ALBUM REVIEW: Arcanum – Niht

Forming in 2015, and comprising two members of the criminally underrated German death metal act NEKROVAULT, NIHT are a band that have established a fairly solid reputation for themselves as one of the German underground’s best acts. Their debut album, Vanum, laid down some incredibly solid foundations for the band and their sound, which takes the more melodic approach to the tried and tested sound of second wave black metal while adding a few hints of death metal into the mix. Their latest album, Arcanum, showcases a much leaner version of the band, and sees the band’s sound branch out quite significantly.

Angst starts things off with a ferocious burst of energetic, meaty guitars, frenetic drumming and arid howls. Blending thick grooves with shrill vocals and tight, jarring riffs, it’s a very dense and powerful introduction for the listener, coupling rabid black metal with a rhythmic, death metal edge. Schmerz has a much more prominent black metal influence, with sharper, tighter guitar work and an authoritative, percussive pace, topped off with harsh and dirty sounding vocals that add a dirty flourish to proceedings. It’s an impressive slab of focused, melody-tinged black metal that showcases some more animated vocals and guitar playing.

Lüge leans even further towards an old school black metal sound, with wraith-like shrieks and a dark and forceful sound. The bass, being much livelier and prominent in the mix, manages to add a lot of great, sludgy moments too, providing a depth to the song that works extremely well here. Sucht has some incredibly demented and tortured vocal deliveries, with equally chaotic, yet precise, musicianship to match, with the music often descending into a whirlwind of blistering hooks and punishing drumming that really pushes this album to new levels of intensity, making it one of the more feral and imaginative offerings on the record so far.

Hass, with its caustic guitar sound, cacophonous drums and acidic, snarling vocals, retains some of the more unpredictable elements of the previous song, whilst peppering in a slew of incredibly catchy guitar lines and shifts in tempo that make it just as memorable and accessible a listen as its predecessor, albeit for slightly different reasons. Wahn is a slower, brooding affair that has more deliberate guitars and a brilliant, bubbling bassline that immediately grabs the listeners attention. It’s got an almost bombastic feel to it, with a huge guitar and bass sound, and soaring vocals, counterpointed by short interludes of visceral aggression, injecting a monstrous side into what is, for the most part, a fairly reserved, but nonetheless fantastic, song.

Tod deviates from the album’s formula quite substantially, bringing in acoustic guitars and minimalist vocals that initially give this song a very different approach. Launching into a lean piece of black metal as it progresses, it takes the monolithic sound of the last track and applies a generous dose of guitar and bass hooks into it, with excellent results. This is a magnificent closing track, showing just the right amount of musical experimentation to keep things interesting so late in the record, without departing from the core sound that made the rest of the album work so well.

It’s very clear, even from the very outset of this album, that there’s plenty of great song-writing chemistry within NIHT, something which allows for a much more layered and interesting sound that sets it apart from many other bands who take their musical cues from classic black metal. Two of the key things that make this album stand out for all the right reasons, other than the excellent guitar hooks on display, is the prominence of the bass sound, and the fantastic, emotive vocal range, which encompasses everything from howls to atonal shrieking, adding their own dark and imposing flavour to the music. It’s safe to say that this has been more than worth the four-year wait, and hopefully it won’t another four years before we hear something new from NIHT.

Rating: 8/10

Arcanum is out now via Ván Records.

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