ALBUM REVIEW: Burning Shadows In The Southern Night – Necrofier
Featuring current and former members of acclaimed progressive metallers OCEANS OF SLUMBER among their ranks, Texas’ NECROFIER has a far different sound and have managed to carve out a legacy in their own right in very short order. Ever since the release of their first EP, Visions Of Fire in 2018, followed by their debut album Prophecies Of Eternal Darkness in 2021, the Houston-based quartet have quickly established themselves with their angular and melody-driven take on black metal, emerging as one of the more promising acts within the US’ vibrant underground scene. Their latest album, Burning Shadows In The Southern Night, is another stunning slab of black metal with a few notable stylistic additions making this not only their best but also their most diverse release to date.
The Fall From Heaven sets an ominous tone, serving as a minimalist instrumental piece built around pianos and dense percussion that is loaded with foreboding, immediately grabbing the listener’s attention. Total Southern Darkness is an epic offering that lurches between mid-paced, punchy sections and faster, aggressive ones, with muscular rhythms, melodic leads and acerbic vocals that all lend this a sharp sound. There’s just the right amount of murkiness in the production to give this a raw feel, allowing the intricate elements in its sound to shine through. To The Wolves, with its chugging guitars and authoritative drumming, is a solid number that unfortunately strips away much of the brilliant, soaring leads of the preceding track, although the snarling, stringent approach of the vocals and some excellent, chaotic passages help to keep this engrossing.
Forbidden Light Of The Black Moon possesses great leads and a galloping beat that works extremely well alongside the classic heavy metal undercurrent, applying energetic performances with catchy hooks, with the bombastic, chanted backing vocals that feature in the song’s climactic moments providing a grandiose edge that makes this even more magnificent. Destroying Angels, with its hazy guitars and confident swagger, is a weighty black ‘n’ roll affair, with cacophonous flourishes punctuating the denser, doomier passages to add another musical dimension to an ever-widening pallet and creating a primitive and groove-laden sound in the process.
Whispers That Burn In The Dark is a fantastic melodic black metal track with blistering guitars, virtuosic leads and vocals that counterpoint the polished musicality with a grating harshness, injecting a venom-soaked edge into what is a mostly crisp and majestic number. The All Seeing Shadows returns to the chunkier, rhythmic sound of To The Wolves, but is far more effective due to the dancing, hypnotic nature of these rhythms and the haunting, near operatic backing vocals, along with the adventurous riffs on offer as the song reaches its feral, frenetic climax. On Wings Of Death We Burn The Sky introduces a slight dissonance into the guitars, which contributes to a more discordant feel, although there’s still some excellent, slick leads and focused musicianship on all fronts that keep this fairly firmly planted within melodic black metal, albeit with a subtle twist and a generous dose of epic heavy metal.
Call To The Beyond sees a steadier black ‘n’ roll approach return, with thick guitars and spartan drumming acting as a solid backdrop to hellish vocals, proving to be perhaps the most straight forward offering on the whole album, but still sounding brilliant. Burnt By The Sacred Flame has an ethereal, sinister undercurrent and serves as a dramatic song that features some of the album’s most imaginative and catchy leads, expertly blending together the heavy metal and hard rock components with black metal, and even adding light, folky hooks, making for a cavernous and grand track that is one of the album’s crowning achievements, and in turn bringing the record to a close on one of its highest points.
Burning Shadows Of The Southern Night is a marked step forward for NECROFIER, building upon the already strong foundations laid by Prophecies Of Eternal Darkness, with a few of the songs present here being a little bit longer and more expansive than those on their debut. A lot of this wider-ranging album comes from the broader mix of musical influences that creep into its sound; where Prophecies was a much more straight forward melodic black metal record, Burning Shadows incorporates classic heavy metal, hard rock and some subtle folk elements, resulting a a more eclectic sound, with the variety between tracks stopping things from getting stale and keeping the listener interested. It’s by far NECORFIER‘s best work to date, as far as both musicianship and song-writing go, and it’s certainly incredibly well-rounded.
Rating: 8/10
Burning Shadows In The Southern Night is out now via Season Of Mist.
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