Track Listing

1. Everything Went Black
2. What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse
3. Virally Yours
4. I Worship Only What You Bleed
5. Nocturnal
6. Deathmask Divine
7. Of Darkness Spawned
8. Climactic Degradation
9. To a Breathless Oblivion
10. Warborn

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7477 in Music
• Released on: 2007-09-18
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
The often imitated yet never duplicated Detroit deathsters The Black Dahlia Murder have returned to the public eye to reclaim their rightful throne as leaders of all things extreme with their third blackened opus of thrashing melodic death metal, Nocturnal. Thematically, the band has never been more horrifying. Vocalist Trevor Strnad explains, "Lyrically, I believe Nocturnal is our most evil outing yet. It is a full return to the death/gore lyrical style that helped establish us in the first place. It is an ode to the great Death Metal records of past, while also being our most original and inventive outing to date." The climate of the metal scene has never been more primed for the aural punishment that Nocturnal offers in spades. Prepare to revel in the abysmal horror that is The Black Dahlia Murder.

Customer Reviews

This is METAL!!
This is metal! This inspires me and makes me happy to love this genre of music since I was 13! I picked up Miasma last year and thought it was good but it didn't blow me away. I picked up this disc having heard little bits of some songs and was pretty stoked on it. The only silence you will get from this album is the 5 seconds or so before the first song rips in. After "Everything went black" I had a smirk on my face.. the kind that only a good album can give you. I swear to god if you don't have an out of body experience listening to "What a horrible night to have a curse" you are dead inside! To make this short "Nocturnal" is nothing short of unrelenting metal that derserves to be praised as it's been a long time in my opinion that something has moved me as much as this has. A great album!

A Solid Offering
This release is just what you'd expect from one of America's best Death Metal bands, with lightning fast guitars, dual-vocals, and killer riffs. I was a little unsure about the packaging concept with album, though. With bands out there like Behemoth and Gorgoroth, who take themselves and their "evilness" so seriously that they can be downright comical at times, I was somewhat surprised by Nocturnal's Black Metal look. While it looks pretty cool, I'm somewhat suspicious of its sincerity.

While a little predictable in my opinion, this album far from disappoints. Darkness Spawned simply crushes, while seemingly speeding by without giving you a chance to breath. The surprise track is To Breathless Oblivion, with its epic scope and sweeping guitar lines. Black Dahlia has a bad habit of holding all their cords for the same amount of time on every song, while the cords on this song are held longer giving it a more epic feel. It also has the best lead on the album. For these reasons, this track stands head and shoulders above the rest of the album. I think Nocturnal would have flowed a little better had this track been the closer instead of Warborn, which is somewhat overshadowed by To Breathless Oblivion, despite its unique 3/4 section towards the end. However, there is much here that needs multiple listens to fully digest - another excellent trait of this band. The production on this album is an improvement over Miasma in the same proportion as Miasma was over Unhallowed, and the tone of Nocturnal is darker than both - a big improvement in my book.

While the packaging art is certainly a "new" step for Black Dahlia, Nocturnal really doesn't deviate much from Miasma. Judging from the fact that there seems to be a new Black Dahlia clone every week, I can't really blame them for sticking to their guns. But for my money, I'd like to see Black Dahlia take a chance with their forth album. With two excellent releases in their discography, this album is a little safe for my taste.

TBDM at their peak
Coming off 2005's exceptional, but disappointing-to-some "Miasma," The Black Dahlia Murder have returned with the excellent "Nocturnal." Of course, the band's basic sound is the same as it always was (it probably never will change too much). Thus, this album is chock full with all the usual goodies, namely two things: a) fast, catchy, grooving songs, and b) tighter-than-a-clenched-fist musicianship -- including excellent, blistering riffs, frenetic leads, nicely clean and restrained (though not-overly-technical) solos, impeccable, skull-splitting blast beats, and vocals that alternate between deep growls, guttural bellows, and nightmarish shrieks.

But "Nocturnal" does have a few qualities that make it somewhat distinct from previous releases "Miasma" and "Unhallowed." Some fans were turned off of the 2005 release because it sounded a little overproduced/polished, so the band made sure to make this effort very raw and primal. Secondly, The Black Dahlia Murder now possess a greater and more pronounced black metal influence than ever before (groups like Dissection and Cradle of Filth frequently come to mind). Next, this album is just a hair more melodic than usual because melodic riffs and leads abound to add contrast, depth, texture, and nuance to the arrangements, as do occasional bits of tremolo and sweep picking. Lastly, Trevor Strnad has decided to mix it up a little, too; both of his vocal styles are substantially more intelligible than usual, and his lyrics are now extremely evil and gory.

Opener "Everything Went Black" sounds strangely similar to Chimaira's "Nothing Remains." Guitarists' Brian Eschbach and John Kempainen's fiery, chugging riffs interlock with newbie drummer Shannon Lucas' incessantly pummeling backbeat to create a very thrashy, punishing, propulsive, and catchy number, and one that is sure to get your blood pumping and shred your speakers to smithereens. Track two, "What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse" is a very commanding follow-up, thanks to its huge, thunderous, bone-crunching riffs, staccato hooks, tastefully subtle melodic licks, and ridiculous, hyperspeed (and often mind-boggling) drumming. "Climactic Degradation" and closer "Warborn" follow-suit later on, though do without the aforementioned melodic licks ("Climactic Degradation" substitutes well-placed and executed tempo shifts and a superbly ripping solo in their place.)

Elsewhere, "Virally Yours" is but one example of a song that proves Strnad must have industrial-strength vocal chords, as it is a particularly intense screamfest (he sounds like a possessed cat!), and also has some groove-oriented guitars, and more stellar, driving blast beats. The title cut and "Of Darkness Spawned" offer up more terrifically tasty, chunky, juicy, lumbering riffs that sound tailor-made for getting the whole crowd's heads banging at a show. The former tune is also of note for its 1349-esque black metal tremolo picking and vigorous double bass slamming; and the latter for its shocking, mosh pit-ready shout-along part of "the time to rise is upon us!"

Finally, the record has three highpoints, including "I Worship Only What You Bleed," which is a lightning-fast blitzkrieg (it ends before hitting the two-minute mark) that's tantamount to being beaten over the head with a sledgehammer. Next up, most of "Deathmask Divine" blazes by at rocketing speed with excellent, busy, nimble-fingered riffing, deft, thundering blasts, and an actually audible (!), humming bass line. But the song hits a brick wall when the band suddenly let their foot off the gas for restrained, even borderline harmonic choruses. Finally, "To a Breathless Oblivion" is a mini-epic that, in addition to an abnormally long running time (almost five minutes), boasts crunchy, meaty opening power chords, sweep guitar, melodic leads, pounding, jackhammering skins, two good solos (opposed to the usual one), and a totally unexpected soft guitar outro.

So, yeah. The Black Dahlia Murder are most certainly back. And in a big way! "Nocturnal" is hands down TBDM's finest, and most realized, accomplished, epic, and meticulous effort to date. Granted, it is up for debate if it will change the minds of anybody who isn't already a fan. But all serious extreme metal fans would be hard-pressed not to find this to be one immensely brutal, intense, in-your-face, memorable, impressive, and thoroughly remarkable slab of (blackened) melodeath from one of the genre's best and most talented and popular groups to come down the pike in the last decade.