Nyktalgia
Nyktalgia

I have a lot of gut and my arms are trembling. I feel a swirling nebula in my stomach and I breathe deeply. But I must finish this review which for me will be like reliving summer nights in the high mountains with the car roof open and the pallor of the Milky Way starring in my dreams and those of a dear person with a delicate soul who is no longer here today. I dedicate what I write to her. I hope not to irritate anyone with a speech that surely goes a bit off the lines of a normal album commentary.

The self-titled album by the Nyktalgia, a German band formed in 2001 and released with this self-titled 4-track in September 2004, was gifted to me by this friend with extreme surprise. Depressive, okay, there was a lot of it around, so much that I chewed it up to nausea a bit of everything. It seemed strange to receive it from her, but I followed her suggestion. We didn't have to imagine anything or close our eyes. Alone, on the house terrace, waiting for that summer to die, we engaged in one of our usual disintegrating discussions until reaching that state where you're depressed but delight masochistically in being so. We went further in that analysis of ourselves, until silence, lying next to each other with gaze chasing few shooting stars, but without any desire to see fulfilled. I hadn't noticed before, but in the meantime, that atmosphere broke with the end of the album. And so on again, in loop, until waking up late morning still there. Without any desire to talk. She had a trace of tear on her cheek.

I don't know if I managed to convey the idea, for this, I'll delve into some themes that are more closely related to this very interesting work. Nyktalgia is a depressive black metal album where you won't find a great production, where the chords are few and the voice is a lament of a man who has all the space he wants but... finds himself in a deserted land. In short, Nyktalgia is not the ultraviolent super album and masterfully produced that many would like to hear. Nyktalgia is just a "fuck everything", a desperate voice with no echo, indeed whose sound is skillfully muffled by the malice of despair that doesn't want to let this moving scream for help reach others. In the end, these tracks are nothing more than a struggling series of aggressive parts with clenched-teeth and free falls into the void of solitude, with something absolutely moving in the riffing. There's something masterfully, and (perhaps) diabolically well-conceived in this release... the guitars seem to lament the vocal lament, they seem to want to comfort it. In reality, however, they only accentuate this sense of profound pain that accompanies the entire album. The drums here only set the tempo, with no stylistic pretensions, standing there to ensure this album sounds black in the parts where more rhythmic accompaniment is needed. I imagined this album even without drums. Perhaps it would be too much, perhaps it would indeed be suicidal and not to be played for those who are unwell. The beauty of such an album lies in the fact that if you let yourself be absorbed, it screws you. It screws you right and doesn't leave you anymore. Even when you put it aside, sooner or later it comes back and you can't help listening to it. Maybe I'm biased, maybe not.

Let's examine the 4 songs. Miserere Nobis 11 minutes and 6 seconds of pure ups and downs in mood... it manages to give hope but knows how to erase it immediately. When it seems to recover, there it is freezing you with its repetitiveness of accelerations and slowdowns. Distorted guitars which I would define as "bittersweet", forgive the term. Screaming coming from afar laden with frustration. Drums pounding when needed and almost seems to disappear to make room for the 6-string distortions at other times. Great precision from all the band members. Drawn-out sound, sufficient production that perhaps gives even more beauty to the track and the entire album. Here cleanliness doesn't count, it's necessary to be neglected.

Lamento Larmoyant. Burzumian start with a determined tread. The guitar works very well tracing the contours of a very gloomy yet determined track. It's evident from the drums too. Great support from the bass. Then a scream and you plunge back into hell. Slow times and pain, pain, pain... twisting the knife in the wound until heading directly back to the beginning of the track with guitars giving a sense of powerful sadness and darkness... night. As for the previous track, this one never tires, its repetitiveness can only benefit. Very slow and distressing finale.

Cold Void. Masterpiece track, grand where all musicians know how to give value to themselves and be appreciated. The escape on black horses during the battle rages, the drums rages, the inner conflict rages. This crazy piece evokes raw, gruesome, cruel images. It goes crazy for more than a quarter of a track. Then slows down on a hot double kick and guitar shields that underline a more shouted scream, definitely more rebellious compared to the resigned ones of the previous "songs". And then back at war. A decidedly distorted and sick stop and go.

Exitus Letalis. I hear Ulver in this track. Same drums and same Bergatt distortions... in the background something acoustic plays very sadly. You notice it especially when the track changes tempo and that "thing" acoustic disappears. What was it? You don’t care anymore, you're there again swimming in the tears raining from the tragic screaming of the song. Naturally, there’s a return to the previous rhythm, but this time it lasts short. The finale is the record as I would have imagined it. Only distorted guitar trying to console screams over screams, an endless torment that only patient drumming manages to channel back onto the track of what was the piece. Tremendous.

Nyktalgia is a journey. Not to be made.