• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Nine years ago, Nightbringer went right to the forefront of US Black Metal with their debut Death and the Black Work – a fantastic album they have yet to really equal. Since then, their output has been a bit uneven. This is a band that refuses to sit still, and they keep trying to push their sound beyond the boundaries of what they have already done and experiment with new things. Some experiments work, and some don't. That said, I thought their last album, Ego Dominus Tuus, was a welcome return to form, and so I was glad to see they had a new one.

Terra Damnata is a further refinement of the Nightbringer sound, without the stylistic oddities that marred albums like Apocalypse Sun. The guitar sound is not as strong as it was on their debut, but this time they seem to be mixing all the sounds of the band very tightly into an immense assault of sound – rhythm playing, melodic tremolo, drums and vocals are all melded together into a single wave that hits like an attack. It's a very dense approach, and it requires the guitars to be a little cleaner so you can pick apart what the songs are doing. It's not a typical Black Metal sound, and in fact is highly individual to this band.

The sound is powerful, but the songs are not as strong as they could be. Nightbringer always sound like they are in control of what they are doing, but it seems like their attention wanders, and they could use someone in the studio to tell them when enough is enough. The songs tend to go on a little too much, and blur into one another. It does create a lot of atmosphere, and the album presents a very unified sound, but the songs lack identity. This is good, but I know they can do better.