Temple Nightside is an Australian black metal band that venture quite a bit into the ambient atmospheric textures of music. Their 2011 ep, Prophecies of Malevolence can best be described as extremely raw black metal with a production that is so low fi, it makes early Dark Throne sound like it was recorded at Morrisound Studios, in Tampa, Fl. I thought the ep was pretty cool, but hot damn all those ambient intros, which harken back to the early Bathory records intros and outros, are boring as a mutha-you know what!

So apparently Temple Nightside really like these ambient tracks since they continue the trend on their debut album, Condemnation, not as prevalent as the ep. I say if the band really loves them so much and cannot stand those moments not appearing on their albums, than please, for the listener’s precious time, just include 1 as the album intro and maybe lastly as the album outro. But in between tracks takes away from the raw evilness the band possesses. It’s not like when I listen to these tracks on my ipod or in my truck that I’m stuck listening to them and thinking how cool they are. I leave them off my ipod and skip them on the cd.

“Dagger of Necromantic Decay (Eater of Hearts)” is a nice doomy black metal number and the 3 minute mark screams Hellhammer, loud and proud! The production on the album is better than the ep, however it’s still very stripped down and raw, that at times sounds no better than demos I would buy in the 80’s/90’s. “Ascension of Decaying Forms” has a nice depressing riff that opens the song. Vocals are painful screeching groans. No real lyrics. A lot of atmosphere & the 6 minute mark has some real nice bass parts. This is more of an instrumental piece. “Miasma” clocking in at the 9 minute mark is an epic and haunting song especially the end, closing the album out in perfect fashion.

There is quite a good amount of evilness on this recording and I’m a believer if less of those intros and a better production was put in place that Temple Nightside could have a go at being leaders in the true black metal scene.

[Visit the band's website]

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