Grima – Nightside
Release Date: 28th February 2025
Label: Napalm Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Progressive Black Metal.
FFO: Mgła, Groza, Gaerea, Ellende, Firtan, Dödsrit.
Review By: Rick Farley
The aesthetically and musically unique Siberian black metal duo Grima return with their sixth studio album and Napalm Records debut Nightside, unleashing to the masses February 28th, 2025. Epically dramatic and melancholic, Nightside melds deeply with the spirit of the Siberian forest, Taiga. Evocative, fierce, swirling, incorporeal black metal, waiting to engulf you with its tales of the haunting wilderness.
“Our music is a ritual of reverence to the ancient magic of the forest, an endless dance of mysterious entities and ancient spirits, a beautiful and terrifying legend cloaked in the form of Siberian atmospheric black metal.” Grima.
Nightside opens with an instrumental Intro (Cult) that immediately sets the melancholic tone with dreary clean guitars and a fluttering melody from a bayan, which is a chromatic button accordion developed in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. It’s a folky instrument along with keyboards that plays integral parts in the eerie yet soothing atmospheric settings of Nightside.
The opening two-minute instrumental dose of melancholic world building is torn apart shortly after by the instant menace of Beyond the Dark Horizon. A mid paced progressive tinged black metal nightmare of bouncy rhythms and impending darkness. It’s a bewitching journey of melody, creepiness and blackened layers of slower tremolo picked guitars that border on sounding like synchronous fireflies dancing in the mysteriousness of the deep forest. Acidic screeching, and deepened growls permeate the untraditional black metal stomp of this track. It’s safe to say the ride you’re about to take is going to be nothing less than spellbinding.
Track three Flight of the Silver Storm takes a contrasting approach at telling its tale, with the beginning having huge swaths of doomy guitars and profoundly introspective mood that’s deeply emotive. You can feel the yearning and pain dripping from its cold and depressive state. Wickedly soul piercing before it introduces anthemic black metal at a more traditional pace, feeling increasingly intense as it’s building. The final minute of the track drifts out with airy synths and a short piano passage, leaving a chilling impression that all may not have ended well in this tale.
The richness and icy majesty of Nightside is astounding. It reaches every crevasse of human emotion, often forging its intent easily while you unknowingly absorb everything it’s offering. The hope, the content, the sorrow, and the hideous. Every shade of dark and light overlook this bleak soundscape with masterful songcraft and dramatic musicianship, that you’ll be left collapsed in spiritual fulfilment but left with so many questions of why such ugliness is so beautiful and how terror is somehow comforting. Honestly, I’m not even fully done with this review yet; this album is nothing short of incredible atmospheric black metal. Vilhelm (vocals, guitars) and Morbius (guitars) utilize their unique take on atmospheric black metal with great care, and not one ounce of this album is needless. Both preforming guests Serpentum (bass) and Vlad (drums) also do an outstanding job at keeping the musicianship high on the spectrum. The use of the bayan by Sergey Pastukh throughout is a cultural nuance that’s unique but adds so much spirit alongside the dark malignance and brooding nature of black metal. It’s quite effective.
The full scale production of Nightside was done by Vladimir Lehtinen, leaving an incredible amount of lushness, and organic tones that are living and breathing the entire duration of the album. Everything sounds in place, clear and absolutely rich in warmth. Jagged guitars, blast beats and harsh vocals within the context of this fully detailed atmosphere is breathtaking.
Truth be told, Nightside blows me away; if I could go higher than a five I would. There’s nothing else I could possibly say to get you any more interested in Grima than what I have already said. Just check it out. Hands down, a masterpiece that will easily make its mark.
(5 / 5)
