Nightbringer is that rare band that focuses equal intensity on instrumental mastery, detailed songcraft, and dark lyrical intent. Shrieking six-stringed demons billow out of the rank midrange muck. Drums plod, blast, and artfully accent each shift in tempo as a song requires. Each track builds its own structure and purpose, though for all that, telling one apart from another is, um, devilishly difficult. Liner notes credit vocalist Naas Alcameth with ambient compositions, which I can only assume are used as track intros or layers within the songs' dense construction, since nothing here creeps or haunts without being heavy as fuck. "Eater of the Black Lead" starts with pretty acoustics, then drives over listeners with a razor-wired steamroller. "The Angel of Smokeless Fire" floats in on organ keys and wind before smashing through both with bleak distortion, and penultimate track "Via Tortuosa" beckons with a Steve Von Till coda that later erupts into an electric zombie lurch.

Rather than submit to the varying demands of each song, vocals on every track trudge inexorably through the album's grim, esoteric manifesto. Even after staring at the full lyric text, it's hard to know what these straight-facers are on about. _Hierophany_ might describe the spiritual spelunking through which I might find my own darkened divinity, or its incantations might actually summon a soul-slurping Sixth Circle demon prince. The intended results are somewhat unclear. In either case, the Bible Belters won't be happy, and we can all get behind that, right?