{"id":103218,"date":"2024-05-17T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T23:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=103218"},"modified":"2024-05-20T14:07:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T13:07:11","slug":"album-review-nocturnus-ad-unicursal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-nocturnus-ad-unicursal\/","title":{"rendered":"NOCTURNUS AD – Unicursal (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOCTURNUS AD
Unicursal<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nProfound Lore (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Another brain scrambling Nocturnus AD outing is upon us, giving me the feeling of being cast into the depths of space and left to float until I\u2019m turned inside out before dissolving. If you heard the Tampa, Florida-based band\u2019s last album Paradox<\/em><\/a> (2019) then hopefully you would\u2019ve prepared for such a bamboozling experience. But if not, then brace yourself.<\/p>\n

Five years have flown by since Mike Browning and company fried our membranes, and in that time the band has recruited a new bassist in Kyle Sokol who replaces Daniel Tucker, although Tucker performs all bass duties on this latest opus. The results are still the same; cosmic flirtations within a progressive death metal framework that is constructed of a multitude of angles and bends that drift between fellow tech-masters Atheist, Voivod and even Vektor, but with extra intricate shifts courtesy of axe men Belial Koblak and Demian Heftel.<\/p>\n

The cinematic textures throughout are provided by keyboardist Josh Holdren, but the oddest detail on this opus are Browning\u2019s vocals which are removed from the expected deathly bellows. Instead, he now delivers short barking commands such as on \u2018Yesod, The Dark Side Of The Moon\u2019 and \u2018Hod, The Stellar Light\u2019. It\u2019s a detail I\u2019m rather uncomfortable with as he chomps awkwardly through those befuddling soundscapes, particularly on \u2018Hod, The Stellar Light\u2019.<\/p>\n

Musically, everything is stellar, particularly the tinkling sci-fi keyboards as they introduce tracks like \u2018Netzach, The Fire Of Victory\u2019 before its burst of speed. Damn, there are even some passages where Browning narrates, making this record an even stranger affair than it should be. Naturally, the riffs for the entire album are frantic and there are always otherworldly layers and experimentations to navigate, a fine example being the nine-minute \u2018Mesolithic\u2019 with its patience testing tribal drum intro before a meandering lead finally, and thankfully, takes over at the two-minute mark. Oddly, this track seems to have more in common with the choppy rhythms of classic Faith No More, and while it\u2019s a nice surprise the vocals, again, just seem to let the composition down. However, opening track \u2018The Ascension Throne Of Osiris\u2019 already prepares us for such agitation, although musically it\u2019s a wild ride of manic death thrash.<\/p>\n

Another quibble is that some of the tracks seem overlong, even though I anticipated such self-indulgent tomfoolery. \u2018CephaloGod\u2019 takes a full minute of relatively nothing before kicking in with its slamming drums and orchestral wrinkles. The same could be said for \u2018Organism 46B\u2019 which literally sheds, although the one-minute \u2018Intro\u2019 just doesn\u2019t add anything further. Nocturnus AD sure loves a one-minute track intro, this time with \u2018Mission Malkuth\u2019 which finally hugs then embarks on another thrash burst before Browning\u2019s shouts interrupt almost rudely. Last time round on Paradox<\/em>, Browning had more of a sneer, but on Unicursal<\/em> his style gets extremely repetitive extremely quickly and it\u2019s a major negative for this platter.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll always love Nocturnus, and I\u2019m sure they will continue to evolve and experiment, but I really think some of the fat could\u2019ve been trimmed off here. The saddest part, however, is that after numerous spins I just wish this had been an instrumental album. Sorry Mike, but sort the barks out.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOCTURNUS ADUnicursal Profound Lore (2024)Rating: 8\/10 Another brain scrambling Nocturnus AD outing is upon us, giving me the feeling of being cast into the depths of space and left to float until I\u2019m turned inside out before dissolving. If you heard the Tampa, Florida-based band\u2019s last album Paradox (2019) then hopefully you would\u2019ve prepared for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4366],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-nocturnus-ad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103220,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103218\/revisions\/103220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}