{"id":19244,"date":"2014-06-06T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=19244"},"modified":"2014-06-23T18:37:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T18:37:36","slug":"album-review-noctem-cursis-nocturnal-frost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-noctem-cursis-nocturnal-frost\/","title":{"rendered":"NOCTEM CURSIS – Nocturnal Frost (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOCTEM CURSIS
Nocturnal Frost<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMortis Humanae Productions (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Nocturnal Frost<\/em> is the debut album from French black metallers Noctem Cursis. I\u2019m familiar with this band from their 2011 EP Wrath Of Winter<\/em>, which impressed me in parts. <\/p>\n

The band \u2013 which formed in 2010 \u2013 plays a chunky style of black metal which like, say, the legendary Immortal, gets its kicks from tales of war, death and anguish. Vocalist Nihilhis has a rough texture to his vicious vocal sneer, which adds an extra layer of menace to this frosty tome. The one thing that impressed me at first was the guitar work of Raven and Terror, because instead of this being a balls-to-the-wall blanket of white noise, there are some excellent melodies on offer here. <\/p>\n

The band is quite a force as a reflective black metal band, relying on a solid base of mid-tempo metal which has a spark of traditional metal, its framework occasionally giving away to some superb soloing which is evident on the fantastic \u2018Le Guerrier Noir\u2019. In spite of enjoying the EP I was worried that these guys might have resorted to icier waves of indecipherable extremity, but they find a medium between faster, aggressive passages and the ever-rewarding slower sectors. <\/p>\n

\u2018Scars Of The Past\u2019 is another fine track opening with a typical scathing black metal chord of dissonance, but this stark melody weaves its way through the icy percussion of Heimgardh. Again, the combo injects a slower division where the bass of Camulus remains strong throughout, giving a chilly backbone to what is one of the most aggressive numbers on this platter. However, all the while the band keeps coming up with these piece slower interludes, meaning that the album never becomes dull. <\/p>\n

\u2018Secrets Of The Elder\u2019 and the superior \u2018Les Rivages de la Mort\u2019 feature some excellent experimentation, the latter showcasing gothic overtones in spite of the rather clicky drum sound. Even so, the album boasts eight solid tracks (the opener, \u2018Prelude Of An Era\u2019, is a brief instrumental), including \u2018From Space\u2019, \u2018Ov Immobile Energy\u2019 and the exceptional blast of \u2018World To Ashes\u2019, so those of you who prefer more delicacy from their black metal but still like to be battered by black winds of mayhem should get their weather-beaten hands on this.<\/p>\n

Nocturnal Frost<\/em> is a well-constructed black metal album that still has that gnarly edge without being too abrasive. It\u2019s always nice to hear a band with a classic black metal approach still set aside the time to introduce a few surprises to keep the listener guessing.<\/p>\n

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

NOCTEM CURSISNocturnal Frost Mortis Humanae Productions (2014)Rating: 8\/10 Nocturnal Frost is the debut album from French black metallers Noctem Cursis. I\u2019m familiar with this band from their 2011 EP Wrath Of Winter, which impressed me in parts. The band \u2013 which formed in 2010 \u2013 plays a chunky style of black metal which like, say, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-noctem-cursis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19244","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=19244"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19251,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19244\/revisions\/19251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}