DIABOLIC NIGHT "Beyond the Realm"

"Beyond the realm

Devoured by darkness

Cursed storms will rise

The omen returns ..."

Band: Diabolic Night

Title: Beyond the Realm

Label: High Roller Records

Country: Germany

Release date: November 15, 2019

Format reviewed: (high-rate) mp3 promo

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and singer, Heavy Steeler (Kevin Heier) conceived DIABOLIC NIGHT back in 2013, as a solo project. And so under this moniker, Steeler released a demo, followed up by a debut EP, in 2014, and a precursory single to the forthcoming album, in 2015. The project, hailing from North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, remained a one-man band until 2018, when Christhunter (Chris Börner) was co-opted to occupy the seat behind the drum set. In this formation, DIABOLIC NIGHT recorded "Beyond the Realm", the project's first full-length studio effort.

As the album's cover art and title suggests, "Beyond the Realm" is a dark album, musically and lyrically. In fact, both cover art and title refer back to a lyric line from 2015’s single “Infernal Power” as expressions of the never-ending battle between good and evil as a conceptual leitmotif. It is rather laudable that Steeler maintains a left-hand path, lyrically, without any of the unnecessary idiocy, so often on display from acts not interested in any kind of proper substance. As a whole, the lyrical theme orbits around satanism, rituals and the occult. Musically, the album offers an idiosyncratic blend on a traditional base, leaning towards ageless NWOBHM flamboyancy and early 1990s blackness at different times. Blurring the line between blackened thrash and black speed, "Beyond the Realm" makes for an intense and captivating listening experience. An album truly going “beyond the realm” of bullet belts, studs and leather.

Crowned with a mix by engineering veteran Mario Scarpari and mastered by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony,“Beyond the Realm” is very much an album in the original sense of the word, meant to be grasped as a whole from the punishing pummel of the opener, "Towards Forgotten Paths" on to its intensely atmospheric finale, "Descension Into Dying Spheres". As for the foreseeable future, Heavy Steeler won’t swerve from the loner’s path that he has been following right from the start: “While I appreciate the idea of a band as such, I prefer to express myself alone with DIABOLIC NIGHT.” Yet he has gathered a stable line-up to perform live, promising his first concerts under the moniker, to take shape in 2020; apart from new material, by next summer, which is already in the works…

8.5/10