I remember coming across Night’s Blood in 2018 while digging through the German underground releases coming out through Undercover Records and Evil Spell. I was ordering stuff directly from them at the time, and that was still one of my favourite ways of finding new bands. You would go through the catalogue, see some unfamiliar name from Germany, check the artwork and titles, and sometimes take a chance simply because something about it looked right. Night’s Blood immediately caught my attention because the whole thing had that raw German Black/Thrash Metal character I was always looking for, and ‘Black Arts’ turned out to be exactly the sort of record that made ordering directly from labels worthwhile.
Night’s Blood came from Gelsenkirchen and had already released ‘Hellish Metal Possession’ in 2016 and ‘Further Down The Catacombs…’ in 2017, so ‘Black Arts’ was the next step rather than some completely unknown band suddenly appearing with a full-length. Their own history puts the band together in 2014, originally as four friends who started jamming after drinking and listening to their favourite metal, eventually turning those sessions into their first demo. That background actually makes sense when you hear ‘Black Arts’ because there is nothing overly calculated about the record. It sounds like four people who genuinely wanted to play dark, aggressive metal and had enough knowledge of the older stuff to know exactly where they wanted to take it.
‘Black Arts’ was recorded in May 2018 and mixed and mastered by Marco Brinkmann at Hellforge Studio, with Perversor handling the cover artwork, Synod doing the inlay artwork and backcover frame, and In Trance Designs taking care of the layout. The album was released on November 23, 2018, with the vinyl coming through Diabolic Might Records, the CD through Undercover Records and Evil Spell Records, and the cassette through Destruktion Records. That release arrangement alone tells you where Night’s Blood belonged at the time. This was firmly in that network of small labels keeping Black Metal, Thrash Metal and Heavy Metal releases circulating through the underground rather than some band being pushed through a bigger operation.
Once the record goes into ‘The Ignition…’ and ‘Above The Devil’s Pulpit’, you immediately get that rough combination of Black Metal darkness and Thrash Metal movement. The guitars are where most of the character comes from, but I like that the band does not just keep everything at one speed. There are faster attacks, heavier sections and riffs that lean more towards traditional Heavy Metal, giving the songs enough variation without making the album sound like a collection of unrelated influences. ‘Henkersklinge’ is a good example, especially with Max Power contributing the solo, while ‘The Iron Grip Of Merciless Hands’ gets straight to the point without overstaying its welcome.
What I really like about ‘Black Arts’ is that the Black Metal side never completely takes over the record. You can hear the Thrash Metal influence in the way the riffs move, but there is also a strong appreciation for older Heavy Metal in the guitar work. That combination gives Night’s Blood a distinctly German feel without making them sound like they are simply trying to recreate an old Destruction, Sodom or Kreator record. There is enough Black Metal in the atmosphere and vocals to keep the material nasty, but the songs are still built around riffs you can actually follow and remember. For me, that is always more interesting than a band relying entirely on raw production and shrieking vocals to create an atmosphere.
The middle section of the album is where I find myself coming back to the guitars most often. ‘Black Conjuration’, ‘Clandestine’, ‘The Spirits He Summoned’ and ‘Pariah’ all have their own character, and ‘Coffin Birth’ carries that same mixture of aggression and darker melody. Then ‘Upon Pagan Gravesites’ was one of the tracks used to introduce the album before its release, and it gives a pretty good idea of what Night’s Blood were doing at the time. The record never feels like it is trying to impress you with technical playing for the sake of it. The musicianship is there, but it serves the riffs and the songs rather than becoming the subject of the album.
There are also some nice details tucked into the recording. Spectrae and Ruhsuz Cellât contribute guest vocals to ‘Black Arts Conspiracy’, while Max Power handles the solo on ‘Henkersklinge’. Those contributions add something without making the album feel overcrowded. The production from Marco Brinkmann gives the guitars enough definition while keeping the record rough enough to retain its underground character. It is not one of those recordings where everything has been polished until the personality disappears, and that suits Night’s Blood far better.
The twelve tracks are also sensibly arranged. After the heavier material, ‘…Of A Sombre Blaze’ closes the album at only a minute and a half, which works almost like a final dark afterthought rather than dragging things out with another full song. The entire album is short enough to keep you coming back to it, but there is enough going on inside the individual tracks that it does not feel disposable.
Looking back at ‘Black Arts’ now, I think what makes it memorable for me is partly the music and partly the circumstances in which I discovered it. I was ordering directly from Undercover and Evil Spell in Germany, digging through their releases and looking for bands that were still operating within that proper underground metal world. Night’s Blood fit immediately into that collection. Evil Spell still lists ‘Black Arts’ in its catalogue, alongside other releases from that period, which makes sense because this album really belongs to that particular strain of German underground Black Metal, Thrash Metal and Speed Metal.
Night’s Blood were not trying to reinvent Black Metal with ‘Black Arts’, and thankfully they did not need to. They took the old ingredients that clearly meant something to them, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal and that particular German sense of riff construction, and turned them into an album with its own identity. For me, that is why the record still deserves to be pulled out rather than simply being remembered as another 2018 release. I found it through the same kind of label digging that introduced me to so many obscure German bands, ordered my stuff directly from Undercover and Evil Spell, and ‘Black Arts’ ended up being one of those discoveries that made the whole process worthwhile. It has the rawness I was looking for at the time, but more importantly, the songs are strong enough that the record still sounds like Night’s Blood rather than just another forgotten Black/Thrash Metal release from the same period.
