If the purpose of the ubiquitous instrumental album introduction is to set the mood for the material that follows, then “Intrusion" is a score of functional genius. But the opening to Nachtmystium's latest record, The World We Left Behind, doesn’t establish a tone that’s particularly infernal, anxious, depraved, or depressive—qualities to be expected from what might be the final record from these black metal modifiers. Instead, the spiraling, simple riff and plodding rhythm section betray a presiding laziness, a lack of effort and imagination that feel altogether alien for the long-intriguing Chicago band. Even when the drums finally shift into a gallop and Nachtmystium trigger a quick, classic thrash finale, the fatigue is palpable, as though the band is staring expectantly at a countdown wall clock, ticking patiently toward the end.
That air of obligation presides during The World We Left Behind, a nine-track slog that follows an intense period of personal and professional turmoil for founder Blake Judd. Nachtmystium has always dealt with one form of ignominy or another, from associations with racist factions of the metal underground to a perpetual motion machine of ever-changing membership. Judd’s consistently used Nachtmystium’s music as an act of bloodletting, then, a chance to let his problems with addiction and despair drip into public awareness.
But since the release of 2012’s Silencing Machine, he’s ripped off fans and distributors for merchandise he never delivered. In October, he was arrested for theft and given a bail of $25,000. A month later and out of jail, Judd issued a statement to thank fans for their support, to say he was retreating for a bit and to release “Voyager,” the first cut from a forthcoming Nachtmystium album that “has everything to do with the demons I’ve been battling leading up to this very dark period of my life.” If the circumstances around its release weren’t so dim, the song might have been taken as a joke. Above an undifferentiated mess of cheap riffs and unsophisticated drum rolls, Judd screamed from his diary like a pimply teen: “Striving along, year after year/ This is my calling, I have no fear.” When Century Media announced that the album from which it was taken would be Nachtmystium’s finale, which Judd recently recanted, the decision seemed to make sense. “Voyager” proclaimed that Nachtmystium had little to offer aside from the transmission of Judd’s whimpering ego, anyway. End it already.
During the last half of the last decade, Nachtmystium made music that suggested black metal in America might not always hang out in its dark, cloistered corners or its critically sanctioned circles. From 2006’s Instinct: Decay to the two-album Black Meddle set that followed, Nachtmystium resurfaced popular canvases, like the thrum of New Order or the sprawl of Pink Floyd, with serrated screams and quick-picked guitars. You could almost imagine it on the radio. Silencing Machine, released in 2012, pulled back on the pop drive and the psychedelic breadth, retrenching the aggression of the band’s earlier material while not giving up altogether on the recent exploration, either.
Anything on The World We Left Behind that feels vaguely experimental, however, is almost altogether inchoate. The best moments here are the most focused and formed. The first four minutes of “Into the Endless Abyss” offer some of the most direct and compelling black metal of Judd’s career. A cavalcade of drums powers a magisterial wash of guitars, moving in waves beneath Judd’s end-times desperation. Its power recalls the charge of Instinct: Decay and Silencing Machine, its romance the allure of Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II. And though the title track lingers too long in both the prelude and the postlude, the middle traces a wonderful arc of momentum, pushing ahead through a succession of increasingly grand moments. The chorus is simple, undistracted and effective, Judd fashioning despair into a hook that catches on the first pass. It’s the epitome of Nachtmystium’s magnetism.
Elsewhere, though, efficiency seems like an anathema for Judd, whose lassitude shows here not only in a dearth of imagination but also through a general lack of editing. Without necessity and with the warning only of a quick guitar-pick slide and a grunt, the great “Into the Endless Abyss” shifts into a truly abysmal second half of four-on-the-floor dance metal. Above laughable video-game synthesizers and a beat that could last for days until someone took notice, Judd yells about descending “into this mortal hell.” You kind of wish he’d stop talking about it and get going already—at least that would have saved him from the song’s second half.
Likewise, “In the Absence of Existence” is a seven-minute, string-padded rock waltz with no more payoff than an attenuated chorus of self-pitying juvenilia. “Hidden away, alone I pray/ For a quick death every day/Never a moment to get away,” Judd croaks. During some of the song’s instrumental breaks (and there are plenty), you can hear the utter lack of inspirations and ideas. A sidewinding guitar hangs mostly still, waiting for something else to do. A synthesizer swells, searching for a role bigger than that of ancillary noisemaker. Instead, the song just marches from one final refrain into a distended dénouement, doubling down on the time it’s wasted by repurposing the same filler solo it’s already used. Closer “Epitaph for a Dying Star” delivers Judd’s approximation of vogue shoegaze-and-black-metal chimeras, assisted by a gospel singer’s ululations and padded production. It lasts for nearly eight unchanging minutes that you’ll never get back.
Indeed, all of the problems on The World We Left Behind—the absence of transition and sequence, the lack of focus and coherence, the presence of awful lyrics and middling riffs—all seem to be symptoms of its creator’s vainglory. Judd gives priority to his time and problems even though he has little compelling to say about them and even less to give to the supporters for whom he is “deeply grateful.” Judd has the audacity to overindulge on the unimaginative and peddle its whimpering results as some grand closing statement—at least for a time, at least until it is convenient to take it all back.
