Nachtmystium preview

Nachtmystium, Lair Of The Minotaur
Otto’s, DeKalb
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The United States will never be able to claim itself the home of black metal, that honor will forever be Norway’s to boast. But the Midwest, Chicago specifically, might just be able to lay claim to psychedelic black metal thanks to Nachtmystium.

Nachtmystium released a relatively low-profile album, Instinct: Decay, last year via frontman/guitarist Azentrius’ (aka Blake Judd) own Battle Kommand label (based in St. Charles) and it quickly became a very big deal. If it was surprising to see the band popping up in more mainstream hard rock/metal mags like Revolver (who said the band could be the best black metal act in America and gave Instinct a spot in its best-albums-of-the-year rundown), way more surprising was how Azentrius and co. infiltrated the non-metal masses. Maybe it’s because Nachtmystium aren’t your standard blast-beat-and-growl black metal (Nachtmystium’s experimental sound owes greatly to doom and ambient influences as well. Much more Celtic Frost than Mayhem) or maybe it’s the fact the U.S. hasn’t exactly been a hotbed through the years for the subgenre, but Nachtmystium have shown up everywhere from Pitchfork, where Brandon Stosuy called it one of the best metal albums of the year, and the Chicago Tribune, which published a review from the band’s late-2006 Empty Bottle show. Most mind boggling was Jon Caramanica, the music editor at fucking Vibe, whose year-end-music submission to Slate called Instinct: Decay one of the “two most beautiful records I heard this year.”

The best part? Azentrius (who is also part of Twilight, featuring members of Isis and Leviathan among others) has achieved a level of notoriety usually reserved for his Norwegian and Swedish counterparts, and he hasn’t even had to burn a church down or murder a bandmate!

Openers Lair Of The Minotaur claim of hot-shit Chicago instrumentalists Pelican (drummer Larry Herweg) and schizos 7000 Dying Rats (Steven Rathbone and Donald James Barraca), but the band’s style is little like either of those groups. Instead, Minotaur are incredibly straightforward in their goal of out-heavying all that is heavy. Last year’s full-length, The Ultimate Destroyer (Southern Lord), is an absolutely savage listen.

Blue Razor Rust and Lord Blasphemer also play.

— Trevor Fisher

Click here to download Nachtmystium’s “Eternal Ground.”

Click here to download Lair Of The Minotaur’s “The Ultimate Destroyer.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly