Journey through a Grotesque Dream

Animus Noctis is a band from the German scene, formed in 2009 and consists of two members. Here we have their first demo (they have also released an ep) with 7 Black Metal tracks in the style of the Norwegian scene.

The riffs are frozen, melancholic, with some interesting moments which unfortunately are lost in the final result both because of their continual repetition throughout the tracks and because of the completely boring and useless changes or passages which exist in every track. The bass follows distinctively the guitar either because the tracks are composed that way or the production can’t help since its sound is low and is difficult to be distinguished. The drums unfortunately come from a drum machine. It is not programmed wrongly but its sound is irritatingly dummy and empty. The vocals are raw, harsh and generally good, expressive vocals that put you in the atmosphere. The tempo of the tracks is mainly fast with some slow passages. Only the 5 track is slow – tempo and although it begins with a quite interesting riff, this also becomes boring. The demo ends with a cover of Transilvanian Hunter which I didn’t like. Moreover, the production and mixture of this album made me bad impression. In some tracks the vocals are higher, in other tracks the guitar is much higher and in others are the drums. I don’t think that much work has been done in production and mixture.

Generally although there are some remarkable riffs in the album, the feeling that remained in the end is that this work is rough and hasty. Personally I don’t think that I will listen to this demo again and I wouldn’t suggest it. However you don’t lose anything to check it out as the band offers the demo for downloading from our page.