Drowning The Light – Archaic Nocturnal Witchery [EP]

Hot on the heels on the in August released two EP’s, Australia’s most prolific Black Metal band, Drowning The Light, returns with a yet another EP. Although the others barely had the time to properly sink in, ‘Archaic Nocturnal Witchery’ serves you with another bit of, well, indeed, some archaic nocturnal witchery.

This EP was created during a short break of what is supposed to become the ‘Conquer Or Serve’ full-length, originally planned to be released as the follow-up to 2015’s ‘From The Abyss’. It is a bit unclear if the musical ideas that eventually materialized into these three new songs also date back from 2015, but it definitely sounds way more into something that could be categorized as the middle-ground of the last few recordings.

The opening title track has that evident and characteristic sound of the band’s latest recordings (excluding ‘Enslaved By The Cave’), which sounds a little mellower and with a that typical dreamy character. ‘Archaic Nocturnal Witchery’ clearly sound much less fierce in nature than the aforementioned ‘Enslaved By The Cave’-EP, but instead emphasizing those dreamlike elements that we have heard before by the addition of more prominent acoustic guitars and female vocals (most likely again by Strix). The addition of the EP-closing ‘Sorrowful Night Transmission’, which is a more classical take on the Dark Ambient scene of the early 00’s, is a truly soothing ending of a magical EP.

But still, although ‘Archaid Nocturnal Witchery’ is quite a mellow experience, all of the standard Drowning The Light ingredients are all still very much present. The basic drum patterns, mournful melodies and shrieky vocals on this new EP all seem to have found a proper balance, but still those who loved the more powerful and sharp-edged Black Metal guitar sound of some of the band’s earlier recordings might have to wait for another release. However, like I concluded on some of the other more recent Drowning The Light EP’s, this definitely will be up to your liking if you were able to wrap yourself around those more hypnagogic recent works of Azgorh.