Written by Carcassbomb
- Nyctophile
- We Are The Darkness
- Melodic Death Metal
- USA
- 2018
- 8/10
We Are The Darkness begins its story with some very typical though well recorded melodic death metal. It sounds really good on a half decent pair of headphones, so much so that it’s easy to ignore some of the aspects to the sound that would normally be tedious or weak. Thankfully, Nyctophile pull a strong amount of influence from proper death metal.
The melo aspect of the sound comes from the instruments while the vocals remain consistently heavy and death-like. The most the vocals soften to are creepy ass doom-like spoken word pieces that are used so sparingly that most people wouldn’t even notice. It’s infrequent enough that it’s actually a welcome change to see a difference in the vocalist’s approach to the music.
I feel like the pace is quicker than what is expected from the genre with a lot of parts that hang out with some straight death metal and if the melody is in the guitars then they are playing too fast for me to recognize them as such. It’s the most aggressive band with the “melo” label I’ve heard all year and thank fuck for that. I’d rather listen to polka music or ambient electronica than hear one more generic melodic death metal release in 2018. Nyctophile will almost certainly remain at the top of the list in quality when it comes to that specific category. I’ve been more brutal towards this genre than any other.
I just checked out their page on The Metal Archives… this is their first LP. Nyctophile have the confidence and execution of a more experienced band. No doubt will go places after this release or maybe in a couple of albums time because that seems to be the way in the metal scene. Things grow in popularity slowly and over a career, there’s not a lot of one hit wonders, it tends to come with time, experience and a large discography. These guys have obviously sped the process up a bit by circumventing the amateur stage of being a metal band and going straight to releasing solid work with a firm direction.
Honestly, by the end of this album I begin to question why this is even considered melodic death metal. It’s been persistent in its attack and never seems to get too distracted once the groove for a song has been set. It feels more like progressive elements than melodic, it faces the music with the composure of prog more so than melodic because the ‘melodic’ parts of this record do not interfere with the tension of the music. It goes together too coherently to be annoying. I mean, obviously I understand why it’s under that label, there’s a clear difference between this and Cannibal Corpse but the emphasis on death metal clearly takes the priority here.
If you’re sick of these patronizing 2deep4u melo-death bands then give this a go because it has the balls that melo-death needs.
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