Ninkharsag - The Blood Of Celestial Kings |
Published April 25 2015
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The Sicarii |
| Genre | Black Metal |
Kyle Nesbitt
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 9 |
Kyle Nesbitt
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Guitar
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| Running time | 32 Min. |
Paul Armistead
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Guitar
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| Label | Candlelight Records |
Steve Churchill
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Bass
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| Release | April 27, 2015 |
Jay Pipprell
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Drums
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| Country | England |
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Keyboard
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| Producer | Tom Dring | ||
| Similar artists | Dissection, Naglfar | ||
If someone utters the phrase British black metal I immediately think of two kinds of sounds. The English-heritage-meets-Scandinavian-darkness Winterfylleth-kind, the good kind, and the teenage-anxiety-goes-vampire Cradle of Filth-kind, the not so good kind. Despite being label mates with both Winterfylleth and Wodensthrone, Ninkharsag therefore surprises with a debut full-length that reeks purely of Dissection around the time of 'Storm of the Light's Bane'.
Sure, some of the melancholy that characterizes the other aforementioned Candlelight acts can be found here, but overall the tricks used to conjure this album's feelings of journeying to an astral plane reserved for immortal deities are unmistakably Swedish. The beautiful yet haunting melodic black metal riffs and the screaming vocals are so reminiscent of Dissection that Nödtveidt could have written this from beyond.
However, the high quality and feeling by which this is delivered makes it so much more than your run of the mill Dissection-clone and overall the individual compounds of 'The Blood of Celestial Kings' are amazing. Almost every riff and guitar line is the best one Dissection never wrote. The screaming vocals are well pronounced yet intense, deliver the melodic lines without losing any of its intensity and are among the best I have heard in a long time. Even the bass work gets its fair share of time away from the rhythm section much due to an intense yet razor sharp production.
Looking only at each component this might be the best debut album in years, though as a coherent piece of work it does not get quite as far. The problem is one I usually do not complain about, the sparse playing time. Only 2 out of 9 songs reach past the 4 minute mark for a grand total playing time of 32 minutes. Even though none of the 9 songs can be described as bad, boring or filler material they mostly end way too quickly. This is an album full of brilliant melodic riffs and vocal lines; the problem is the listener does not get enough time to feed off each and every one of them.
Rather than becoming an album with 9 great songs it becomes an album with brilliant ideas divided amongst 9 tracks. I do not mind albums that give me a desire for repeated listens, but I prefer albums that give me total release rather than those that leaves me unsatisfied and another go is necessary to fulfill my needs.
Still, and this cannot be stressed enough, this album comes a long way simply by the sheer quality of all the ideas, riffs and vocal lines present. Those who still mourn the fold of Dissection and eagerly awaits the next Naglfar album should really lend this an ear. 'The Blood of Celestial Kings' is a very promising debut and if Ninkharsag manages to expand all their brilliant ideas and combine those to longer songs for their sophomore we are all in for a real treat!
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Performance
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Originality
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Production
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Vocals
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Songwriting
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8 |
4 |
8 |
9 |
7 |
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Summary
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8 chalices of 10 - Tengan |
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