Nargathrond – Mourning Season
Nargathrond – Mourning Season
Self-Released
Release Date: 12/01/24
Running Time: 21:46
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 9/10
Good afternoon. It is a new year. Regrettably, I didn’t die and therefore not have to go back to work, so I am still here, and henceforth it means in a vain attempt to maintain some form of emotional equilibrium, that you poor souls out there must put up with many thousands of words of inane rambling and pathetic attempts to be edgy from someone who claims to be a music journalist, but who has winged it for that long he has absolutely no fucking idea of whether or not he is doing it right.
So, 2024 has arrived and with it has come a review list that is as extensive as it is varied. Therefore, I have plunged in at random and surfaced from the miasmic stink that is the Ever-Metal.com review list with “Mourning Season” by Nargathrond, this being some form of unholy creature from deep within the Thuringian Forest in Germany. Let us activate the ghillie-suited, sniper-rifle armed Platter Of Splatter™ and hear what this tree-dwelling cryptid has to offer…
Now, those of you who actually read the drivel that I spew from my rabid keyboard will no doubt recall the superb piece of descriptive writing that I produced about Nargathrond’s previous album, “Killing Season”, (https://www.ever-metal.com/2023/01/30/nargathrond-killing-season/ being the link you need should you fancy a bit of cheeky clicky-clicky action. Oooh, you are awful, but I like you) and you will of course have remembered that I really quite enjoyed the eclectic melding of super-sexy Synthwave sounds and Depressive Black Metal roaring and vein-slicing.
“Mourning Season” is not like that.
“Mourning Season” has zero Synthwave.
“Mourning Season” is like doing your teenage work experience in a hospital morgue. It radiates cold and nihilistic hatred like the entrance to some kind of Hellish labyrinth. It is the sight of children dying of starvation and napalm burns and preventable disease. It is the bottomless gaze from the dead eyes of a person who has only known suffering. It is crystallised pain and heartbreak forced out in a wordless scream of agony fused with an implacable rage at being made to feel like the world’s suffering has all landed squarely and unfairly on your shoulders.
So, your normal Depressive Black Metal album then? Not really. It is a difficult point to quantify but we will have a bash anyway. There is something that lies behind the waspish, razor-sharp guitar sound and drumming sounding like it is performed by three octopi (octopuses?) that have been fed a shitload of Whizz and trained by electric shocks that lifts this album beyond the normal slit-your-wrists and blame your parents (or Satan. I have always thought that Satan wanting his followers to prove their loyalty by offing themselves is a bit of a waste of fucking time and a total waste of good suffering) dynamic of DBM. It has rather more… class, I feel, as it takes the Arctic wind and howling agony aspects of DBM and welds them to a rather more classic Black Metal sound. There is swooping, ethereal keyboards, haunting pianos, and gossamer touches of romance in the music – ‘Haunt Of Feelings’ is especially of note for this, despite the desire of Nargathrond to hack open his veins and bleed to death all over you while he laments and rages at you in a curiously misplaced act of rage-fuelled revenge upon himself as much as anyone else.
I have to say, it is a record very much to my taste, so far. I sometimes forget Black Metal exists because I am too busy exploring the outer reaches of Extremity, but I always seem to find my way back to it, somehow. That is always a pleasure, as I want to hear people suffering more than me, because Dark Juan is one sick puppy and likes it when people are screaming their hearts out in front of him in abject fear and agony. Normally, this is because Dark Juan has just savagely murdered one of their associates with nothing but his teeth, but that’s neither here nor there, and neither is it actionable, so don’t fucking try!
To summarize then – If you like your music to be deeply de-personalised yet highly sentimental, full of pain and shocked terror and overflowing with wounded rage, Dark Juan feels that this might be the soundtrack to your dirty black summer. If you like jollity and sunlight and bouncy joyous anthems, Dark Juan feels that this record might not be the one for you and that perhaps you might like to look in the direction of more popular music, as “Mourning Season” by Nargathrond is the music of the misanthrope, the misunderstood and misophonia.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has returned from its yearly overhaul and is considerably more eager to get back to work than Dark Juan is and awards a 9/10 for a most enjoyable (can you enjoy Depressive Black Metal?) record that has started the year off nicely.
TRACKLISTING
01. Nightmares Coming
02. Mourning Season
03. Haunt Of Feelings
04. Forest Loneliness
05. So Far Away
LINE-UP:
Nargathrond – Everything
LINKS:
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