Darkness Evermore

Why have I never heard these guys before? Hailing from my hometown of Portland, Oregon, Nightfell's two-man crew provide a well-made sophomore album this month, Darkness Evermore, that smoothly mixes death, black, and doom elements while still having enough get-up-and-go to interest those who aren't connoisseurs of slow, dragging sounds. Less is more indeed here, as the duo's musicianship is first-rate. The album starts off with At Last, which is big and doomy at the start, but speeds up to mid-tempo death metal riffing that reminded me of what Amon Amarth might sound like if they tried to play a Crowbar song; it's quick-moving and has some melody to it, but true to the two musicians' sludge background, the riffs sound a bit like something Kirk Windstein could have written. After Ritual's indistinct chanting and drumming, Cleansing is completely different from the preceding tracks, a marching tune with a blackened feel to it in its lead guitar tremolo and some of the ringing guitar in the choruses, with guitarist/vocalist Todd Burdette's voice growing more indistinct as the guitar gets slower and doomier towards the end of the song. As mentioned, though, the hints of doom and black metal don't slow anything down, or overshadow the band's fairly quick tempo in most cases. Rebirth again picks up the pace with a steady beat underscored by fast riffing. Squarely in the middle, though, are quiet acoustic passages that give the song more introspection before returning the listener to headbanging territory. Collapse, the final track, has the slowest and least cheerful melodies, with the guitars buried down in the lower register and the rhythm hammering deliberately at a quarter of the speed of the guitar tremolos most of the time. The sound is more crushing and Tim Call breaks out the double-kick on this one, making this one my favorite on the album. Darkness Evermore is an impressive sophomore album, and coming from two experienced musicians with backgrounds in metal, punk, and sludge, that shouldn't really come as a surprise. This is definitely one to check out.