Description

Here is Abigor's shining moment. On this, their second album, Abigor creates what they had been stretching for up to this point. On all albums after this there is a sense of searching for the next level, and though at times they would manage to find new ground to cover, they would never return to the beauty, majesty and utter darkness of this release. With ‘Nachthymnen’ they define the idea of raw neo-classical black metal. With raw we mean that there is almost no use of keyboards on here, meaning it really has nothing to do with the symphonic black metal movement as defined by Emperor, Graveland, Dimmu Borgir, etc. Instead the focus is put upon the complex and neo-classical movement of the guitar riffs, which seem always to follow an internal logic connected to the shifting patterns of classical music. Abigor really creates their own style of black metal on here. Somewhere in between the raw hatred of their first album and the medieval metal feeling that was on ‘Orkblut’. The guitars sound very harsh, and this is one of the reasons that this album can be hard to get into. For all of the album is laid upon the guitarists, very rarely in this form of black metal will you hear an album where there is almost no keyboards and in fact the whole classical element is contained in the guitar riffs. And what riffs they are. Moving from choral figures to melodic riffs to riffs that are somewhere in between, like the abstract riffing of death metal, but without any emphasis on brutality like most death metal, simply the abstract quality that seem to be like patterns of notes without any co-ordination of melody and rhythm. The vocals by Silenius has a dark hateful presence and its combined with the beautiful female vocals by Elisabeth Toriser, the vocal performances rival the amazing riffs. All this creates a dark spectral beauty and atmosphere that really is quite inspiring and different from most black metal bands. If neo-classical complex and yet raw hateful black metal sounds very appealing to you then pick this up. Abigor never quite rose to this level again, as it is the summation of everything that was great about them. So buy this and revel in the nocturnal twilight realm of Nachthymnen. This re-issue features the debut album ‘Werwustung: Invoke The Dark Age’ on the same cd Track listing: "Nachthymnen" 1. Unleashed Axe-Age 2. Scars In The Landscape Of God 3. Reborn Through The Gates Of Three Moons 4. Dornen 5. As Astral Images Darken Reality 6. The Dark Kiss 7. I Face The Eternal Winter 8. Revealed Secrets Of Whispering Moon 9. A Frozen Soul In Wintershadow "Werwustung" 1. Universe Of Black Divine 2. Kingdom Of Darkness 3. Beneath A Steel Sky 4. Eye To Eye At Armageddon 5. In Sin 6. My Soft Vision In Blood 7. Weeping Midwintertears 8. A Speel Of Dark And Evil