...On the Coming of Darkness

Who doesn’t like a bit of mystery? Nine Covens aren’t giving much away except for the fact that they are British, and that (according to Candlelight) they are constituted by “current and ex-members of some of the key extreme bands from the last decades”. Were I more of an anorak on the UKBM scene, I would probably be able to recognise them from their behooded band photographs, but I’m not, so I can’t. The band’s sound, though, is far from an enigma: it is orthodox black metal which, for all the delicacy of its opening acoustic guitar twinkling, rumbles and grumbles its way through 45 minutes with few subtleties or surprises.

Nine tracks are divided into four parts of 2-3 songs each- Resurrection, Ascension, Judgement and Exiles (they have longer names and subtitles but you can look these up yourselves). There isn’t too much immediately-apparent difference between these sections, although the tempos accelerate noticeably in the final act, dragging us towards a spiralling climax. In the earlier stages, there is a great deal of trundling mid-tempo reminiscent of the death metal-influenced likes of Temple of Baal. These slower sections can feel draining and a little monotonous, but they are occasionally also possessed of a sense of dirge-like sadness, as on Resurrection Part 3, or of a crunching doom sensibility, as with Ascension Part 2.

So On the Coming of Darkness relies on the alternation between fast blast and slow growl for variety without much to speak of in the way of compositional dynamics. In consequence, it can sometimes feel too barren and inhospitable to really love. I guess this is part of the point, and the glowering, largely unchanging denseness of Nine Covens’s music seems entirely apposite to their notoriously unfriendly medium of choice. But then, they occasionally give the impression that they are wavering in their single-mindedness, throwing in anomalies like the quasi-industrial sideshow of Judgement Pt. 2 as a sop to those who may be twiddling their thumbs by this point (not a big one though, as the song ends up very much business-as-usual). This actually features Grutle from Enslaved, by the way.

As noted above, it’s in the final acts that this gets most energising, with the sheer vitriol of the Exiles brace sending us out on a high. The first of these, in particular, is perhaps the most compositionally-involved piece here, shifting from spiteful meloblack to hooky breakdowns and then almost-catchy black and roll riffing. …On the Coming of Darkness is undoubtedly a strong album, with much to recommend it for orthodox black metal fans. It never quite shakes the impression, though, of something that’s already been done before, primarily because it doesn’t have the dynamic range or the organic sensibility that would give it a more distinctive character.