Nocturnus
Threshold

Here I am, wrapped in the scorching heat, reviewing this album but more generally this group that to call phenomenal would be quite an understatement. Putting on the headphones and listening to these tracks means abandoning the materiality of our daily lives and entering a fantastic world made of technique, originality, but more generally of that something that cannot be expressed with simple words. Listening to Nocturnus is a unique experience, something impossible to translate into words, something that makes you realize how limited we humans are, we mere mortals who on certain rare occasions are unable to draw from the rich vocabulary of words to represent what we have experienced, because every word is out of place or reductive. Nocturnus belong to the same family as much more renowned bands such as Death, Obituary, etc. Their first album saw the light in 1988, titled "Science of Horror," and aligns in composition and lyrics with that musical revolution of which the good old Chuck Shuldiner is rightly credited as a pioneer today. Nocturnus did not achieve the same fame as Death, indeed very few know them, and it is precisely for this reason that, given their talent, I feel honored to review what I consider their best album. Despite originating from the land of American Death (Florida), Nocturnus do not follow the clichés of that death but become pioneers and then the sole representatives of a variant in which Louis Panzer's keyboard envelops Mike Davis and Sean McNenney's guitars with fantasy-shock atmospheres. The guitars, indeed, incredible and omnipresent, lightning solos, superb scales that embellish every single fraction of each piece, complexity beyond the norm, dozens of different riffs for each track, all correlated with artificial and psychedelic sounds that reflect the content of the lyrics, constantly between the mystical and the science fiction. The tracks are all wonderful, each a story unto itself, unpredictable and thrilling, lessons in guitar technique, the shrill voice model Chuck, unique and exclusive atmospheres. I've said enough for now, I've already spent too many useless words, this album is a must!!!