Review Summary: The not so well known side of atmospheric Swiss Black Metal.
My interest in Nordlicht stemmed mainly from the fact that the man behind this project runs the Swiss metal label Kunsthall, together from Tobias Mockl, of Darkspace and Paysage d'Hiver. Being a fan of the output of the bands signed to Kunsthall, and Dakspace, I decided that it might well be worth the effort to track down Nebelmeer. Limited to 250 copies and released a good 6 years ago it is rather difficult to find any information on the album, let alone find someone willing to trade a physical copy. Most information on the album can be found on the labels page, and it gives us a somewhat better understanding of the album. The music, much like Paysage d'Hiver, tries to create landscapes. This particular album (translating to "sea of fog") is one about autumn, death, and fog as far as I can infer.
The music is lo fi black metal, done very well. The vocals are mixed extremely low and are distant cries in the background. The production is dominated by the guitars, which really lend the low fi sound because they are very distorted and deep. They sound almost as if they were playing black metal riffs using a death metal amp set up. There are also keyboards, but you won't pick them out as easily as you can in Paysage d'Hiver. Songs like Nebelhall do have them though, if you listen closely you can hear a sparse piano melody playing in the background, and the effect is quite wonderful. What happens is a whole new dimension is added to the music, the small melody lends it a hint of clarity in the wake of all the confusion that the guitar creates.
There are a couple of problems with the album. The main one is that it is a little too short, and it seems that the interludes really serve little purpose as they don't create a continuous transitional flow between songs and seem almost completely filler. They could be seen as prologues to the next song, so perhaps not making them their own song would but simply adding them on to their respective [actual] song would make more sense. The actual songs also lack consistency in sound, which is understandable as each song was made in a different year according to the bands page. The drums could also be a bit better, they are all programmed, but the programmed sound doesn't lend itself well to the music, as opposed to say Darkspace. I would prefer if the cymbals weren't so loud in the mix because they sound too artificial. The rest of the music is very organic and perhaps just making the various cymbals a little quieter would make the overall "blend" a bit better.
The riffing is fairly interesting, it reminds a bit of Burzum (doesn't all black metal?), especially the deep sound to the guitars. This may also be because the riffs aren't particularly evil sounding as much as they are just low and driving. The mid paced to high tempos suit the riffs, and I must say that the guitar work really does satisfy on this album. Apart from some production problems (which are forgivable considering this is the first album of the band, and was obviously recorded in a home studio environment) the album is a strong effort, not cliche in the way that many black metal bands are, but honest in it's attempt to portray the images of fog, un-clarity, death, and autumn. I recommend checking out Darkspace or Paysage d'Hiver out first, they are a bit more experienced in this style, but this is definitely a good album in it's own right. If the band ever does create a second album I would imagine many of the problems of this album would be corrected, and we would have an album on par with the likes of Darkspace and Paysage d'Hiver.
