Divided between Sydney and Canberra, the distance between which is over three hours' constant driving, this band not surprisingly has had sparing output since forming in 2016. "Terra Inanis" is Somnium Nox's first album which, with a total of three songs clocking in at under half an hour, would seem very modest; but what the album lacks in quantity, it makes up for in the care and craft that have gone into composing and playing three highly atmospheric dark black metal pieces. Each song has a majestic quality that reaches for the distant skies in parts and descends to the darkest depths in emotion and atmosphere. The musicians are swept up by the grandeur of the melodies and sounds that they produce without being completely carried away into excess - something in the darkness restrains and channels the emotion and energy, and the result is sustained intense mood and a sadness that spreads far and wide.

Opening track "Soliloquy of Lament" gently flows into consciousness with liquid acoustic guitar, in what seems an isolated and dark environment, before suddenly exploding into scorching raw guitar noise aggression, blast-beat percussion jackhammer and a raging vocal that not so much shrieks as pours showers of pain and bitterness. Additional instruments include piano and didgeridoo used in sparing ways to enhance the sense of desolation and inner torment, and add an other-worldly feel. "The Alnwick Apotheosis" is even more ferocious and has a very solid, heavy sound. The drumming on this track changes often and can be very complex, and listeners may well consider the percussion work to be the outstanding aspect of this song. Certainly there are long sections where the drumming patterns completely dominate the song even though the guitars are going hard and fast and the singing is angry and shrieking. As the track progresses, the darkness seems lit up by an intense (but not necessarily benevolent) light, harsh and strong, and the music recedes into shadows.

"Transcendental Dysphoria" has a strong doomy funereal element which blends in very easily into the band's style and brings an extra, more gargantuan dimension to the music. The clicky blast-beat percussion is still there and the drumming is less varied and interesting than on previous tracks. While Somnium Nox are good at slower, doomy music with some fast elements and plenty of dungeon atmosphere, this particular song doesn't quite match the other two in vitality and originality - sure, it has to be more depressive and downbeat but the freshness and creative spark have gone.

I'd have liked this album to be a bit longer with perhaps a couple of extra tracks to see how well Somnium Nox sustain a long full-length with the challenges a 40 or 50-minute recording might pose. As it is, this debut album serves as a taster for future work that we should all hope will be intense and highly emotional atmospheric BM with an individual style. All three songs presented here are good, the first two perhaps more representative of the band than the third is, with a consistent and high level of musicianship and care put into all of them.

After months of waiting a few days ago I finally received my box set pre-order of Somnium Nox’s 2nd album: Terra Inanis. A quick search on Google Translate tells me that it means something like “Empty land” which seems like a fitting title for an atmospheric black metal album.

The album has a very similar sound and feel to their debut EP Apocrypha which was released in mid-2016. Indeed, they could almost be merged onto the one album.

Although technically divided into three songs, this is more one really long song that has been cut into three parts. The vocals are high, ethereal shrieks with a lot of reverb and serve to set these guys apart from others in the genre. The vocals create a fairly unique atmosphere that is semi-astral, semi-sepulchral. The drumming on this album is sublime – particularly throughout Soliloquy and Alnwick. Even though this is primarily a guitar-driven album, for me, the drumming is probably the star and I keep wishing for it to take the lead more than it does.

Like any self-respecting atmospheric album, the music alternates between swells and calms, swells and calms with the odd barrage thrown in. The band members have excelled at playing as a group and Nocturnal has done a brilliant job of mixing the album. Every note, drum beat, sample and screech is purposeful and intentional. This isn’t an album slapped together. It sounds like it’s been pro-tooled into existence, ruthlessly cutting out or correcting for any sloppy mishaps. For many people this is probably a positive, but for a life-long lover of the raw imperfect passion of traditional black metal that is created in people’s basements rather than people’s bedrooms, it is a bit of a negative for me. It’s not sterile, but nor does it light any passion. Saying that, this is part-and-parcel of the atmospheric black metal genre so I should really STFU and be praising the quality of the product that the band have crafted. And to be honest, this is a quality album within the genre and deserves some praise.

The nature of the music itself is basically the same as bands like Wolves in the Throne Room. Open tremolo picked distorted guitars provide a harsh background. These are counterpointed by clean picked guitars and drums that alternate between slow, mid, blast and none with a bunch of tasty fills thrown in throughout. The bass work is solid and the strongly reverbed high-pitched shrieked vocals float very nicely over the instruments creating layers to the atmosphere. As normal, there is no song structure to speak of with regular changes in tempo and instrumentation.

Like the debut EP they have included a didgeridoo. To their credit they haven’t cheesed it up and overused what is fundamentally a pretty mediocre instrument. Indeed it is used fairly sparingly and seems to be there more so they can say “We have a didgeridoo!” rather than for it adding any real substance to the atmosphere. The same goes for the samples of someone walking through dead leaves and stuff. The samples are present, but are generally subtle and so well blended into the rest of the music that you can easily miss that they were even there. These too seem to be present more to make the point that they had gone out and recorded someone walking around an “empty land”. Mind you, the fact that elements such as these are present yet subtle, means that there is a lot of depth to the production.

All up, the album – although not ground breaking – is a great addition to the genre providing a quality treat that should not disappoint. I look forward to what these guys can produce in the future.

Given that I got the limited edition box set, I should just note that it’s a nice package.