Nocturnal Blood - Devastated Graves - The Morbid Celebration

This is some serious business.  After a couple of highly regarded demos and Eps, Devastated Graves-The Morbid Celebration, the first full-length offering from Californian one-maniac outfit Nocturnal Blood is unleashed upon the slovenly masses via the venerable Hells Headbangers Label.  With a running time of just over 26 minutes, some folks, folks who generally demand at least an hour of death metal that almost inevitably eventually overstays its welcome by at least 20 minutes, will cry foul, but then again, this record isn’t necessarily intended for them.  The realm of Bestial Death/Black metal seems to be gaining a bit of popularity these days, and HH records is really the perfect home for Nocturnal Blood.  Simply put, this is by far some of the most truly evil sounding Death Metal available to you today.  As typical of the sub-genre, it’s an almost total blast frenzy with a barrage of distant, furiously blasphemous roars captured by a primitive production quality that sounds as if it might have been recorded in an ancient cave or else some forgotten underground cellar somewhere.  I’m resisting using the clichéd “Old School” tag for Nocturnal Blood’s music because I honestly have difficulty coming up with too many bands from the dawn of Death Metal that managed to sound so utterly ugly and unholy.  Passing for variety in this style, “Ghouls Wrath” and album highlight “Ritual Lust” contain brief breaks in the blasting to chug along morbidly before taking off into insanity again, providing some small contrasts but by no means any differentiation in dynamics.  Comparisons to other bands in the same vein, particularly Spain’s amazing Proclamation, are largely unavoidable but one could certainly do worse wouldn’t you say?
  
Will you like this foul little slice of unequivocal evil?  Do you already own several Hells Headbangers and NWN! releases?  Then yes.  Do you think old Autopsy and Incantation records would benefit from less polished sound?  Then Hell Yes.

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November 12, 2010

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

Release Date: October 15th, 2010
Label: Hells Headbangers

TRACK LISTING

1.  Devastated Graves
2.  Death Calls
3.  Impure Devotion
4.  Ghouls Wrath
5.  Chaos Mass
6.  Ritual Lust
7.  Triumph of Impurity

Total playing time:  26:15