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After the pretty much undeniable mastery of their debut Death and the Black Work, Nightbringer spent some time kind of missing the mark. Their immediate follow-up, Apocalypse Sun, was overall good but displayed some stylistic annoyances, while their last one, Hierophany of the Open Grave, was just kind of plain and unexciting. In all, they had yet to manage to recreate the powerful songwriting of their debut, trying to make up for that with experimentation and pretension, which never works.

I am pleased to find their latest album to be very much a throwback to their earliest, and best works. This is another massive album of crushing Black Metal riffs and somewhat doomy, obtuse songwriting. The production is better this time, with a harsh, cold bite to the guitars and an overall murky, atmospheric sound. The influences of Second-wave greats like Emperor and Mayhem are all over this album, and in fact this is almost like a direct successor to works like In The Nightside Eclipse. The truth is, while this is not as good as their debut in pure visceral punch, this is much better in terms of polish, depth, and expressiveness. It may go on a bit too long, but it stands as a monolith in the BM landscape - massive and indelible, proving again that this band cannot be discounted.