Nocturnal Graves is back with An Outlaw’s Stand, its fourth album.
Since 2004 and despite a two years break in 2010, the australian band composed of Nuclear Exterminator (guitar/bass/drums/vocals, Coffin Lust, ex-Deströyer 666), Prain (vocals, Denouncement Pyre, ex-Order of Orias), Decaylust (guitar, Denouncement Pyre) and Shrapnel (guitar, Razor of Occam, ex-Deströyer 666) spreads chaos with an infernal Black/Death.
Death to Pigs begins the album with unhealthy samples, followed by an aggressive and very mystical dissonance. Raw Old School influences will quickly surface again, just like on the quick and dark Command For Conflict. Thrash roots and some fastness join the sound, which does not hesitate to slow down to unveil a weighing and warlike basis, while letting piercing leads a place, whereas Ruthless Fight allows no room for delicacy. Blast serves as a basis to the solid rhythmic, but also to piercing leads and aggressive howlings, like Across the Acheron, a weighing and groovy song. Dark elements arrive on the fast rhythmic with abrasive leads, then the band reconnects with more straightforward sonorities on the martial No Mercy For The Weakness. Whether violent riffs come over the song, we also feel some soaring harmonics pierce the fast-paced blast, while Law of the Blade only acts into the purest violence. Sharp sonorities are added to the song’s heavy strength, while Beyond the Flesh offers unhealthy tones, borrowing as much into an airy Black Metal as into a powerful Death Metal. Soaring harmonics enhance this burdensome and solid basis, then the album ends over An Outlaw’s Stand, the eponymous track. Whether the rhythmic basis is as raw as dark, we still have explosive leads, wild howlings and above all those dirty tones until the very end.
Nocturnal Graves works in the shadow. Whether their art allows no doubt to obscure forces, An Outlaw’s Stand has no difficulty to pick into energetic, strong and above all very raw styles to enhance their rage.
80/100
