Customer Reviews

Nocturnal Poisoning

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Cited by most critics and black metallers as Malefic's best work, Nocturnal Poisoning takes you within the deepest, darkest depths of misanthropic black metal. Taking cues from various cult acts, Malefic's music is a maelstrom of beautiful, chaotic hatred. Discordant guitars resonate with ethereal, gothic sounding keyboards to create a foreboding atmosphere of perpetual gloom. Clean arpeggios are played mockingly over layers and layers of Buzum-like fuzz. The drums trudge along buried low in the mix at a mid-tempo pace. Reverb drenched, indecipherable vocals recite lines of loathing for the human race. And, of course, all of this is captured on a low-budget four track recorder. In other words, this is misanthropic, suicidal cult black metal at its very best.....

Unlike Xasthur's other albums, this record has a very strong gothic atmosphere. It reminds me of The Nightside Eclipse. However, the atmosphere in Nocturnal Poisoning is more surreal and dreamlike. The production is, as you should expect, pretty dismal. Everything blends together into an organic beast. And many of the parts, such as the guitars, are very hard to make out by ear. They are distorted at such a high level, not to mention that this music is obsessively/intricately layered. Most people regard Nocturnal Poisoning as Malefic's most significant work. And although this album is really good from start to finish, it is not quite as polished sounding as his future releases.

Overall, this is a fantastic album. It is a pivotal point for Malefic, and a strong representation of some of his best work. For people looking for surreal, abstract, and atmospheric black metal, this is the album to get...

Revision (2010):

Now that Scott (Malefic) Conner has terminated the Xasthur project it should be interesting to see how people will look back on Nocturnal Poisoning in the future. Will it still be considered the classic? Well, when put side by side with the rest of Scott's releases I feel that Nocturnal Poisoning was by far the most "black metal" of his works. While other albums treaded into almost chaotic noise, ambient, and drone territories, Nocturnal Poisoning kept things simple and was obviously the foundation in which the entire Xasthur sound was expanded upon.

With that said, I don't feel that Nocturnal Poisoning was the best Xasthur album (that honor would have to go to Subliminal Genocide), but it was still a milestone nonetheless. It gained "black metal" the sort of credibility that it was severely lacking here in the states at the time. And while it's all fine and dandy to drop names like "suicidal black metal" or "ambient black metal" in order to describe Nocturnal Poisoning, this release was just pure black metal as interpreted by a Californian hermit sitting alone in his bedroom with the drapes drawn. It just goes to show what one man can do with a little analog recording gear.

If you are thinking about picking this album up (or already own it), then I suggest waiting until it's late at night, turn off all of the lights in your home, and immerse yourself into this album.

You won't regret it