Review by Tomek on March 24, 2014.

Noctem are a blackened death metal band from Valencia – Spain. Exilium is their latest effort and the last part of the conceptual trilogy that also contains albums Divinity and Oblivion. I haven’t had the chance to listen to the previous two, but after Exilium I’m bound to get all three in my collection. Noctem strikes me as a band complete, a band with a clear vision and passion for extreme. Music, imagery, lyrics, attire- everything meshes into an absolute brute ready to conquer and reign.

I have to admit that while listening to the intro I was a little skeptical. It wasn’t that I was expecting anything after being introduced to the album by sheer power of Eidolon, it sounded good but it didn’t sound evil enough for me. The feeling got quickly erased with the first riffs and a sound of guitar from the first track and I have to say that from that point I knew that this album is going to be belligerent, demolishing and enticing. Listening to the album for the last couple of days showed me that Noctem is ready to lead the pack. Everything here has its place and everything that happens, happens for a reason. Guitar sound is something that catches you by the ear and I don’t think there is anybody out there that sounds even remotely similar. It’s not just the sound though; riffs and melodies are intertwined with majestic choirs; acoustic melodies and grandiose orchestrations are pieced together to build this extreme creature that seems to want to swallow you whole once you get close to it. Remarkably tight drumming and fat rumble of the bass are brilliantly positioned in the mix to accentuate and somewhat spotlight the demonic and brutally exquisite vocals. All of it recorded with an astonishing quality and unquestionably ready to make your ears bleed. Noctem created an album that is a soundtrack to destruction, carnage and murder. If two earlier releases are anything like the piece I have here, the whole trilogy is something that any metalhead is going to be bound to check out if not own.

If it comes to extreme kinds of metal Noctem’s Exilium is a masterpiece that is going to be the one to match in the future. Very intelligent and exquisitely aggressive, it showcases the band in its prime. Extreme metal supported by strong lyrics, demonic imagery and warpath attire. A band that is ready to sit on the blackest throne and rule all.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9
Originality: 8
Overall: 8

Rating: 8.6 out of 10

Review by Fran on February 17, 2021.

Maranatha is a point of inflection in the history of Funeral Mist. It's the first record featuring an Arioch consolidated in the scene as the frontman of the iconic Swede black metal act Marduk, so this time the collaborations are more luxurious: Devo on recording duties and Lars B. on drums. Six years passed since the release of the first full length from the project but the production concept is pretty much the same: crude, bright and trebly black metal with samples and occasional artificial studio ambiences and effects. The lo-fi concept is better coined in this record than on the previous one, overall the tracks have a thicker body, more bass and overall it sounds more neat, despite having the same raw artistic direction. Arioch's songwriting also benefited from his stance in Marduk, riffing is more memorable and meaningful and has an epic edge that revolutionized the project's sound.

I couldn't help but notice the inclusion of a slow polka drum beat, that gives another dimension to build songs over that wasn't present on the band's previous records. The drummer change was an upgrade, I have nothing against Necromorbus -who showed a big evolution from the demo to the EP- but Lars B. is way more complete as a drummer and Devo also made a better work recording and mixing this album than he did on Salvation. I don't have an opinion yet about the band's most recent output (2018’s Hekatomb) but it feels like this is Arioch’s magnus opus, both lyrical and musically. This album features his unique tragic sense of melody and the traditional belligerent hyper fast, raging blast beat parts, and the addition of that interesting mid paced and slow polka beat sections that were generally resolved with linear double bass drum feels before, enhancing the composition possibilities and variety of textures. You could say this is the release that put Funeral Mist in the rich swede black metal neighborhood without making it over polished or fancy.

The drumming as I said before was upgraded, the classy cymbal work and complex tom fills take the band’s percussion department to a whole new level. The double bass and snare are relentless as always but more precise, almost mechanical but without killing the performer's natural execution dynamics, it's brilliant. Bass guitar is seen as something more than a mere companion, it has a nice distortion and there are some arrangements where it stands out over the guitars, especially in calm arpeggio parts. It's levels are also well balanced. The guitar tone is acid, bright, raw and full of treble and a gain with lots of ground noise and equalized with almost no bass, the scales used in the riffs are not particularly harmonic but there are some passages like the end of 'Anti-flesh Nimbus' where they use guitar lines that sound almost ecclesiastical. Arioch’s vocals are always in top form, bragging about his wide range of growls, shrieks and storytelling mysterious voices.

Rating: 9 out of 10