Nocturnal Poisoning

Black metal, Dark Ambient 

Nocturnal Poisoning is the debut release by the American black metal one-man band Xasthur, released in 2002. The CD version of the album was limited to only 2,000 copies, making it a novelty. In my last post, which can be read here, I talked about how I got into black metal and a review for the first black metal record I listened to, Leviathan's debut release. It's ironic how I got into black metal on Holy Week and the week Notre Dame Cathedral got burned. I'll remember this week in 2019 for sure. 

Xasthur's first record Nocturnal Poisoning is a nightmarish beast. I first heard of Scott "Malefic" Conners when I saw the Noisey documentary on one-man black metal bands. Scott seemed like quite the troubled guy, much more messed up, and depressed than Wrest from Leviathan, who was also featured in the documentary. He seemed autistic, although I'm not quite sure if he is or not. One thing for sure is that he's an excellent musician. That's what got me interested in listening to Xasthur, Leviathan, and Striborg, all three one-man black metal projects. 

The guitars on this record are extremely distorted, fuzzed out walls of sound. Its as if he had two or more guitar tracks at all times, like a hurricane of guitar noise. The whole atmospheric walls of guitar distortion is a black metal staple, something I learned about from listening to Darkthrone, a 90's secondwave black metal group from Norway. Its that stereotypical high pitched, distorted tremolo guitar riffing that is so characteristic of black metal. It sounds great, especially with aggresive, fast blast beats on the drums. 

The drums used here are nothing all that impressive. In fact, I believe it to be a drum machine based on reviews I've read but they work. They aren't exceptional, and if Conners got a real drummer, or played real drums himself, the sound of the drums would've been much heavier. With drum machines, you always have a sense of something missing. The beats could sound great technically and fit all the songs but it's missing that human soul, to beat the living shit outta drum heads. You need real drums for metal, especially black metal, a genre that thrives off the raw visceral feel of rock and roll. The bass sound on this record is almost nonexistent, not good! 

The vocals are okay. They weren't exceptional. The lyrics are your typical post-1990's black metal fanfare-hate,  souls, hateful souls, yeah we get the idea. The vocals have a lot of fuzz and distortion attached, something that sounds quite good on King Crimson's first album, on the tune 21st Century Schizoid Man. However, the way fuzz is used on these black metal vocals are extreme, like the fuzz is at eleven and the vocals are at seven. The vocals are used sparingly and you can't understand any of them without a print off. Go figure.

The best thing musically about this record other than guitar [I love black metal guitar] is the keyboards. I would say Conners is best at guitars and keyboards, that's where he shines. The keyboards add a sense of dark ambiance that I haven't heard in most metal. Most metal uses keyboards as a cringe operatic and classical thing, not so here. The keyboards add more layers and layers of sound walls, adding to the guitars and overall atmosphere. 

The music is crushingly depressing. You could call this genre depressive suicidal black metal [DSBM for short], and after listening to the whole record you get a sense of uneasiness. "What am I listening to? Is this any good? Who would enjoy this?" That being said, this music is one hell of an acquired taste, as is black metal in general. This album doesn't really have riffs I can remember, its just drones and endless drum loops. I believe the album would get better after multiple listenings but the first one left me puzzled. The production on this record is better than your typical lo-fi black metal, that's one of the record's redeeming qualities. In fact, the production is so good that it sounds like a movie. 

All that being said, this record shows you how dark black metal gets. It's depressing. The vocals are painful to hear, painful in the sense that they are like cries of agony, screams of agony actually. I was inspired to listen to Xasthur because I found Conners to be the non-stereotypical black metal musician. He wasn't over the top, he doesn't write satanic lyrics or wear corpsepaint, and when he was interviewed in the Noisey documentary, he seemed like a genuine person-not fake. I realized from that interview that he was a troubled person and that shows in his music. I think I'd be down to check out more of his album releases and/or demo tapes. I've come to find that a lot of the really great black metal music comes from demos and EP's, as well as album releases. I'd be interested to see where Conners would go musically from here. I would definitely put him on my list of third wave American black metal, and one man black metal projects. It's impressive that he recorded all this on his own. Although I find the music arrangements to be not totally awe-inspiring, he is doing something unique, of his own here, that stands apart from his peers, other black metal musicians.