, while at the same time the band, NYCTICORAX, (translated to "nightraven"), do nothing wrong, but also nothing out of the extraordinary. Let's get into a little bit more detail on the disc itself.
2006's "Black Raven...Dark night" is one of those modern attempts at reviving a genre long gone, trying meretriciously to push on, to create the atmosphere of the old. Giving the greatness and difficulty of this quest, the boys from NYCTICORAX manage to succeed in creating an album that isn't that bland or yawn-inspiring and while their efforts are noble, there still are many flaws present, for example the production being too clear and light. That just won't do. I'm not saying you should overdue it with bad production, but the fuzzy feeling just isn't there. The dark atmosphere is lacking.
The vocalist reminds me of Norway's TROLLFEST, because their vocalist has a similar voice: too squieky and thin. Not raspy enough for my taste. Additionally, they have many folk influences, since they use a lot of acoustic guitar and interludes, which are at times entertaining, at others annoying. After the far too long instrumental intro, they start with typical generic "modern" black metal, but without the incredibly inflated production. Their song progression is very straightforward with not many interesting measure changes or fancy stuff.
Now without understanding anything from the lyrics, I actually like some instrumental acoustic parts, but they seem inserted between the other stuff like CDs in a shelf. It's like a salad (well at least it's not a production soup) and quite underdeveloped. Overall, it's a neat little CD with its moments, but don't expect the revolution with this one. For fans of mediocre Black Metal, mixed with folk, who just want to increase their collection.

Limited 1000 copies

Sample: