A Black Metal band from California, eh? What's so Black Metal about California that Nokturne thinks they have the right to play such music? It's not very cold, the people are fake and there's not much there for nature that would inspire such bands. But wait... I'm thinking of the wrong kind of Black Metal when it comes to this band, right? This band focuses on hate, not natural beauty! Nokturne hails from Los Angeles, and living there would make a person hate more than just about anything else I can imagine. And it shows, because their fourth full length album "Kruelty Kampaign" spits nothing but pure hatred. This music is a giant audible middle finger pointed straight at the more "beautiful" Black Metal bands out there.
Now, I'm not knocking the "beautiful" more melodic Black Metal bands at all, because I love that style as well. But I will say that for a fast, grim and raw styled Black Metal album, "Kruelty Kampaign" kicked my ass! The Metal is fast, uncompromising and intricate as hell. There are some Thrash elements to be found if you listen hard enough, and some of the guitar parts have this cool little "swing" to them. It's hard to explain, but you'll know what I'm talking about when you hear it. The guitars are extremely distorted, and though this is something I usually don't care for, they are played so well that it actually sounds good. There's also quite a militaristic cadence beat to the excellent drum parts (played by Lord Doom) which adds a bit of a battle feel to the songs. In fact, over half the songs start out with a simple yet cool little drum intro. For those that like such things, "Kruelty Kampaign" has some damn fine realistic war and battle sound samples to help further along the hate!!! Nokturne succeeds where other bands in their genre fail because they know how to play their instruments well. That seems like it would be a fundamental thing, but some bands I've come across literally play so horribly they should have never tried recording an album.
Psykho, the vocalist for Nokturne, is damn good. Damn good! Once again, the band has managed to take something I don't like and meld it into something I find interesting. His vocals are super raw, ugly and raspy beyond comprehension, but I love it! He has a commanding presence on this C.D., and though his style doesn't change very much, I was hanging on to every word that he was belching from the beginning to end of the album. Killjoy and some guy named Boris appear on the last track of the album as guest vocalists. On this track, there is the use of some clean vocals that sound a lot like Glenn Danzig for some reason. This Danzig style does contrast nicely with the rest of the vocals found on the album. The lyrics were not included with the C.D., but they seem to be about war.
The production... Now, the production is where this album shines! Not only can the band play well, but they gave "Kruelty Kampaign" a far above average production, and this is what makes me like it so much. Shitty low-fi productions are worthless ninety nine percent of the time in my opinion, and any band that thinks they can't be respectable and "tr00" with a decent production should listen to the production here to see how it can be done. Good going, guys!
The packaging for the album is a mixed bag. The cover art is nice and shows the band logo and photo of an old building in shadows. The inside of the booklet has a photo of each band member, some morbid photography and some old styled art. On the down side, there's no lyrics within the booklet. Leaving the lyrics out of the booklet was an odd decision seeing as though the rest of the packaging is rather deluxe.
Nokturne is one of the few raw styled Black Metal bands that I can say that I really like. "Kruelty Kampaign" lured me into its hateful and violent world with promises of a good production, good songwriting and great musicianship. Those promises were made good, and I recommend anyone into the darker side of Black Metal to give this album a listen and hear it all for yourself. The first run of these C.D's comes with a free half hour live DVD of the band that they recorded at The Key Club in L.A. in 2004. The audio on the DVD is pretty good, and the video is decent as well and shows the band from a few different angles. The C.D. itself is worthy of a purchase, but the limited edition DVD bonus version is enough to warrant you running out and getting this soon before the version with the free DVD is sold out.
