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Nightside are a semi-legendary black metal act who formed in 1996 and managed to squeak out a single full-length, The End of Christianity, through Portuguese label Sound Riot Records in 2001 before vanishing without a trace three years later. I guess I should have expected them to reform in this age of comebacks, but I was still fairly surprised to find their latest demo in my inbox, and about as surprised to hear how good this is.

Lions may be a modern release, but I could probably fool you into thinking it was dug up in the mid-90s, as this is an aural assault of raw black metal the same way Impaled Nazarene used to do, albeit with influences from both Swedish and Norwegian black metal to boot, particularly in the extensive keyboards in "Gates of Hell." The music roars like a lion, blasts like a machine gun, and slaughters everything in its path like a raging inferno, which is exactly what I would have wanted from a comeback release from one of Finland's most obscure black metal acts. If this is just the beginning, I am so fucking ready for a full album, and you will be too after giving this face melter a spin.