April 12, 2010

Reviewer: Chris

Italy’s Nefarium has welcomed 2010 with its latest blackened offering, Ad Discipulum, a dark and thrashy effort that is a melodic trance-like trip and a very good black metal journey. In a literal sea of insipid, boring, repetitive black bands attempting to channel the Dark Lord, Nefarium throws silly devices to the wind and produces quality black metal of high caliber.

Formed in the late ‘90s, Nefarium has maintained a steady diet of quality in its music, akin to such bands as Setherial, old Marduk, old Dark Funeral and similar bands. In short, they retain some of what the old guard offered in way of both talent and vitality. The band’s third CD shows little in way of mediocrity or humdrum stagnation. Rather, it’s a violent vehicle of evil that is rife with musical aptitude and some very interesting musical devices as evident in the track “Servus Servorum Satane,” which uses some very mean “fiddling” at its beginning. While black metal is itself a sea awash with a million-and-one bands vying for precious air while being pulled effortlessly undertow, Nefarium might be one to save on the dingy.     

The CD, admittedly, had me a bit worried when the song titles appeared to be little more than shocking titles for shock’s sake, a typical and sadly habitual tool for some bands, but happily the music is the most important element, and the music flows like Styx: quickly and wickedly. The band also has employed the drumming services of former Gorgoroth basher Garghuf, who adds that familiar Gororoth feel to the backdrop. The music can sound very typically black metal in spots, only to surprise you with sudden blasts of violent and obstreperous passages that lend credence and added absorption to the experience. For the many black metal offerings I pass over for being too predictable and dry, Ad Discipulum is one that will be added to my personal stash because it’s quite good and should be absorbed more than once or twice. Standouts for me are “Sharpening the Spear of Longinus”, “Mass Infanticide”, and “Hands Bleeding Fear.”

As for the production, it’s a top effort by none other than Andy LaRocque and features guest appearances by 1349 guitarist Archaon and Mortuary Drape vocalist Wildness Perversion. There are some black metal fans that will buy literally everything that has to do with Satan, be it good or bad, masterpiece or scribble, art or fingerpaint, and surely that’s fine for them. However, the fan with a true oceanic knowledge of what good black metal is, will find that Nefarium’s third piece is not only a fast-moving testimonial to Hell, but is chock-full of surprises and moments of true brilliance all but extinct in today’s infinite number of bands claiming the black metal gauntlet.

Release Date: May 11, 2010
Label: Agonia Records 

TRACK LISTING

1.  Tongue of the First Pope
     (Simon Peter)
2.  Hands Bleeding Fear
     (Pontius Pilate)
3.  The Bastard Son of Satan
     (Jesus Christ)
4.  Shepherd for Dead Lambs
     (Johan the Baptist)
5.  Sharpening the Spear of
     Longinus (Cassius Longinus)
6.  Servus Servorum Satane
     (Benedictus XVI)
7.  Seven Whores of Magdala
     (Mary Magdaleine)
8.  Mass Infanticide by the King
     of Judea (Herod the Great)

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Nefarium - Ad Discipulum