Review by Carl on October 15, 2024.

While I'm typing this, there's an elephant impatiently tapping me on the shoulder, so let's just get it out of the way right now: guitarist Pist Kris (calling himself Rev. Slavehunter Ph.D. here) used to be in the infamous and highly controversial hatecore band Angry Aryans. But where his previous endeavor sounded as if Madball had a bout of the flu on a boring Sunday afternoon, Nocturnal Fear slaps the listener around with a veritable smorgasbord of riffs, solos, and heaps upon heaps of metal power.

The band shoves us a fast thrashing, highly volatile dose of metal through our collective throats. The main attention grabber here is Pist Kris (I'm not calling him Rev. and so forth), launching fast-played riffs, licks, and a veritable crossfire of solos at the listener, sonically citing Kreator and Sodom throughout, while being backed by a gruff vocalist, a solid bassist, and a drummer who fills up any hole left in the music. The music is brought with a nervous, twitchy energy that barely leaves any room to take a breather. At times the band does take the foot off the gas to plow ahead with a solid dose of midtempo stomp, and in a track such as "Resurrected from the Past", there's even room for some melodic touches. At times the band goes that extra step further, by making room for some acoustic guitar to seep through, most notably in the middle section of "Generations of Mutations", and the intro to "Moment of Violence", which brings to mind Candlemass or Savatage. It has to be said, that the band put thought and effort into creating this album, there's no denying that. Maybe even a bit too much, because there is happening so much, and at such an intense level, it has the tendency to get somewhat tiring towards the end. The way Pist Kris scatters the notes, licks, and solos around, at times reminds me somewhat of the first album by The Great Kat, with the difference being that he's the technically better one.

I would call the production on here pretty decent, but certainly not stellar. The guitars, that are the main attraction here, could've been up louder in the mix, and the vocals less so, kinda hampering the band in displaying their true power. It's not a disaster, though, because everything is more or less in balance, and I especially appreciate the drum mix. This sounds clear, pretty natural, and absolutely balanced out, giving the drummer's performance the right amount of space to shine because the man hands in an excellent performance.

Nocturnal Fear reminds me of bands such as Gammacide, Holocross, Devastation (TX), Anialator, Burnt Offering, and the US Insanity, the ones who did "Death After Death", bands that played powerful thrash, with added death metal elements. Too bad the production somewhat stumps the band by kinda hindering the power to come out to the fullest. The remorseless delivery can work a bit tiring towards the end as well, but that is just a small gripe, made up by the great thrash/death metal the band simply seems to ooze.

You can say whatever you want about Pist Kris, but the dude knows his way around his guitar, just as his band knows their way around solid thrash with death metal elements.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10