ORDER OF NOSFERAT - Towards... black Vinyl

By now, those well versed in the crimes of PURITY THROUGH FIRE should be well aware of ORDER OF NOSFERAT. Emerging from the shadows in early 2021, the duo of Count Revenant and Anzillu released TWO full-lengths that year: Necuratul and Arrival of the Plague Bearer. And while both underground veterans are no strangers to black metal, the variety they unleashed with ORDER OF NOSFERAT was most definitely OLD, in every sense of the word: undead vampiric black metal had truly arisen! Like (vampiric) clockwork, two more full-lengths followed the next year - Nachtmusik in March and Vampiric Wrath Unleashed in December - proving that their bloodthirst could not be sated. While 2023 was relatively quiet, ORDER OF NOSFERAT "only" released a split album with Lunar Spells, showing a more nuanced and atmospheric side to their vampirism.
 
Alas, 2024 has proven to be predictably bountiful for ORDER OF NOSFERAT, as The Absence of Grace arrived as the snows began to melt - and now, as those snows soon take hold, so does yet another full-length. Titled Towards the Nightrealm of Orlok, on LP#6 do the duo of Revenant and Anzillu return to misery and comfort, regressing their black metal further back to somewhere around 1997-1999. Whereas The Absence of Grace moved at a more measured pace and utilized a unique production style - crisp and cutting but somehow brittle, exceptionally ethereal in its effect - ORDER OF NOSFERAT kick up the pace again, galloping triumphantly into the night in search of prey. The production's equally brittle, but authentically vintage: the fuzz 'n' buzz recalls old French vampires like Blessed in Sin, Winter Funeral, and Osculum Infame, esteemed company and spiritual forebears for this particular (and pure) style of black metal. And while the duo have always had exquisitely moonlit synths, aiding and abetting their melancholia, they truly meld into something majestic here, indeed taking the listener Towards the Nightrealm of Orlok.