Ad Noctum - Excellence of Supremacy

AD NOCTUM - Excellence of Supremacy (ANCIENT DARKNESS - CD 2004)

Another discovery from the Denmark’s death and black metal scene. Here’s band called Ad Noctum. And this CD is actually sort of a compilation, which includes two Ad Noctum demos: “Jus primae noctis” from 1999 and “Excellence of Supremacy” from 2000. It’s interesting that the band was quite active in those times, but later it took them eight years to release their first full length album “Arrogance” (2008). Anyways, I never heard of Ad Noctum before, so it’s all my introduction to their music. And I definitely must say that I prefer the 2000 demo over the 1999 one and the reason is simple: it just sounds better and stronger and it seems like Ad Noctum had just better ideas for the music. And more so, the execution is more precise and effective. It’s nice, fast and relentless black metal, which is not avoiding some melodic parts, but in majority it is based on harsh and destructive playing. It kind of reminds me some Finnish bands like Unhola, Flauros or Nighside and vocal wise I have also a resemblance to such Odium. And I like it quite much, except just two fragments, when the band decided to use some odd sounding and surely out of place clean male vocals (title track) and female vocals (“Satans Son”). They sound shit in my opinion and definitely do not fit that sheer aggression and violent aura of Ad Noctum music.

I mentioned that I like “Excellence of Supremacy” demo more, but it doesn’t mean that “Jus primae noctis” is bad. Oh no! It’s also very solid and worthy piece of obscure, fast and violent black metal. The production is much rawer and abrasive, so the attitude on this demo is also even more aggressive and vicious. Nice! And this approach is the main strength of Ad Noctum, who don’t play anything exceptional or original, but are solid followers. This demo contains also couple of covers (Bathory and Mayhem), so you can be sure it’s as traditional as it’s possible – and with no clean male or female vocals, which would ruin the effort.

Final rate: 65/100