Nighted
Absence – Klang Machine Records
Nowadays music styles collide and cross-pollinate with reckless abandon, yet playing any type of crossover is a risky business. Fumble the ball and an artist can find themselves in a musical no-man’s-land with no appreciable audience to play to. Therefore, I was intrigued when this release by Nighted landed in my paws. They’re a duo who blend black metal and synthwave, two genres that are often viewed as diametrically opposed and the very antithesis of each other. However, Absence works precisely because of its contrasts; it’s an album full of light and shade, with modern black metal fused to antiquated synthesisers and a sound that foils loud and quiet passages. Like a thunderbolt cracking a Nordic sky, opening track ‘Aeons’ is suitably grandiose, and its frostbitten atmospherics seem to crack as if an iceberg fracturing. Ivo Henzi’s vocals are suitably screechy and emanate from an arctic tundra, while Marc Petralito adds warm texture by dint of his retro synths. Throughout Absence there’s a constant push and pull, a musical tug o’ war, between both genres and while black metal’s brute force often gets the upper hand, the two find an equilibrium that renders Absence an intriguing listen.
Review by Peter Dennis