Nocturnal Glorification

One of the first bands that had contacted me when I began this site was Aegeon. Back then it was an one man band which was playing dsBM in the style of Xasthur. Four years after their first demo release I find them quite changed. First of all, nowadays the band consists of two members, while musically it seems that they have almost abandoned their old style. “Nocturnal Glorification” is their first full length album which was released in December of 2014 and it contains seven compositions of overall duration of forty five minutes. Well in this album the listener will come across atmospheric, dark and melodic Black Metal, which offers intensive sentiments and images.

So the riffs that are contained into the tracks of the album mainly are of medium and slow speed with a few faster, rhythmic parts while into two or three parts there are also some fast, violent outbursts. Their main characteristic is melody and their ease to create intense atmosphere and images. I didn’t come across references to dsBM but only into some somewhat more melancholic parts, not so close to their old character. The influences of the band it seems that nowadays come from the dark but melodic sound of the Scandinavian scene, while I found elements by Emperor, Dissection as also some others that reminded me of Master’s Hammer. The beautiful epic elements that exist into the compositions, they add more dimensions to the compositions and they fit to their overall style perfectly. The tracks are quite long regarding their duration (by five to eight minutes), something that is neither annoying nor tiring for the listener. The band has achieved to maintain the balance between the monotony and the changes, without exceeding the limits with neither of the two synthetic choices, by presenting a structure that although it is close to fall into the trap of the tedious monotony, with intelligent and very interesting changes avoids it.

Surely here there is a big improvement regarding the technical performance of the instruments, into the sound and generally into every scope of the album. The guitars are clean and their sound puts out that characteristic, dark melody which gives to the compositions their identity. The bass is not clearly audible but the sound does not lack of depth. Another pleasant change is the change of the drums that now they are natural. That improves even more the overall experience of the listener. So, the drums have interesting lines, beautiful changes and turnings, they give more depth to the compositions and at the same time they make them more interesting. The vocals are harsh Black Metal vocals, in other parts they are monotonous while in others they are possessed, depending on the feeling, they complete the puzzle that Aegeon present, flawlessly. Unfortunately I can’t comment the lyrics or the artwork as the band sent me only the cd.

I was always considering a big step forward for a band, to change their sound and its new entity to be much better from the first one. This shows that the band is working continuously to improve its talent but also its members mature also as personalities. This one, I think, is the case of Aegeon who achieve to present something completely different and in my opinion much better than their previous works. “Nocturnal Glorification” is an album that can offer images and sentiments to every fan of Black Metal that is why I suggest you to give it a chance and listen to it.