Kommandant / Nominon - Absence of Light / Impaling the Nazarene

KOMMANDANT / NOMINON - Absence of Light / Impaling the Nazarene (CRYPTORIUM Records - split 7"EP 2012)

The invasion of Nominon releases on my home continues, this time in form of the split 7”EP single with Chicago based Kommandant. The EP was released by Cryptorium Records and I must say that I really like the layout for it. The front covers for both sides are killer! Kommandant chose their typical war imagery, with gas masks, what always looks very disturbing and interesting, while Nominon has a killer drawing by Abominator Abbot, which depicts some skeletons crawling around the tomb. Fuckin awesome, especially in this red colouring!

I start the feast with Kommandant’s “Absence of Light”. I already knew this band quite well, I mean I got their “Iron Hands on Scandinavia” demo back in 2006, I also have the “Stormlegion” CD in my collection, so Kommandant is not a new band for me (and did I mention that I also had an interview with them done somewhere in 2007 or 2008??). But from the other hand I missed the two recent releases of theirs – “Kontakt” MCD and “The Draconian Archetype” CD. So it feels good to have again a chance to listen to something from this American bulldozer.  Their style is more a mixture of different sounds – mainly death and black metal, but there’re also some more thrashing riffs here and there. “Absence of Light” is really good song. It is very vicious, very fast and straight forward, with sinister atmosphere and almost Swedish black metal feeling from bands like Marduk and Setherial. But it is great. I like the sound of it, the vocals are great and so there’s absolutely nothing what would be out of place. “Absence of Light” is definitely one of the best tracks from the US soil, which I have heard recently.

And Nominon... Well, I have written so much about this great Swedish band already... I do admit though that their side of this 7”EP is less interesting than the Kommandant’s. I mean they did Impaled Nazarene cover (“Human Proof”) for it and since I’ve never been really so much into this Finnish maniacal band (but I know this song quite well, as “Nihil” was one of those albums, which I used to listen to once in a while, but long time ago) then this song doesn’t crush me too much. I mean it is OK, sounds very, very close to the original version (including the vocals, which sound like Mikka was singing here!), but maybe this lack of any difference between the cover and the original version are the weak points of Nomion’s side? All in all, I wish I would rather listen to an exclusive Nominon track here, rather than a cover, especially as they also have one more cover only split EP recently released (split with Graveyard, which features both bands covering Candlemass!).

So this time I like Kommandant’ side of the split more than Nominon’s! But all in all it is yet another cool addition to my vinyl collection.

Final rate: 70/100