Nattradio – The Longest Night
Nattradio – The Longest Night
Darkness Shall Rise Productions
Release Date: 12/12/2025
Review by Laura Barnes
9/10
The time has come. Open your closet, dust off your black velvets and silks. Coat yourself in pale foundation and shadow your eyes with dark colours: Darkness Shall Rise Productions have brought forth a new release into Ever Metal’s sacred temple. “The Longest Night” is the second album from Swedish Goth Rockers Nattradio, and it is everything that a sad, sexy vampire such as myself could possibly ask for. The perfect soundtrack to wandering mossy graveyards and seducing local ghosts, this album is dark, haunting and sensual. Follow me into the catacombs, and I’ll tell you all about it.
Nattradio fit into a very specific category of music. If the Metal scene was a high school canteen, they’d be sat at the same table as Katatonia, Woods of Ypres, Deathwhite, and Oceans of Slumber. The album begins with the strange spoken word sermon that becomes a recurring leitmotif over the next seven minutes, playing over and over crushing guitars and the haunting vocals of Martin Boman. To the delight of my miserable, miserable soul, doom and gloom are very much the order of the day on this album. Anyone who enjoys the sound of depression washing over them like a rising tide will be happily swept away by tracks like ‘Shifting Baseline’ and ‘Rainbirds’. ‘Rainbirds’ is perhaps my personal favourite – the violin fade out is as melodramatic as it is pretty, like watching a snowstorm from the warm comfort of your bedroom.
In Doom Metal, there’s a fine line between slowly building tension and beating around the bloody bush. There’s a reason why I only dip my toe into Doom Metal. My miserable, miserable soul has a really short attention span – best to leave the Bell Witches and Candlemasses of the world to our good friend Oli Gonzalez. Thankfully, Nattradio do more than enough to stop my mind and ears from straying. I wasn’t expecting there to be many boogieable tracks on this one, but Nattradio left me pleasantly surprised with ‘Dark Streets’ and ‘Alright for Now’. With an Industrial beat and lo-fi playback, ‘Dark Streets’ brings the sensuality and romance I was hinting at before – it’s the sort of song Elvira would request at the club, and it is absolutely a stand out track on this album. Meanwhile, ‘Alright for Now’ has a neat post-Punk edge. It kind of sounds like Jonas Renkse doing a guest spot with Type O Negative, which earns a resounding “Hell Yeah” from me.
Speaking of Jonas Renkse…
Don’t get me wrong, I went absolutely feral for this album. It was everything I needed to fix the musical rut that I seemed to have been in lately. That being said – man! These guys sure do love Katatonia! I mean, I also love Katatonia, so it isn’t really a huge problem for me, but I do think it’s telling that some of the more memorable tracks on “The Longest Night” are the ones that incorporate elements beyond Everyone’s Favourite Swedish Goths.
Okay, it looks like the sun’s about to come up, so I better get going before I burst into flames. I’ll leave you with this: listening to “The Longest Night” is like doing a Satanic ritual in a block of flats; it’s like seeing a ghost in the supermakert; it’s like getting bitten by a vampire in a suburban night club. It’s the sound of urban occult, and I for one am here for it.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Shadow Speaker
02. Sketches From The Dark
03. Alright For Now
04. Dark Streets
05. Night
06. Shifting Baseline
07. All For You
08. Rainbirds
09. The Longest Night
LINE-UP:
Niklas Brodd
Martin Borman
LINKS:
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