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NOCTURNUS AD
Unicursal

Profound Lore (2024)
Rating: 8/10

Another brain scrambling Nocturnus AD outing is upon us, giving me the feeling of being cast into the depths of space and left to float until I’m turned inside out before dissolving. If you heard the Tampa, Florida-based band’s last album Paradox (2019) then hopefully you would’ve prepared for such a bamboozling experience. But if not, then brace yourself.

Five years have flown by since Mike Browning and company fried our membranes, and in that time the band has recruited a new bassist in Kyle Sokol who replaces Daniel Tucker, although Tucker performs all bass duties on this latest opus. The results are still the same; cosmic flirtations within a progressive death metal framework that is constructed of a multitude of angles and bends that drift between fellow tech-masters Atheist, Voivod and even Vektor, but with extra intricate shifts courtesy of axe men Belial Koblak and Demian Heftel.

The cinematic textures throughout are provided by keyboardist Josh Holdren, but the oddest detail on this opus are Browning’s vocals which are removed from the expected deathly bellows. Instead, he now delivers short barking commands such as on ‘Yesod, The Dark Side Of The Moon’ and ‘Hod, The Stellar Light’. It’s a detail I’m rather uncomfortable with as he chomps awkwardly through those befuddling soundscapes, particularly on ‘Hod, The Stellar Light’.

Musically, everything is stellar, particularly the tinkling sci-fi keyboards as they introduce tracks like ‘Netzach, The Fire Of Victory’ before its burst of speed. Damn, there are even some passages where Browning narrates, making this record an even stranger affair than it should be. Naturally, the riffs for the entire album are frantic and there are always otherworldly layers and experimentations to navigate, a fine example being the nine-minute ‘Mesolithic’ with its patience testing tribal drum intro before a meandering lead finally, and thankfully, takes over at the two-minute mark. Oddly, this track seems to have more in common with the choppy rhythms of classic Faith No More, and while it’s a nice surprise the vocals, again, just seem to let the composition down. However, opening track ‘The Ascension Throne Of Osiris’ already prepares us for such agitation, although musically it’s a wild ride of manic death thrash.

Another quibble is that some of the tracks seem overlong, even though I anticipated such self-indulgent tomfoolery. ‘CephaloGod’ takes a full minute of relatively nothing before kicking in with its slamming drums and orchestral wrinkles. The same could be said for ‘Organism 46B’ which literally sheds, although the one-minute ‘Intro’ just doesn’t add anything further. Nocturnus AD sure loves a one-minute track intro, this time with ‘Mission Malkuth’ which finally hugs then embarks on another thrash burst before Browning’s shouts interrupt almost rudely. Last time round on Paradox, Browning had more of a sneer, but on Unicursal his style gets extremely repetitive extremely quickly and it’s a major negative for this platter.

I’ll always love Nocturnus, and I’m sure they will continue to evolve and experiment, but I really think some of the fat could’ve been trimmed off here. The saddest part, however, is that after numerous spins I just wish this had been an instrumental album. Sorry Mike, but sort the barks out.

Neil Arnold

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