### Nokturnal Mortum: Голос Сталі

#### 16/02/10 || Euthanatos

Consider me bloweth the fucketh awayeth. I had remotely heard of Nokturnal Mortum, but I’m pretty sure I had never taken the time to listen to them. To my surprise, it seems band leader Knjaz Varggoth is quite the Aryan pride cunt, so even the more reason not to touch this with a ten-foot pole. I did listen to “Голос Сталі”, however, and no, I don’t know what it means, I can’t even read it proper, but FUCK, this album is genius. That’s right, genius. What, a neo-Nazi, jew-hating scum can’t be a genius? Sure he can. People say Hitler himself was a genius of sorts. Was he a cunt? Aye. Was he gay? Probably. But also a genius? Quite possible. So there we go, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Mr. Varggoth being a genius. Nevertheless, no matter how you picture it, this is one fantastic album.

This album impressed me so much, I felt I had to listen to the band’s entire past-catalog to do it justice. I couldn’t simply dive head-first into this review without never having actually listened to the worshiped “Lunar Poetry” demo or the reviled “NeChrist” album. Well, I did. Listened to the demos, which I though were all crap, but I never like demos anyway, I can’t get past the shitty production, and I went through all the albums, from “Goat Horns”, which is fucking awesome, to “Weltanschauung”, which is also fucking awesome, yet not as fucking awesome as “Goat Horns”, and nowhere near as fucking awesome as “Голос Сталі”. I also thought “NeChrist” was fucking awesome, but that’s a tale for another day.

Anyway, I can certainly understand why the tr00 black metal kvlt elite think Nokturnal Mortum was brilliant in their early days and shit now. The band used to perform a really raw and violent type of black metal, and now it’s more folk black metal with keyboards. Oh, it’s shit then? I wish it were. It’s fucking brilliant.

Most songs are over 8 minutes long and there’s not a boring moment in them. The black metal parts are mostly mid-paced, with some aggressive and fast parts in between. The best way I can describe this is as a black metal soundtrack to an Opera from hell. It’s really thought-out and well-written, and it’s a shame the production doesn’t quite do it justice.

Listen to third-track “Валькирия” to get a sample of just how epic “Голос Сталі” really is. This is not the raw black metal of old, but in my mind, this is Nokturnal Mortum’s magnum opus. No disc is as progressive and genre-expanding as this one in their discography, not even close. I love how all the folk elements blend perfectly into the black metal mayhem without sounding pretentious, and how original is all sounds. The only band I can think of that made a mark like this on black metal recently is Dødheimsgard.

True, I have no idea what the lyrics are saying. For all I know, this cunt could be calling all of us South Americans dirty cockroaches. Still, if the music is good enough, I can certainly overlook retarded ideologies.

This is a really good black metal album, and I think you should listen to it. Seriously.

The cover: It’s a giant blacksmith making a badass sword in a badass painting which looks fucking awesome, and the album title is in runes, which makes it even more fucking awesome, and now I know what the title means, it’s “Voice of Steel”, so all-around gay happiness for us, yay.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Oriana
- Website: Nokturnal Mortum MySpace
- Band
- Knjaz Varggoth: vocals, guitars
- Astargh: guitars
- Saturiouss: keyboards, folk instruments
- Vrolok: bass
- Bairoth: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Інтро
- 02. Голос Сталі
- 03. Валькирия
- 04. Україна
- 05. Моєї Мрії Острови
- 06. Шляхом Сонця
- 07. Небо Сумних Ночей
- 08. Біла вежа