Today we’re taking you off our usual well-beaten musical paths as we premiere a full stream of Entity, the debut album of a duo who have taken for themselves the name Nox.
The identities of those two artists are what first led us down this divergent path. They are Inmesher from the German band Rope Sect, whose own new album Estrangement we premiered here not long ago, and Lykaios (aka Lykormas) from the Belgian band Hemelbestormer, whose fascinating post-metal instrumental excursions we’ve written about frequently in the past (he is also the person behind Lhaäd and a member of Rituals of the Dead Hand).
Having been beckoned by those two names and the attractions of the music they’ve made in their other projects, we were curious about what they chose to do as the Nox entity. Hints of what they accomplished were provided in the PR materials furnished on behalf of their label Neuropa Records, which is releasing the album today. For example, this:
[I]n service of atmosphere as much as songwriting, Nox dive headlong into a mirror world of subtly torched tones – some scavenging among the gravel, even despite being electronic, while others ascend into the ether on wings of mesmerizing melody – where the listener is guided through moonlit back streets, crumbling edifices of modernity, and a strange sense of futurism that feels apocalyptic and enticing in equal measure.
You’ll notice the reference to “electronic” music. Those PR materials also refer to the Nox entity’s use of elements from synthwave, industrial, and dubstep — more definitive signs that we were about to wander away from the well-beaten paths we usually follow (to become beaten).
Well, it’s obvious from the fact that we’re now premiering Entity that it proved to be a welcome digression. More than that, we found ourselves lost in the music and wondering how to find our way back.
Across the album’s 43 minutes and 8 songs (which includes a cover of Placebo’s “The Bitter End”), Inmesher‘s quavering, haunting, and sinister voice is our guide, but also significantly helps shape the music’s visions and moods.
The places where that voice leads are both frightening and exhilarating. The album opener “Black Nebula” immediately provides a fine example. There, warping gravel-toned manifestations, throbbing beats, and ominous wails create feelings of menace before Inmesher begins singing. Other rapidly flickering tones join in, along with big booming and bounding beats and menacing chanted words. It creates an experience that’s both chilling and seductive, both hallucinatory and muscle-moving, futuristic but also kind of… predatory.
That opening song is also a sign that while you can bob your head and shake a leg to the music in Entity, and maybe dance to it somewhere if you’re lucky, it’s also capable of rising goosebumps on the flesh and bringing red-eyed wraiths into your dreams.
As the songs unfold, the music glimmers and shimmers, glints and gleams, insidiously quivers, vibrates like mechanized alien forms eager to chew through whatever might impede them, becomes misty (like the mist in The Mist), and sparkles like the ethereal delirium of feverish sprites. It seems to sail us out into the cosmos sometimes, but just as often sends us through interdimensional veils into realms where alien and occult entities dwell.
I’ve written before (in the context of Rope Sect) about Inmesher‘s remarkable voice, and the connections it makes to certain of the gloomier strands of post-punk and New Wave music. Throughout Entity, it’s a key factor in both the music’s chilling seductiveness and its ghostly frightfulness, even when it takes the demonic shape of rasping spoken words.
To be sure, the music’s big punchy electro-beats are also a key ingredient, visceral in their impact and providing a kind of primal grounding for all the strange, menacing, and wondrous musical events and vocal expressions that happen around them. They also provide a stark contrast with Inmesher‘s vaporous voice.
So yes, this is electronic music — sinew-twitching and head-spinning electronic music — but not conventional. It thrives in the changing shades of its darkness. Even if you’re the sort who usually steers clear of such variants as synthwave, industrial, and dub-step, you should give Entity a chance, as long as you’re willing to risk having your dreams disturbed by it.
Entity was mastered by mastered by Mario Dahmen. Neuropa Records is releasing it on CD and vinyl LP formats, and Nox is also making it available as a digital download. To pick it up, check out the links below.
As further reference points we’ll add the label’s recommendation of Entity for fans of Carpenter Brut, Crystal Castles, ADULT., Kavinsky, Sixth June, Kontravoid, and even Nine Inch Nails.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.neuroparecords.com/en/artists/nox/147
https://thenoxentity.bandcamp.com/album/nox-entity