Today, Purity Through Fire announces April 22nd as the international release date for the comeback recording of Finland’s Nightside, Lions (Demo 2023), on CD format.
Finland’s Nightside were originally founded in 1996, in Turku. A cult band by nearly every definition, they soon set about a stream of short-length releases over the next three years, finally culminating in their 2001 debut album, The End of Christianity. Their sound was strikingly of the times, just as their native country was beginning to assert its dominance in the underground. However, by 2003, Nightside effectively split up and all members continued on with other bands.
Then, in 2021, Nightside returned with a new lineup that still contained two original members, and they played a comeback gig in early 2022 at the Turku Saatanalle fest. Soon after that, some new songs were written. Of them, the three new songs presented here on Nightside‘s comeback recording, Lions (Demo 2023), were performed live for the first time in early December 2022 and, a week after that, recorded as a demo to showcase what the band’s all about nowadays. However, to just qualify this recording as a “demo” is a grave disservice to the superlative quality contained within, not to mention sharpened, era-authentic production courtesy of Kryptamok‘s Hex Inferi. Indeed, the fire of old burns brighter than ever here; Lions could be a veritable throwback to the late ’90s, if not for the absolutely invigorating passion presented across the 13-minute recording, thereby rendering it fresher than most nowadays “black metal.”
Mystical and magisterial and with grim splendor to spare, Lions is as auspicious of a comeback recording as any, and favorably foreshadows Nightside‘s eventual second album.
In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “Gates of Hell” here:
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Nightside (Finland)’s Lions (Demo 2023)
1. There Won’t Be Another Dawn
2. Lions
3. Gates of Hell
MORE INFO:
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