ALBUM REVIEW: Nightside – Grima
Trust a band from Siberia to be bloody great at black metal. It’s basically the Norway of Russia isn’t it. Anyway, formed in 2014 by twin brothers Morbius and Vilhelm, the now four-piece entity that is GRIMA have made a name for themselves with the kind of grand and sweeping folk-tinged atmoblack that conjures all the usual imagery of snow-capped peaks and sprawling forests and dancing around an open fire in long black robes and ornate wooden masks – if that’s your thing of course. They’ve released five quality studio albums – stand-outs among them being 2019’s Will Of The Primordial and 2022’s aptly-named and stunningly packaged Frostbitten – and now Nightside takes them to six with the not insignificant backing of Napalm Records.
Whether familiar with GRIMA’s previous efforts or not, genre fans will be well aware that there are some things a band like this just needs to be good at: urgent, thunderous blast beats, domineering walls of tremolo, Vilhelm’s piercing, bracing rasp – all present, potent and correct in a suitably expansive and enveloping mix courtesy of Vladimir Lehtinen [SECOND TO SUN, ULTAR]. But it’s the stuff the band arrange around this that lends their music a sense of its own place and identity, chiefly the Russian bayan accordion which springs to the fore in the gathering storm of the album’s intro track (Cult) and goes on to weave and dance and mesmerise its way through each and every one of the eight songs proper plus outro (Memories Of A Forgotten Home) to follow.
With the runtime pushing up against the 50-minute mark, GRIMA do a remarkable job of ensuring that Nightside remains deeply immersive throughout, with the album hitting a particularly stunning groove around the mournful intro of third track Flight Of The Silver Storm and carrying all the way through lead single Skull Gatherers and the middle pair of Impending Death Premonition and (pretty much) title track The Nightside. This is where you’ll find much of the most dynamic, melodic and arresting work on the record, with bayan, synths, chanted vocals and acoustic guitars all at various points either adding to or offering respite from the prevailing onslaught in a way that really emphasises the scale and grandeur and sheer maelstrom power of it all.
Even beyond that impressive run of peaks – the highest among them surely being Skull Gatherers’ gloriously soaring lead guitar work – Nightside rarely falls short of spellbinding. Penultimate track and final song proper Mist And Fog is another highlight, one that lives up to its name as whispered screams and a moody groove create a sense of thick and enveloping gloom that only briefly erupts into a volley of bombast and blast beats. Ultimately it is this deeply elemental and evocative power that makes Nightside and GRIMA so compelling – perhaps not the rarest skill in the more atmospheric school of black metal the band are so clearly studied in, but one that they have nonetheless honed and displayed so finely here and on several other records that they can be very sure of a place in the top set.
Rating: 8/10
Nightside is set for release on February 28th via Napalm Records.
Like GRIMA on Facebook.