The Nightstalker is an outfit by Sercati’s Steve Fabry, and Wolfshade Records did offer us both the new release (the review will follow soon) as well as this one, 2013’s Against The Anesthesist; and since I am so kind to take care of that older stuff too, please join me…
Against The Anesthesist has a total running time of almost forty minutes and it does not bring the stuff we’re used to – though some purists might notice this project’s grandiose raison d’être immediately.
What I want to say with the former paragraph is this: listen carefully, and as from opening song Snow Falls On Natural City you’ll find out why I am so excited. The song is based on a dreamy organ-based melody-line, joined after a while by very spooky blackened vocals, and it might refer to stuff à la older Autumn Tears, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Dargaard, Lord Agheros or even Shadowcaster. The next piece, Strange World, comes with some Folk-based acoustic guitars too, besides those utterly icy vocal parts, and even some electric guitars at the back ground. It shows that The Nightstalker go further than the Black Ambient trend, with limitations to own, and penetrations inwards other dimensions. Am I Like Him? Also annihilates any existing border with ‘Metal’, i.e. Finnugor, Summoning or Elffor will easily come to mind. Repetitive guitar melodies, orchestral synth excerpts and those fabulous, little weird blackened voices; it does result in something uncomfortable, yet possibly attractive (or the opposite, but I do not belong to this group). Without News From Father is such a piece that firstly comes with somewhat neo-folksy acoustic guitars, joined eventually by ominous and scarifying synths and shoegazed guitar leads – and so on and so on…
So, in general, the vocals are blackened, yet rather of the narrative way instead of aggressively screaming (and with some whispering intermezzos too), while the instrumental part dwells in different spheres of semi-bombastic orchestrations, classical esotery, folkish integrity and / or metalized integrity. And you might find it interesting or just boring, but that’s an own opinion. I like this kind of stuff, though I think there are missed chances all over the album. More depth, more bombast, more identity…