Today, Signal Rex announces January 31st, 2025 as the international release date for Nachash‘s highly anticipated second album, Eschaton Magicks, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Formed in 2011, Norway’s Nachash have patiently etched out a unique space in the wider metal underground. A power-trio from the very beginning, the band’s members currently play or have played in such bands as Celestial Bloodshed, Askeregn, Knokkelklang, Hideous Death, Kosmik Tomb, and Black Edifice among others. Black metal is the beginning base – unsurprisingly, given their country of origin – but elements of other metallic styles have been intertwined in varying degrees. The goal, ultimately, has been to conjure a dark and aggressive atmosphere yet keeping an epic bent to the music throughout, as well, by drawing on several traditions and styles. Nachash took their first steps toward that goal with 2015’s Conjuring the Red Death Eclipse EP and then accomplished exactly that with their debut album, 2018’s acclaimed Phantasmal Triunity. Now, they’re set to eclipse that estimable full-length with LP#2, Eschaton Magicks.
Once again tellingly titled, Eschaton Magicks builds upon the shocking maturity of Nachash‘s debut album. Some six-plus years removed, it’s understandable that no small amount of growth would occur in the interim, but the trio’s shifting of sonic goalposts – from their earlier “deathened black metal” to a proud declaration of “Norwegian Metal of Death” – has only served to make their sound ever more unique. On the surface, Eschaton Magicks breathes bigger, fuller breaths of atmosphere; the tones are cleaner but not without grit, superficially more “black metal” in that sense. But that’s simply the surface: the songwriting itself is anchored fully to eldritch death metal, still flexing the same muscles as before but with a slightly more ethereal aspect – and as EPIC as ever. As such, the songwriting takes on wilder, more-winding contours compared to the debut’s patient pulse, but Nachash are nothing if not thorough in their thoughtful approach to song construction; riffs flow with poetic ease, alternately haunting and heroic, and the rhythm section suitably roils and tank-rolls with serpentine fervor.
Past references to the likes of GBK, Ares Kingdom, Mortuary Drape, Varathron, and Sacriphyx are relatively valid, but with Eschaton Magicks serving as their second full-length display of their all-too-considerable powers, Nachash have hereby staked their claim as contemporaries of those esteemed bands – and more so, as heralds of noble heavy metal songcraft.
In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “Sojourner of the Dark Passage” here:
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Nachash’s Eschaton Magicks
1. Stygian Nightmare
2. Sojourner of the Dark Passage
3. The Scythewielder
4. Eschaton Magicks
5. Death’s Mordant Blaze
6. Empyrean Graves
7. Wherein the Devil Dwell
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