NOCTUM – Final Sacrifice

Up next for my lovelies is NOCTUM who hail from Sweden and this is their second album. NOCTUM play a blend of 70/80’s rock/metal…yes a revival is supposedly in the air. “Final Sacrifice” is a concept album ala MERCYFUL FATE and each song narrates a portion of the tale to the listener, however unlike Power Metal you can listen to the tracks out of sync and they still make sense with the lyrics. What stands NOCTUM out of the current revival crowd is that they don’t look back at just one style for inspiration from metals vast history but draw upon Doom, Death, NWOBHM, classic guitar rock and even Blues to inspire their sound.

The riffs are what make this album are they are dark, doomy, thick, hearty, groovy, meaty riffs that hook the listener but don’t rely on much fret wanking. Some of the riffs gallop along, others are just eerie and some build up into a furious maelstrom of riffage that blow you away. The vocals on the album also fit the music quite well and although some of the lyrics are cheesy and some of the high pitched shrieks aren’t really scary or evil like the band try to portray, but its good fun. The only problem with NOCTUM is that they definitely have the potential and if they did a gimmick, like say GHOST and there costumes and stage etc, then they would be massive. However they let the music do the talking and (sadly) some people aren’t going to see past that, a good way to describe NOCTUM would be to say GHOST but with a more MERCYFUL FATE influence than BLUE OYSTER CULT in the music. So you would have thought that people would be lapping this up…only time can tell?

Another criticism is the random flute intro on “The Revisit”…its not as bad as it sounds but just pops up randomly, however the song starts to build up and gets back more to the atmosphere of the album. However some tracks on the album are classic and I highly recommend people check out “A Burning Will“, “Temple of the Living Dead” and “Deadly Connection“. NOCTUM are good band and this is a very solid release and I hope they just get better as I can see big things for NOCTUM , however they should drop the evil gimmick…
Score: 8 out of 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ALBUM INFO

Band: NOCTUM
Album: Final Sacrifice
Record Label: Metal Blade
Release Date: 28th Oct 2013

Track Listing:

1… Conflagration
2… Liberty In Death
3… Resurrected in Evil
4… Deadly Connection
5… Void of Emptiness
6… The Revisit
7… A Burning Will
8… Temple of the Living Dead
9… Azoth

Standout Tracks: “Deadly Connection”, “Void of Emptiness”, “A Burning Will” and “Temple of the Living Dead”

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