On Nocebo, Krater’s second full-length, this German horde offers little surprises in its relatively fast black metal that balances between aggressive and melodic approaches. The style is nothing new, especially for a German group, and for the most part Nocebo seems way too familiar, but there are bits and pieces within this 45-minute piece that shine with greatness, making the album a worthwile listen all in all.
At first, Nocebo attacks harshly with blast beats and violent tremolo riffage not unlike Marduk. This is what ”Parasit” and the follow-up ”Ebrietas - Crush the Equilibrium” mostly offer, and while it sounds convincing all in all, there’s a clear lack of memorable songwriting in those songs. The album’s brilliance resides in its middle where the two simply titled songs, ”Aura” and ”-”, appear. While the former is still a fast bleast beat manifest, it incorporates subtle melancholy into the harshness and it works very well. The latter, then, is the true highlight of the album with its grandiose, heart-rending lead melody pattern carried throughout the song. When these songs end, Nocebo returns to the less memorable pummeling of fierce black metal, though ”Zerissen” is still worth mentioning in all its 12-minute length that features some nice atmospheric elements, the last five minutes of it being solely strings & choral.
As can be implied, Nocebo is at times pure pleasure, but too commonly it turns into not-that-interesting tremolo firing and blast beating that has been heard on a plethora of black metal records in the past. Production-wise, the album isn’t either raw nor polished, rather balancing somewhere between, which is good so that it isn’t too lo-fi for high volume speaker use, nor too clean to drive away potential black metal listeners. Consider Nocebo an overall good record that is partially in need of more memorable songs.
At first, Nocebo attacks harshly with blast beats and violent tremolo riffage not unlike Marduk. This is what ”Parasit” and the follow-up ”Ebrietas - Crush the Equilibrium” mostly offer, and while it sounds convincing all in all, there’s a clear lack of memorable songwriting in those songs. The album’s brilliance resides in its middle where the two simply titled songs, ”Aura” and ”-”, appear. While the former is still a fast bleast beat manifest, it incorporates subtle melancholy into the harshness and it works very well. The latter, then, is the true highlight of the album with its grandiose, heart-rending lead melody pattern carried throughout the song. When these songs end, Nocebo returns to the less memorable pummeling of fierce black metal, though ”Zerissen” is still worth mentioning in all its 12-minute length that features some nice atmospheric elements, the last five minutes of it being solely strings & choral.
As can be implied, Nocebo is at times pure pleasure, but too commonly it turns into not-that-interesting tremolo firing and blast beating that has been heard on a plethora of black metal records in the past. Production-wise, the album isn’t either raw nor polished, rather balancing somewhere between, which is good so that it isn’t too lo-fi for high volume speaker use, nor too clean to drive away potential black metal listeners. Consider Nocebo an overall good record that is partially in need of more memorable songs.
3 / 5
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