NOCTURNUS: The key tape cassette 1990 Earache Records MOSH 23MC (original OG). Best Progressive Thrash Death Metal ever. Top Underrated album. Check audio (whole album) + video

Description

NOCTURNUS – The Key
Killer 1990 debut from Florida Nocturnus. A pioneering album and classic of progressive satanic death metal.
Label: Earache – MOSH 23MC
Format: Cassette, Album
Country: UK
Released: 1 Oct 1990
Style: Death Metal

1. Lake Of Fire 00:00
2. Standing In Blood 04:57
3. Visions From Beyond The Grave 09:20
4. Neolithic 13:29
5. Undead Journey 18:19
6. BC/AD 22:35
7. Andromeda Strain 27:33
8. Droid Sector 31:15
9. Destroying The Manger 35:36
10. Empire Of The Sands 41:44

One of the better Florida old school technical death metal bands

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amazing – 100%
Nocturnus is one of the most unique death metal bands that ever existed, but they’re not very well known, even within the metal community. “”The Key”” is very hard, but it worth every penny. Earache Records really needs to re-release this album (along with other Nocturnus albums) with bonus material because no metalhead should have to go in savage hunts for this.

Now to the album itself, this is one of the weirdest yet coolest death metal albums you’ll ever hear, and it one of my all-time favorites. Louis Panzer plays the keyboard to make sounds like space-age computers and alien-spacecrafts etc., and they go with the music very well. Louis shining moment is the trippy keyboard passage on the three-minute mark in “”Neolithic,”” it sounds alot like The X Files theme song, and this was made four or five year before that show even came along!! Mike Davis and Sean McNennery are some of the baddest mofos concerning death metal guitarists, their riffs and solos will amaze you while peeling your face off. Mike and Sean make Tom Morello and Kirk Hammett look like those guitar “”playing”” retards from Korn. Jeff Estes bass isn’t very audible, but I’m sure it very good. Mike Browning is a very good drummer, and his vocals are very cool too as they aren’t generic cookie-monster growls. Last but not least, the song-writing isn’t the least bit generic or stupid. This album will make you headbang, give you goosebumps, and melt your brain. This is a death metal album that shouldn’t be missed by any death metal fan.

I’ve listened to this album many times from start to finish, and there isn’t one bad song on here. My favorites on it are “”Lake of Fire,”” “”Visions from Beyond the Grave,”” “”Neolithic,”” “”BC/AD,”” “”Destroying the Manger,”” and “”Empire of the Sands.””

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The Godfather of all Masterpieces – 100%
If I’d make a list with all the albums out there that deserve a 100% rating or are a milestone in the metalscene, the key would be leading that list without a doubt. The Key is an essential and unique album to date, nothing like this was released back then in 1990. Imagine a mixture of lyrics like in “”Seven Churches””, the technicality of “”Mental Vortex”” and “”Spiritually Uncontrolled Art””, a touch of sci-fi and the most fucked up and skin-shredding solos you can imagine and you have an idea about what this album could sound like.

What differs this album from the most death metal albums, is the speed and the catchiness. The Key is not the fastest album in the land, but it truly the one with the catchiest riffs.

Unlike most of the technical bands, these guys have a lot of variety and catchiness thrown in; the songs are not only impressing you with over-the-top technicality and speed, but they get stuck in your head. If you heard the first song, “”Lake of Fire””, you can sing along to it after the first listen.

Talking about songs, let get started.

10 Songs, each of them is disembowelling you, again and again (Uh?). The vocals possess you, the drums are beating you up, the bass is crushing you and to end the violence, the guitars grind you down.

Vocals: Somewhat scratchy deep growls and they fit perfectly to this album. I can’t imagine any other vocalist for this album, no matter how good they would sound, this guy is the only one who fits perfectly into the key. Unlike most vocalist, even though that the vocals are growled, they are not hard to understand, plus point for that.

Drums: The drums don’t sound like anything new, there is nothing all too special about the drumming, except for the bass-drumming. While most death metal bands used the legendary “”d-beat”” (created by Discharge) double-bass drummed or just blast beats over blast beats, the drums here are somewhat improved and they sound different on all songs.

Guitars & Key: Nothing but respect for this. Though I may be young, but I experienced some technical, stunning and “”out of this world”” albums that were released up to date, but none of them had the skills that could reach the water to the shredding, grinding and crativity going on here. What I like about the keyboards, is that they are placed in the background, they truly bring you on a journey and you feel the outter space atmosphere. Don’t you hate it when the entire album is dominated by the key? The solos stand above anything created on this album. Most bands play riffs over riffs, a solo, some riffs and a final solo. But this album is full of solos. I’m not sure if we have more solos or more riffs in it. Fantastic, nothing less.

There a stigma attached to this album; the bass. It seriously the only thing on this album I could not get into, why? Because (of the production?) you don’t hear it very good and the basslines are nothing special neither. Though, they are somewhat harmonized with the keyboards, which is good, because so the all around heaviness and atmosphere get more intense.

This album is full of perfect songs and it really hard to make top-list, but the top of the bunch in my opinion, is: Lake of Fire, Standing in Blood, Neolithic, Andromeda Strain and Empire Of The Sands.

For the love of death metal, old school and anything technical, get this album. If you’re a fan of Atheist, Gorguts, Cynic, Liers in Wait, Phlebotomized, Hellwitch, Septicemia etc… you’ll love this album.

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5.0 out of 5 stars This Is Technical Death Metal Par Excellence,
Considering that this Album is a good few years old now, it still has a tremendous intensity and importantly I think it still sounds fresh next to more modern acts like Nile and Cryptopsy.
In terms of the style in which Nocturnus play, I would say that they are very similar in approach to things as Morbid Angel especially in regards to the high levels of musicianship and technicality of their song structures.

The one major difference between Nocturnus and most other bands in the genre is that they prolifically use keyboards in their material, This would obviously make certain Death Metal Fans a bit wary of the end product.

In the case of this Album The keyboards do nothing to take away the power and heaviness from the music on this album.

If There are any Death Metal enthusiasts out there who don’t own this album then I highly recommend that you purchase this, for I believe that it is a true Death Metal Classic.

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Keyboards? In Death Metal? – 95%
Keyboards? In Death Metal? That’s what I first thought when I heard of this band a few weeks ago. I thought that this album would sound something like the death metal equivalent of Dimmu Borgir (and we all know how horrendous that would be)! Fortunately for me and the entire death metal community, this album is among the greatest death metal albums ever! Almost at the level of Cynic when it comes to innovation yet at the level of Massacre when it comes to brutality. Now all I m wondering is:  how did they pull it off?

The vocals on this album are nothing special. Perhaps the worst aspect of this masterpiece. They are sort of raspy like David Vincent on Altars of Madness but not as deep or raspy as that. In fact these growls are pretty weak…

But the guitars save it! There are some really heavy riffs here. This album is also laced with brilliant guitar solos, often more than one per song! The guitar also goes really well with the keyboards. Often the keyboards play the intro to the song and then the guitar picks up where the keyboards left off.

Since I mentioned the keyboards, let’s go over them in more detail shall we? As mentioned before the keyboards are often used as intros to the songs. This is true but they are used in the middle of songs too. I believe the best example of this is Neolithic. They use some really cool almost alien-ish sounds in that one, it really gives the effect of something spacey and out of this world.

The bass isn’t really audible but hey, this isn’t Atheist. This album is innovative in its own way and only really needs the bass to keep the songs together.

The drumming on this album is really cool. Not as accentuated as the guitars or keyboards but it is still really good! It nicely complements the guitars with fast drum patterns but never gets old or boring. If there is one thing this album isn’t, it is boring.

There you have it. This album is the debut album by one of Florida’s most innovative, interesting and brutal death metal bands. All fans of death metal should enjoy this album

Highlights:

– The keyboards
– The riffs!
– The intro and middle to Neolithic
– The songs Lake of Fire and Destroying the Manger

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For old school death, it can’t get better than this – 99%
Aw fuck it. Even the modern death can’t be better than this. This is basically the ultimate album for any fucker who likes death metal just as much as keyboards. At the time this album came out, it was regarded as some obscure avant-garde music. Death metal with keyboards and Sci-fi lyrics? What the fuck! That was probably the only reason this band didn’t become as big as Morbid Angel, something they really deserved (as they didn’t fucked their fans in their later career). It was too weird for the early metalheads to listen to. The quality, however, is the very opposite of the generic-ness of the band.

Each song has dozens of riffs, all very consistent, yet quite different from each other. Check the chorus of BC/AD for some old-school thrash at it best. Andromeda Stain on the other hand is melodic death metal all the way. The addition of a keyboard player is also one of the best things they’ve ever done. Not only does Louis Panzer provide great atmospheric intros, the way the keys compliment the guitars is magical. Instead of making the music sound gay or soft, the keys are evil as fuck. Check the 4:04 of Destroying the Manger for example. Fucking evil.

Because of the addition of a keyboard player, the band can play leads without destroying the riffs at all. And the guitars are sick… Not only does guitar prodigy Mike Davis provide some of the greatest shred solos ever, the riffs are strong, evil and varied. Only a very few riffs sound alike. Much of the playtime, Mike Davis and Sean McNenney experimented with speed, leads, time signatures and chord progression. There is thrash involved (mainly on Lake of Fire), there is death involved and on some occasions the guitar plays a lead on melodic style. This doesn’t sound like any Gothenburg lead at all. The intro of Andromeda Stain for example has the greatest, yet most evil lead guitar who ever roamed the valley of death metal. It’s very sad though that the bass is inaudible, although I wouldn’t expect much from it. Other than following the guitar riffs the bass had no other destination on this album, and I’ve got the feeling it would sound yuk to hear bass leads on this album.

Along with the evil vocal duties of Mike Brown, who also handles the drums, this is a most evil record. Especially considering the time it came out. I really praise this album as one of the most underrated albums ever. Not only because of it’s originality and quality, but also of the fact that every kind of metalhead can find some relief in it. There are leads, death metal riffs, thrash riffing and even some black metal influences. It’s all done better than any band who came after this band trying to copy the ideas and perfect them. This album can’t be more perfected than it already is.

Standout tracks of the standout tracks: Andromeda Stain, Destroy the Manger, BC/AD, Droid Sector, Empire of the Sands, Visions from Beyond the Grave.

Note: BUY THIS ALBUM