Year: 2022
Total Time: 38:56
Label: Despotz Records
The trilogy that started in “Venomous”, continued in “Wolf To Man” of 2019 and ends in 2022 with “Abyss Rising” highlights the main component of success for NIGHTRAGE all those! Consistency, dedication to the goal and the use of all available resources to achieve it, this is the trademark of Marios Iliopoulos’ band, a musician who has offered so much at the Extreme sound, continuing to pleasantly surprise us. Of course he does not know it, but I remember him during the period of EXHUMATION’s success remaining humble, down to earth, approachable but at the same time so passionate and dreamy about his future.
In “Abyss Rising” the main components of NIGHTRAGE are present, the heavy and melodic riffs, the aggressive vocals and the sweet melodies. Ronnie Nyman continues to tear his throat, launching a hellish attack which, however, he manages to calm down with his pure refreshing – let me express it – vocally like an oasis. The football term that says “a team that wins does not change” finds its application here as well, since the NIGHTRAGE team remained the same and unchanged with “Wolf To Man” with the old acquaintance of the band, the console guru (and favorite face here at THEGALLERY.GR) Fredrik Nordstrom to tame the impulses, to mold them and in the end to push the rage and the passion to overflow.
The pace has calmed down moving to a later tempo and this has allowed all the musicians to show their potential, now helping in the synthetic field. The bass of Venezuelan Francisco Escalona hits you directly in the chest and you feel it heavy inside you, at the same time that drummer Dino manages sharp, steady and full of emotion hits on the skin, achieving the extra boost at the compositions. The melodies fly from everywhere, the solos float over the furious compositions and the groovy moments reflect the -sometimes Thrash- vibes. What manages to make the listener rest is the presence of three acoustic moments, an interlude and two organic compositions. Nevertheless, “Abyss Rising” does not make you feeling bored at all and with a total duration of less than 40 minutes, is a pleasant listening experience. Mention should also be made at the lyrical part where the correlation with the refusal of people to live a real and true life, completely dependent on technology with the eternal search for quick and easy pleasures, making them crawl in the mud just to get the next dose without thinking about the consequences.
I will confess that I expected NIGHTRAGE to be affected by the COVID19 pandemic and to release a simply good, typical NIGHTRAGE album. So here I am solemnly refuting since “Abyss Rising” can be considered as one of their most melodic records. Definitely not “bright” as there are several gloomy moments and the introductions of the songs intensify the feeling of this gloom, as for example in “Dance of Cerberus”. NIGHTRAGE knows very well how to write beautiful melodies and “Abyss Rising” is full of them, staying true to the NWOSDM boulevard or consequently to the melodic Death at the same time that the pioneers and founders of the genre either deviated to the west of the Atlantic or they chose to add other more progressive elements to their sound. NIGHTRAGE, even if they appeared a bit late on stage for the specific genre, nevertheless the manage to be the ones holding the coat up and this is not a negligible achievement after so many years!
Rating: 8/10
Editor: Dimos Karadimos
Related Link: NIGHTRAGE – Official Page
