Someone once said, "You cannot judge a book by it's cover." This can be viewed as a philosophical truth that you can base your life's mantra on, or it can be a boldfaced lie. A case in point is Germany's NOCTURNAL. When this disc arrived in the mail, the package was still warm and smoking, even stunk slightly of burning livestock. Upon opening the cover and noticing the members of this four-piece donning denim, leather, spikes and full-size chest tattoos; not to mention that they opted to list their God-given names (Mayhem on Vokills, Vomitor -Thunder, Hellbastard -Artiller, and Avenger-axe), I had a pretty good idea how this book was gonna turn out. Little did I know that the cover was only the beginning of this story.

NOCTURNAL started in one incarnation back in 1997, morphing into today's lineup after some self-released material, a few lineup chanes, and a mini-LP to their credit. They play straight-up old-skool teutonic thrash metal, with more than a nod to DESTRUCTION ("Sentence of Death"-era) and KREATOR (early) as well as a pinch of MOTÖRHEAD. I have to say that what they do, they do extremely well! Mayhem's vocals are from the Mille Petrozza book of animal sounds, and trust me here, if KREATOR ever needed a new growler, they should keep Mayhem's resume on file. Check out "Burn this Town" and it's VENOM riffage and MOTÖRHEAD- style solo. Check out the guitar on the track "Victorious Night". This is what this sub-genre German thrash is all about. I am glad that there are still bands out there that can make this happen, instead of turning to nu-metal, or some run-of-the-mill death sounds attempting to take 1st place in a popularity contest. I mean, for chrissake, a man named Hellbastard has two Heineken beers hanging from his bullet-belt in his promo-picture! You can't get any more real than that! So if you are like me, and sleep with your vinyl copy of "Obsessed by Cruelty" under your pillow, visit these thrashers at the link below and order this disc of darkness. Get it? The band's name is NOCTURNAL, and I called it a "disc of darkness"....Stay with me people.

- Murtaugh

OFFICIAL SITE: www.myspace.com/nocturnalthrash

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