After a six-year wait, German Melodic Death/Doomers Nailed To Obscurity throw off any remaining shackles and on their fifth full-length studio album, Generation Of The Void (Nuclear Blast Records), fulfil the potential they’ve been threatening to for years. This might come at a cost for some listeners, as while clean singing has always been integral to their sound, it also tended to remain largely as a supporting character in a much larger play. On this latest offering, vocalist Raimund Ennenga really lets loose, delivering easily the best and most versatile performance of his career.

Growl enthusiasts need not worry too much, though, as there are still plenty of guttural vocals to enjoy. It’s just that this time, the roaring only dominates a handful of songs while others strike a perfect balance between the two differing styles. For example, on songs like “Clouded Frame” and the cinematic “Misery’s Messenger,” Ennenga plays both against each other, constantly switching gears on the former while using them as a surging crescendo towards the end of the latter.

Like many of the songs on display here, multifaceted opener “Glass Bleeding” and subsequent track “Liquid Mourning” are both sumptuous feasts of Opeth, Dark Tranquillity, Katatonia, and Insomnium. Switching seamlessly between velvety smooth melodic sections and full-bore Death Metal, the five-piece adds more than a touch of Progressive Metal along the way to enrich things even further. “Overcast” finds guitarists Volker Dieken and Jan-Ole Lamberti simultaneously attacking with fast-picked notes and single, jarring angular chords, the two combining to create slow, crushing Death Metal Doom augmented by melancholic and progressive melodic bridges. 

If there’s one song likely to split the band’s fanbase down the middle, then it’s most likely going to be “Spirit Corrosion.” Interchanging as ever between light and dark, it also features their most commercial-sounding chorus to date, complete with “woah-oh” backing vocals that owe more to Black Veil Brides than anything in the field of Death or Doom metal.

The melodic but still crushingly heavy “Generation Of The Void” and introspective yet equally muscular “Allure” include no guttural roars whatsoever, but this doesn’t diminish their strength, especially the latter, which builds purposefully towards a powerful climax driven by drummer Jann Hillrichs and new bassist Lutz Neemann. The ambitious and perfectly executed “Echo Attempt” possesses shades of Paradise Lost and is an eight-minute sweeping epic full of different moods and textures, while the closing cut “The Ides Of Life” is as vicious and complex a Prog Death climax you could wish for. A perfect ending to a record like this.

Death Metal Doom

Buy the album here:
https://nto.bfan.link/generation-of-the-void

8 / 10
GARY ALCOCK
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