By Jonny Bakes
I know that many power and symphonic fans are getting ourselves excited for the new Nightwish album; but, before we get to that, let’s take some time to check out some self-released music in the form of NightWraith (can you see what I did there?). I’m not going to get on my soapbox too much about this, but every major band out there started out as an independent artist, so it never stops being important to support emerging bands. Hell, that’s why people like me exist – to bring them to your attention!
Hailing from Denver, Colorado, NightWraith consists of musicians with a somewhat eclectic background. With two members (Ben and Spy) having previously played in a Dethklok tribute band, you could be forgiven for thinking that NightWraith would be heading in a similar direction, but that’s not the case. Determined to be unconstrained by genre at their inception, the band have developed a sound that builds on a variety of creative influences to ultimately end up with something that flirts with the label of progressive. However, the sound that does remain at the core of their music is black metal of the melodic variety resulting in something that’s in a similar vein to Dimmu Borgir. With two full length albums under their belt, I pick them up at album number three with ‘Divergence’.
‘Divergence’ sets out to be a sonic adventure of brutal highs and melodic lows that takes you on a futuristic, yet comfortably retro, adventure. From the opening synths that feel like what was considered to be futuristic in the 80s you can tell this is going to be something a little bit different. As rolling synths and saxophone solos meet blistering drums and brutal blackened vocals you’re whisked away on the musical representation of white water rafting. The construct of the album makes it feel more like a flowing composition than a collection of individual hits which makes it best enjoyed cover to cover, however there are a few gems that stand alone just as well. It’s no surprise that these have also been picked as leading singles for the album to build up the hype before release.
Before I get to my stand out tracks though, there has to be an honourable mention for ‘One Flower’ which conveniently sits between the tracks I’m about to mention. This starts out as a dark and heavy number with vocals that ooze blackened evil yet somehow this morphs into something that leans heavily on 80s sounding saxophone. The twist reminded me somewhat of Taake’s ‘Myr’ where that banjo suddenly comes out of nowhere!
The song that first caught my attention is ‘Perpetual Night’ as it sounded a bit like some of the earlier Opeth music. The melodic guitar hook during the chorus is what really sold it to me as it plays off perfectly against the harsh vocals and is just incredibly catchy! I’ve always loved a good melody in my heavier music (hence my obsession with melodic death metal…) so this was always going to be a bit of a hit for me! Coming up a close second, for slightly different reasons, is ‘Whispers of Dragonflies’ which leans in on the synths again to give a retro/synthwave vibe before it whips you back around with a real blackened slap in the face and then back down again with a gentle melodic guitar section. It’s certainly something that works perfectly well as a standalone single, but works even better in the context of the rest of the album.
Overall, ‘Divergence’ is a smorgasbord of musical influences that takes a core of black metal and shapes into something melodic and progressive. It’s great for sitting down and listening to in full, but if you don’t have the time (or the patience) for that, there’s still tracks that you can dip into without losing the magic that NightWraith have worked hard to create here. For me, I can see myself coming back to this for more listens in the future and ‘Perpetual Night’ in particular is likely to get played to death over the next few weeks for sure!
- ‘Divergence’ is released today (Friday 13 September).
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