Release Date: February 24th 2023. Record Label: Sargent House. Formats: CD/DD/VInyl
Eye Of Night: Tracklisting
Cradle Scythe
Anvil Crawler
Ad Unguem
Toom
Eye Of Night
Ekur
Cimmerian Maw
Ossein
-
Dead Satellite
Review
Industrial/Doom/Thrash/Synth tinged Rockers No Spill Blood return almost eight years after their last release with Eye Of Night. An album that finds the band in heavier Trance/Psych/Gloomy territorial waters compared to their last album being 2015's Heavy Electric. The album is quite complex and with an unforgiving nature with the Doom based atmospherics allowing No Spill Blood to draw heavily upon more Spaced Out and Trancier Elements of their rich hybrid sound.
The music moves along to its own dark creative pace with Trippy F/X sounds and noises that can see No Spill Blood being compared to bands/artists such as Author & Punisher and Genghis Tron. No Spill Blood add elements of HAWKWIND inspired Space Rock grooves with the despairing bleak genius of early-era Nine Inch Nails.
Opening song Cradle Scythe is a multi-layered and progressive based track with Trance and Sonic delivery is the key with the Ambient Noises allowing the hollow and droned out vocals work steadily with the slow-paced music. This is a fantastical slice of Industrial based Psychedelic Doom with flashes of bleak Experimental Post-Rock/Post-Metal weariness contained within the track.
Second song Anvil Crawler is a more fast-paced and aggressive affair with No Spill Blood adapting their Industrial/Psychedelic sound within a backdrop of Thrash Metal, Drone Rock and Post-Doom textures. The vocals are intense growls with a warped vision behind them all. The music uses Sonic Experimentation with flashes of classic sounding Ambient driven Space Rock movements that have a sense of Science Fiction realism to them. The song almost has an almost Post-Gothic flow to it with the despairing and bleak driven Electronica beats which feels like a different band compared to their last album.
Third song Ad Unguem is another surreal and experimental Industrial/Electro-Rock driven number. No Spill Blood start to widen their creative talents here by merging Progressive glitches and beats. The sounds are turned on their head when the band almost offer a Dance Rock environment with the fantastic rhythm section and trance-inducing synths and samples building up a WEIRD WALL OF HEAVY NOISE. One of the most daring and darkest slices of Psychedelic and Trance music with a despairing feeling of Madness and Paranoia allowing this song being more DOOM METAL than initially expected.
Fourth song Toom offers around one hundred seconds of finely played Droned Out Guitars and Screeching Psychedelic Sounds with a level of blissfully uneasy moments of Distorted Doom. Perhaps being used more as an interlude or short break for the album. However, the song does have a damn fine visceral haunting edge to it.
Fifth song Eye Of Night is where No Spill Blood veers into the heavier side of their musical identity. More aggressive Industrial Metal passages appear with the fast-paced Space Rock/Doom Metal/Psychedelic hybrid sounds having a more cautious style of delivery. The vocals are harsh yet again and sometimes feel out of place at times but there's an uneasy edge to this track that makes it very hard to resist or ignore. The instrumental work is frantic, cautious and GLOOMY AS FUCK. The song is the heaviest, gloomiest and most aggressive track on the album which may allow this to be one of the standout tracks on the album.
The second half of the album sees No Spill Blood merge the sounds of their previous album Heavy Electric into this new found style of bleak sounding Electronica and Sonic experimentation .The later stages of the album perhaps sees No Spill Blood play a more "riff-centric" style of music with a Thrashier alternative starting to appear more and more.
No Spill Blood still find the time to inject new sounds, beats and glitches into their nightmarish world whilst still finding the time to play some epic melodic and experimental jams along the way on tracks such as: Ekur, Ossein and Dead Satellite.
The album is boosted by truly original sounding production values that allows No Spill Blood to have a terrific "WORLD BUILDING" quality and feeling to their music. This album is a breath of fresh air with the music being quite unique in places.
Eye Of Night is a beautiful and soul crushing experience that only No Spill Blood can deliver.
Words by Steve Howe.
Eye Of Night is available to buy now on CD/DD/Vinyl via Sargent House.
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