ALBUM REVIEW: Credo Certe Ne Cras – Noctem

For those lucky enough to catch them when they played at this year’s Bloodstock Festival, Spain’s NOCTEM proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend, performing with a precision and focus that made them stand out for all the right reasons. Those not in the know about the band and their background might believe them to be a promising new act, but in fact the Valencia-based quintet have been active since 2001, with five albums under their belts, the most recent of which, The Black Consecration, garnered them some well deserved attention with a much wider audience. Their sixth album, Credo Certe Ne Cras, is another stunning piece of music, possibly their best to date, and showcases a band at their creative peak, ready to take their music to a worldwide stage.

I Am Alpha starts the album on an incredibly dark note, with the atmospheric opening motif quickly giving way to a huge piece of melody-tinged black metal. Spartan leads coupled with arid vocals and frenetic drums make for a fierce sound that is tight and catchy, immediately commanding the listener’s attention. Sovereign Providence possesses an urgent, energetic feel, with sharper guitars, machine-gun precise drumming and acidic vocals carving through the mix. The track’s measured, bleaker middle sections lend it a sombre edge, without stripping away the underlying intensity, injecting some emotive moments into this otherwise belligerent offering.

Sanctum Of Anguish begins with haunting, cleaner tones, with the lighter approach, repetitive riffs, heady ambience and well-placed female vocals combining for a dramatic, engrossing sound. It has its visceral parts, with the vocals and drums providing an especially caustic edge, but on the whole the music leans more towards the grandiose than the grating. The album’s title track follows, crafting a dizzying maelstrom of chaotic musicianship punctuated by bombastic hooks and ethereal acoustics, with the music feeling much more cacophonous throughout. Homilia Of Punishment, with its rumbling drums and biting guitars, is a truly cavernous affair that adopts a blistering pace and doesn’t let up, creating an impenetrable wall of sound that makes it one of the more rabid pieces of music on the album.

The Pale Moon Rite has a slightly rawer sound, with the pace and hooks lurching towards a ferocious and heady style as the song progresses, getting leaner and more focused as it heads towards its conclusion. The Tolling Of The Nine Bells, another punchy track in the vein of Homilia Of Punishment, pushes the band’s sound to perhaps its most unhinged and relentless, with angular guitar work and tortured, howling vocals crafting a feral, hellish sound, all backed by authoritative drums, making this is one of the album’s heavier offerings. Chalice Of Turpitude is another monolithic slab of melodic black metal, with the drums, bass and guitar all layered thickly onto each other, serving as a brilliant, expansive backdrop to venom-soaked vocals, which provide an acerbic counterpoint to the meatier sound of the music. Add to this the subtle introduction of pianos, and you’ve got another impressive track that showcases a marginally more eclectic sound than the last few songs.

Ceremonial Miasma, another muscular, polished masterclass in razor sharp black metal, has very little fat to trim. With the livelier lead guitars helping this song stand out for all the right reasons, it channels a punishing and uncompromising ferocity that makes this one of the more enduring offerings on this album. We Are Omega returns to a cinematic sound, with airy ambience giving way to tight riffs, a diverse range of vocals and powerful rhythms; this is borderline hypnotic, with a massive, atmosphere-drenched sound that its hard not to get drawn in by, serving as a fittingly beguiling conclusion to the record.

Credo Certe Ne Cras may very well be NOCTEM‘s most consistently impressive album, with some of the tracks featured on here being their best to date. There’s two reasons for this; firstly, all of the songs are punchy and lean, and there’s no sprawling, lengthy piece of music on here similar to ones the band have attempted on earlier albums, meaning that each song doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Secondly, there are subtle, but distinct, changes to the formula on this record, with pianos, female vocals and solid acoustic guitars being peppered throughout, along with a wider range of tones and tempos, something which helps to make many of these songs distinct from each other, even if a few of the songs present here do feel a tiny bit formulaic. With this more eclectic approach to songwriting, along with their imposing presence live, NOCTEM have cemented themselves as one of the international underground’s most impressive black metal acts, and it will be incredibly interesting to see how they manage to surpass the lofty bar this album has set for them.

Rating: 8/10

Credo Certe Ne Cras is out now via MNRK Heavy.

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