Artist: Night Of The Vampire
Title: The Enchanting Winds Of The Dreamweaving Masquerade
Type: album
Label: Digital / Self Released
I do love a good long title for an album, you know the kind that just completely screws up your carefully set layout…. Jokes aside, you would kind of look at this one and think “ah! Black metal” which if you have never heard Night Of The Vampire is both so right and so very wrong.. I mean look at that cover for a start. Yellow. Very cool art too by one ‘Subhuman Being’.
‘Children Of The immortal Blood’ just opens up NOTV’s toolbox immediately and displays it unabashed. A straightforward, nice driving riff in glistening black metal style, black metal vocals with the odd clean sections… but it’s the keyboards that really startle. These are not ominous washes of synths, not great swathes of storm and nightwinds. These are bright, piping notes high in the mix playing a curious melody around the riff. It’s curious sound, initially jarring but somehow it’s… strangely welcoming too. There is an undeniable joyousness to it, a sprinkling of goth and synthwave and electropop to it that is far more ‘greeter’ than ‘gatekeeper’. And its a fine song indeed to open with.
‘Sacrificed to The Night’ carries this style but moves it on just a notch. The keyboards delve into a slightly darker tone by comparisson I mean, and the melody is very, very catchy. It does stand clearly apart from the riff which gives a two layered sound that takes time to sink into and I suspect will not be for many, but with the goth midsection with superb, intoned vocals I think I kind of grasp what NOTV’s mastermind Astral Shadow are doing.
And it has a dark, smile, a healthy humour but a serious musical soul.
‘Chasing Shadows In An Ocean Of Time’ has an excellent 80s VHS soundtrack guitar riff and the keyboards are pure synthwave from those long forgotten, never actually made, films. And is resonates with deep respect. Slow, dark and rippling with a predatory step this is the belnd of 80s metal and DS/Synthwave I never knew I needed.
The title track opens with a bassline straight out of the Sisters Of Mercy and slides, leather clad like into a thrumming, almost psychedelic nightscape. IT is genuinely quite beautiful with that bassline anchoring as the keyboards at last spread out to weave a canvas and the vocals step softly to the background. Absolutely stunning.
‘The Prince Of Many Faces And The Lady Of The Night’ shifts the riff and bass into a more thousand yard stare post-punk feel with the keyboards wrapped round it and the dry ice billowing around the urgent jittery bass. ‘The Cosmic Darkness Calls Me Home’ is darkwave, post punk gloom spreading out from the opening. Throbbing, pulsing, crawling through darkness. In a way it kind of reminds me of early GosT, a completely sideways glance in the direction of black metal but standing far apart from it in the electronica. It’s creepy and nasty and so very very good.
‘Mother Moon Of The Astral Dawn’ turns the stars back on. A black metal, punkish riff with the trilling high keyboards. The sound is, in its own way, raw but in a ‘raw dungeon synth’ way and yet when the keyboards fall away you get a classic, heart grabbing heavy metal break that heightens the black metal feel too. ‘Beyond The Howls Of The Celestial Wolves’ is probably the closest to an actual black metal song; the vocals and riff work together, and the keyboards swirl a little closer and the bell tolls for thee….
‘Misty Illusions’ the closing track is pure dungeon synth. Clad in darkness, notes like liquid crystal striking stone. A calm but eerie moment of solitude to end a strange journey.
I don’t think ever trying to work out a new sub-sub-genre for Night Of The Vampire is possible (though going to damn well give it a go!): We get synthwave, goth-pop, post-punk, 80s VHS bound heavy metal all blackened and with a strangely joyful approach to the darkness they seek to explore. This is not music for scowling to or cursing the world, rather like many dungeon synth artists it is here only to enjoy the world in which it dwells. Yes there is a feeling of a smile behind this but one roused by the love of the strange, fascinating and pretty much unique sound they are crafting.
You have to give this a go, honestly.
Blackened post-punk-metal-dungeonwave FTW!
Gizmo
The Enchanting Winds of the Dreamweaving Masquerade | NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRE | Night of the Vampire
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