ETHEREAL TOMB

"Ethereal Tomb" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US death metal act Nocturnus and the band´s first album since "Thresholds (1992)". The album was released through Season of Mist in February 2000. After the release of "Thresholds (1992)", the band ran into a lot of issues, especially with the lineup, where drummer (and former vocalist) and founding member Mike Browning was ousted, kicking and screaming, after some of the other members had secured the rights to the Nocturnus name behind his back. New drummer on "Ethereal Tomb" is Rick Bizarro. Bassist Chris Anderson has been replaced by Emo Mowery, who has also taken over the vocal duties from Dan Izzo. The three remaining members from the lineup who recorded the predecessor are Mike Davis (Guitars), Sean McNenney (Guitars), and Louis Panzer (Keyboards).

Nocturnus was one of the early Florida based death metal acts, and they made quite a name for themselves with their debut full-length studio album "The Key (1990)", as they included a keyboard player in the lineup. A very rare thing in those days. Other than having a keyboard player in the lineup of a death metal band in the late 80s/early 90s, the fact that Louis Panzer did other things than just play backing keyboards, and was a more integrated part of the band´s sound, made Nocturnus stand out from the crowd.

Stylistically "Ethereal Tomb" pretty much continues the keyboard laden sci-fi themed death metal style of its two predecessors. The music is relatively technical and occasionally enters progressive territories, but it´s still old school death metal at it´s core. New lead vocalist Emo Mowery has a strong and commanding intelligible growling delivery, and the rest of the band are very well playing too. I think the keyboards aren´t as dominant as earlier, and they are often placed low in the mix and used as backing, but maybe they don´t seem that interesting in Nocturnus music anymore because it simply wasn´t a rare thing to feature a keyboard player in a death metal band in the year 2000. Panzer could have pulled a few tricks to keep that part of the music exciting, but unfortunately he has opted for a more restrained role on "Ethereal Tomb". One thing that hasn´t changed since the early releases by the band, are the many well played guitar solos, which really help expand the music beyond standard death metal territory.

The material is as such well written and there are some catchy parts here and there, but overall there are too many tracks which are enjoyable while they play, but forgotten as soon as they are over. So it´s certainly a bit up and down in that department. It´s the kind of album which opens strong with "Orbital Decay", which is one of the few standout tracks on the album, and then after a couple of tracks starts to fade a bit to the background because of a lack of hooks. When that is said "Ethereal Tomb" is not a bad album by any means, and it still features many assets which makes it worth a listen or two, but it doesn´t exactly reach the heights of its two "classic" predecessors and a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)