RBOTD #200: Akhkharu Noctis
Beholding The Frostbitten Northland Bewitched By Black Twilight
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Akhkharu_Noctis/42240
Country: Canada
Location: Belleville, Ontario
Genre: black metal
Formed in: 1995
Status: split-up
By the Numbers
Akhkharu Noctis is the:
37th band formed in the 1990s
Seventh band from Canada
65th band that has split up
Its genre tags have been seen:
Black: 55 times
Member Connections
Besargian, a doom metal/ambient band from Belleville, Ontario
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/200.
Sketch Check
Pass.
RateYourMusic Scores
Akhkharu Noctis has not been rated.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Akhkharu Noctis did not achieve the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
By the time Belleville, Ontario's Akhkharu Noctis released its 2004 demo, Surrounded by Nocturnal Wrath, it had supposedly been grimly grimacing in a dark forest that only a disposable camera could accurately capture for nine years. Yeah, supposedly. There's not much out there substantiating Akhkharu Noctis's birth, death, or anything in between. Per Metallum, during its near-decade in the pre-demo wilderness, it recorded one track, "Veiled," released as a one-off promo in 1999. Pretty good title for a song that...doesn't seem to exist. I mean, maybe it does. Stranger things. But, if you haven't, click play on the embed above. Now, do you believe anything Akhkharu Noctis claims?
The only thing that sounds "real" on Surrounded by Nocturnal Wrath is DarkDread's vocals. Everything else bleeps and blorps like the old PC speaker-murdering MIDI outputted by a shareware composer/tablature program. You can really hear the fakeness when the inhumanly robotic guitar tremolos change pitch. A guitar...doesn't do that unless you've, I don't know, looped a sample and chopped the hell out of it in a DAW. My favorite part of this fakery is that Cory Crete is credited as playing "bass." In what world? It might just be a general statement. Yes, Cory Crete plays bass...sometimes...at their own leisure...not necessarily on this record.
That said, what the hell, I don't hate Surrounded by Nocturnal Wrath. It's too ridiculous and half-assed to take seriously. The programming is so blocky and amateurish that it sounds more like industrial than black metal. "Invoke an Ancient Nordland of Majestic Screams" might as well be :Wumpscut: trying to clear its throat while operating a DustBuster. It's shitty in a nearly magical way, reminding me of when black metal message boards were flooded with this dreck. That era was primarily a bunch of North American kids with more kvlt chutzpah than ability trying like hell to land a cred-affirming split. On the good side, you got bizarro garbage like this, which might as well be Samurai Cop, the black metal album in terms of its good badness. On the bad side, you have the edgelord to nazi pipeline. So, yeah, on aggregate, that era sucked, but we don't choose what makes us nostalgic, and I kind of miss the good side when I could be treated to something so wackily inept. Now that lofi black metal is the domain of actually talented musicians, I feel like I don't hear anything as wild anymore.
Anyway, whatever, Akhkharu Noctis is not why we're here. We're here because of this "additional note":
According to DarkDread, song titles were generated by the "Unholy Hateful Black Metal Songtitle-O-Matic."
Hey, guess what still works? The Unholy Hateful Black Metal Songtitle-O-Matic.
"Since the original 'Black Metal songtitle-O-matic' seems to be down for ages now," mysterious webmaster Rob wrote presumably in 2002, "I decided to backup it [sic] here, even if some have done it before me. We never know what the future can be made of..." Oh, Rob, if you only knew...
After about five clicks, you could easily reverse engineer the Unholy Hateful Black Metal Songtitle-O-Matic. There are...not a lot of options. It's about as verbose as a Magic Eight Ball, but it'll provide a few seconds of fun. To that end, here's the tracklist for Akhkharu Noctis's lost second demo, Conquering The Satanic Dagger Towards Satanic Glory.
"From The Freezing Hordes Into Dark Twilight"
"Storm The Melancholic Winter Towards Pagan Might"
"In The Vast Underworld Into Spectral Fog"
"Forever Reigns The Ancient Cosmos For The Glory Of Winter Wolves"
"Towards The Frozen Chalice Under Winter Witchery"
If someone actually makes that, I'll buy it. Heck, I'll even play bass on it.
Got a question? Email us! plagueragespod at gmail
Follow Wolf on Twitter @WRambatz
Our logo and branding are by Mike Teal. Find Mike at www.storylightmarketing.com and www.miketealdesign.com
Like what we’re doing? Drop us a donation on Ko-fi