Grima – Nightside | Album Review

Rare are the moments where a band can blend devastation and beauty without one sounding compromised.

Blisteringly cold, supremely evil, and about as haunting as a graveyard after midnight. An unsettling cocktail of soaring atmospherics, straight up black metal and just a hint of folk instrumentation, the Siberian forest dwellers Grima have returned, adding in traditional Eastern European folk instrumentation without it coming off as just a bit silly. Grima have managed to merge all of this together with their latest release Nightside.

Sonically this album is stunning, the guitar tones, sharp and piercing when the aggression is picked up, but with a lamenting grandness to them, which helps to build an oppressive wall of sound, cementing the all encompassing loneliness of its sound. It would be easy to find oneself lost in the murky depths of these riffs, they are about as massive as black metal riffing can get, hammering on your ears with relentless intent. Sitting atop it all, neither dominating nor fading into the background the caustic shriek of the vocals. Sounding like acid being spewed from the very depths of their gut, layering the whole record with an unnerving despair. This hits its peak on the title track, a driving force of melancholy underpinned with deep and dark death growls so often omitted from the black metal sound, but providing a welcome juxtaposition to the pained wails.

Swimming through everything, always present underpinning the whole sound, the backbone of this record is atmosphere. The keys, symphonics and folk instruments building this sense of an undeniable darkness, but with shades of beauty to found lurking in the shadows. All of this combining to leave no gap unfilled with sound, there is so much going on and yet at no point does it sound confused, everything has its purpose and its place. It is beautifully mixed and mastered, nothing is hidden away, and yet it doesn’t feel in your face, there’s something new to be found with each successive listen, and it never fails to delight and horrify.

A fully realised and ambitious output from a band who have been steadily ploughing away for the best part of a decade now, culminating in this which will surely be known as a standout moment in their careers. There is enough focussed no frills black metal here, for those who like their sound grim and nasty, tracks such as ‘Beyond the Dark Horizon’ are proof that Grima can can get as bleak and necro as the rest of them. For those who want something more, something grander, look no further than the title track or lead single ‘Skull Gatherers’, these are some standout moments on a standout record, deep and thought-provoking, they’ll take time to digest, they deserve your attention.