It isn’t often I explore the avant-garde side of extreme metal. This isn’t because I’m a stuck up purist who prefers my black and death metal on the old school side of things. Okay, maybe it is. All joking aside, it’s mainly because I never got into this style. There are some exceptions, but by and large, these “voidgaze” bands either put me to sleep or give me a migraine. That said, every now and then a certain band or album will come along that generates a lot of hype. And because I have yet to understand the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”, I go forth and check out said band/album because why not? The best case scenario is I make a new musical discovery. The worst case scenario is I lose 40+ minutes that I’ll never get back.
I can’t remember where I first heard of Noctambulist, but I was definitely aware of their existence before the release of this here album, The Barren Form. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Noctambulist plays the type of extreme metal that’s popular among non-metalheads: dark, dissonant, and full of despair. Although I may not fully grasp the music itself, I can’t help but applaud the band for their effort alone. There was something about this album that kept me hanging on, even when it shouldn’t have. In the immortal words of Al Pacino in The Godfather III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
The Barren Form opens with the obligatory dark ambient soundscape in “Exordium”. Unlike other bands in this ilk, Noctambulist doesn’t just reserve these moments for the intro and/or outro. There are multiple dark ambient passages throughout, particularly towards the end of “Intfinitesimal” and “Engulfed”. They add an eerie, unsettling edge to an album that’s already eerie and unsettling as is. Aside from these two adjectives, it’s difficult to pin Noctambulist down. They bounce between death and black metal, yet never really intersect the two on any given track. Take “Depletion” for example. The song begins as an intense, blast laden display of death. About halfway through, the band shifts gears, putting their focus on blackened atmosphere and cold shrieks.
All of this is done within a lengthy, progressive framework. With the exception of “Exordium”, every song is over 5 minutes long, the longest being “Intfinitesimal” at a little over 11 minutes. It’s on this cut that the Gorguts influence starts to creep in. The guitar work is dissonant and disorienting; always technical, but never flashy. This remains constant throughout. Ambience takes precedent over riffs. This is especially evident on the most blackened song on the album, “Contrivance”, which conjures the bleak hopelessness of Deathspell Omega. “Dissolution” rounds things out with one last blast of dissonant death and a tinge of doom for good measure.
Though no fault of Noctambulist’s own, I feel The Barren Form would hit harder if it was released in autumn, or better yet winter. While musically intriguing and stimulating, I felt odd listening to it as the sun shined through my window, knowing damn well it’s 90 something degrees outside. This is the type of weather you listen to Van Halen and KISS in, not Gorguts-core, but I digress. Noctambulist have made an album that lives up to its name; one that makes your soul feel completely barren while listening to it. There’s no false advertising here!
6 out of 10
Label: Willowtip Records
Genre: Blackened Death Metal
For fans of: Suffering Hour, Gorguts, Deathspell Omega