Just last year, ORDER OF NOSFERAT emerged from the shadows with TWO full-lengths, Necuratul and Arrival of the Plague Bearer, both through PURITY THROUGH FIRE. Although just four months apart, both albums were the work of two prolific underground veterans: Count Revenant on strings, voice, and keys and drummer Anzillu. And while both are no strangers to black metal, the variety they unleashed with ORDER OF NOSFERAT was most definitely OLD, in every sense of the word. Undead vampiric black metal had truly arisen! Wasting no time spreading their infection further, ORDER OF NOSFERAT return with another new album, Nachtmusik. Aptly titled, Nachtmusik is dedicated to lone night-wanderers and those who dwell in sleepless despair. At times more beautifully sad and more rabid than its two not-inconsiderable predecessors, Nachtmusik walks the fine line between fever dream and sublime paralysis; the black metal is filthier and more flaying while the oft-isolated segments of synth and/or piano impart a wounded darkness to the album's overall aspect. Of course, ORDER OF NOSFERAT remain ever true to their vampiric vision, and Nachtmusik bears favorable comparison to vampiric pioneers like America's Black Funeral as well as France's Vlad Tepes, Mutiilation, Funeral, Blessed in Sin, or any number of bands orbiting the Black Legions or Concilium collectives. But, with the welcome integration of somber interludes and even-defter layering of keys, the duo continue to expand their own, plausibly idiosyncratic version of VAMPIRIC BLACK METAL. And just like those two preceding LPs, ORDER OF NOSFERAT continue to feel familiar and nostalgic, and indeed is that the point; black metal doesn't "need" to be anything else but what it already is...or already was, more accurately. And the same can be said for the "vampiric" appellation, before it was ruined by circus clowns and freaks on a leash as the once-glorious '90s came to a close. Lights out with Nachtmusik!
