ALBUM REVIEW: Noctule – ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’

What’s this? An album about video games that’s not deathly unfunny YouTuber slop?

At least there’s tangible hope for more, immediately when an album based on Elden Ring distances itself from hack parody / I Love The NES: The Album territory. Helming this project is Serena Cherry of Svalbard, one of the UK’s most cruelly underrated heavy bands who should’ve lasted a lot longer than they did. She’s also a games journalist in her own right, citing Elden Ring as her favourite game with multiple editorials written about it. Plus, she’s already done similar with Skyrim on Noctule’s debut Wretched Abyss; there’s precedent to go off of.

It’s the sort of positive outlook that a project like this yields when it’s treated like an actual musical endeavour, first and foremost. Extinguish Thy Flame may be loaded with Elden Ring references, but it doesn’t live or die on them. Rather, it functions most as simply a dark high-fantasy backdrop, perfect for a combination of melodeath and black-metal to be built in front of. Specifics aren’t even really a barrier to entry; Become My Blade Once More samples the titular line spoken by Maliketh, but that still works as a piece of fantasy-metal ephemera removed from that context. As for Lord Of Blood and Goddess Of Rot, you can disregard them as characters entirely and appreciate them as banging metal song titles instead.

On its own merits, then, Extinguish Thy Flame stands rather tall. Between the care in which its subject matter is approached and a musical palette clearly treated with similar reverence, it’s a far cry from some tossed-out affair. If anything, with Cherry playing every instrument on this herself, the ‘labour of love’ feel is all too apparent. The album sounds enormous in a way its particular genre-blend is all too willing to facilitate, towering and expanding outwards into frigid unknowns. That’s where the black-metal side of Noctule is most applicable, on a song like Goddess Of Rot that emphasises bleakness and direness as it moves ever outwards. A more ‘traditional’-sounding cut like Become My Blade Once More also stands out, though that’s more for its album-best drum performance.

Though, if you’re looking for any sort of criticism about Cherry’s playing or instrumental range, you’ll have a hard go of it. The showcase of skill is another area where Extinguish Thy Flame shines, in how succinctly put-together it is. There’s shockingly little drag or fluff, thanks to how precise Cherry’s vision is. She ties melodeath and black-metal so succinctly, leaning closer to the former in overall tone and pacing—Lord Of Blood is almost Viking-metal in that respect—but in the ice-blast guitars and deep vocal reverb on Devour The Gods, Goddess Of Rot and Lament Of The Omen King, the intensity cracks through. Cherry’s role as a frontwoman is worth highlighting further, too, if only for how great it is to see the return of the might that drove Svalbard so far. Goddess Of Rot deserves a special mention for how especially evocative she sounds, forced into a screamo expanse and left to seethe and writhe within it.

If there is something about Extinguish Thy Flame that could do with a once-over, it’d be the production. Not all of it, mind; the fact it comes from Keir Campbell with his repertoire of mostly slam and deathcore bands is a nice surprise. Dismissing how the cavernous drum sound is well inside that wheelhouse, it’s nice to hear a huge mix that, in general, has some breathing room inside it. It’s definitely clean and crisp, though without the need to totally brush off the black-metal crust. Maybe that’s where the problem arises, though, as the odd choice does let down Extinguish Thy Flame a bit. The synth tone on Goddess Of Rot and Age Of The Stars is especially troublesome, piercing through from the very back and being left to linger, like a corrosive coating on this otherwise-pristine surface. There’s a couple of balancing issues that could do with a touch-up, too. The chopping guitars on Grafted sound great, but the strings they’re intended to harmonise with are left smothered by them. Similarly, the consecrated feel of Hallowhorn Grounds is a bit harder to get behind when the sampled speech is almost entirely overwhelmed by the music.

They aren’t major issues, though. They stand out most because the rest of the album is so watertight everywhere else. Just take Hallowhorn Grounds as an example, and how it’s this grandiose closer brimming with power and excess, all while being named after an area whose main point of interest is a deer carcass. You can tell that Cherry is clearly having fun with the opportunities that Noctule allows for, and that only makes Extinguish Thy Flame even better. It’s an album (and project) that vastly outclasses its ‘video game music’ elevator pitch, becoming something genuinely enrapturing and legitimate within its field. Very good stuff indeed.

For fans of: Insomnium, Immortal, Kalmah

‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ by Noctule is out now.

Words by Luke Nuttall