Nighnacht

Nighnacht is an American raw and violent black/death/thrash metal entity with war metal aesthetics. On 9 January 2026, the band released their debut full-length, Limb Service, via Morbid and Miserable Records in collaboration with Pagan Fury Records.

Nighnacht, Limb Service Review: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production.

The First Three Sins, The Summary

The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: A storm of crushing, grainy, abrasive distortion; tremolo filth bleeds from the guitars while the bass riffs remain thick, murky, and subterranean. The Second Sin, The Vocals: A demonic witch—a harrowing, high-pitched vocal possession. The Third Sin, The Percussions: Punk-inflected blasting and thrash gallops that inject a reckless, unhinged momentum.

The Fourth Sin, Overall Discussion

Rite of Immediate Descent

The moment the listener triggers the play button, they are dragged headlong into an extreme world of burial—a landscape of suffocating darkness and nightmarish dreams. Nighnacht does not just play music; they manifest an environment. Limb Service acts as a harrowing portal into a realm where the air is thick with the scent of the grave and the shadows move with an aggressive, predatory intent.

Hostility Over Atmosphere

Nighnacht’s sonic palette is unapologetically abrasive, grain-scoured, and hostile. Unlike bands that hide behind reverb-soaked shadows, Nighnacht’s blackened edge is forged in pure tone and attitude rather than melody or airy atmosphere. It is a dry, biting cold.

When the death metal elements take over, they do not manifest as technical wizardry or complex fretwork; instead, they arrive as pure weight and blunt force. It is the sound of a rusted iron slab meeting bone—an industrial-grade violence that prioritises the impact of the blow over the speed of the strike.

This is not a record of atmosphere; it is a record of raw, physical confrontation.

DIY Violence and Underground Ethos

Limb Service is a twenty-minute storm of chaos, channelled through ten short and razor-sharp hymns. It is captured within a hellish nightmare of DIY production that stands as a firm objection to modern extremity’s obsession with digital clarity. Instead, Nighnacht embraces the feral, unhinged violence of early underground black and death metal. This aesthetic is a statement in itself: there is no polish, no gloss, and no smoothing of the jagged edges.

The recording completely rejects digital cleanliness. This is sound that breathes, bleeds, and physically distorts under its own weight. The production does not feel like the product of a high-end studio; it feels like it was tracked in a damp, hostile room—a concrete tomb where the air is stale, and the microphones are straining to capture the sheer hostility.

It is raw. It is ugly. It is vital.

Rotting Underground Atmosphere

The atmosphere is where Limb Service becomes unmistakably Nighnacht. It feels cavernous, manifesting a sonic space that sounds like it is echoing through a collapsing crypt. There is zero theatricality here; you will not find cinematic padding, symphonic layers, or artificial ambience.

The record exudes a rotting, underground aura—the kind of grime and filth once found only in the tape-trading era of black/death metal. It is not just dark; it feels physically decayed. Every note carries the weight of the soil, stripped of any comfort or polish, leaving only the raw, pulsating heart of the underground.

Devilmanship and Instrumental Violence

Nighnacht’s devilmanship is absolute, serving a different master: conjuring a rotten and unforgiven composition through a purely hostile instrumental arrangement. Lord Paimon’s guitars are a storm of crushing, grainy, abrasive distortion, bleeding tremolo filth directly from the black-metal lineage. When the tempo shifts, he delivers caveman chug-thrash riffs that do not just hit—they swing with the jagged momentum of a rusted axe.

The foundation is just as grim. Chris (Acrid’s) bass riffs feel thick, murky, and subterranean, providing a layer of sludge beneath the high-end grit.

The guitar tone alone acts as a warning; this album was never meant to be clean.

Driving it all are Sire’s drums, which feel less like a performance and more like a fight breaking out in a basement. With punk-inflected blasting and thrash gallops that inject a reckless, unhinged momentum, the percussion stays honest: no triggers, no quantisation—just pure, unfiltered room energy.

Voice of Rot and Possession

Don of the Dead’s vocal delivery is one of the album’s most lethal defining weapons. It is far more than just a performance; it is an aesthetic statement of allegiance to the ugliest, most uncompromising corners of the black/death tradition. Rasping, necrotic, and sandpaper-raw, his voice occupies the jagged space between a piercing black-metal shriek and a primitive death-metal bark.

The delivery feels genuinely rotted, as if the very sound has been corroded by decades of underground lineage and basement dust. There is a grainy abrasion to every syllable—nothing is smooth, nothing is rounded.

It is the sound of vocal cords dragged over broken glass, perfectly mirroring the grain-scoured hostility of the guitars.

The Circle Ends

The album closes with the final hymn, Lovers Vomite. There is no grand finale, no resolution, and no comfort. The hymn simply ends—an abrupt, cold stop that leaves the listener abandoned in the dark and feeling sick.

Final Assessment

Overall, Limb Service is a record defined by rawness, chaos, and physical hostility. It is obscene, ugly, and intentionally harsh to the ears; a record that peels back the skin, delivered with a gleeful brutality that lingers long after the final note. It is a forbidden fruit of art in unrepentant, underground filth.

The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia

For me, Limb Service arrives as a genuine shock. If you are a fan of Nunslaughter, you already know the pedigree, but Don of the Dead takes his vocals to an entirely different level here. He sounds like a demonic witch—a harrowing, high-pitched possession that adds a terrifying extra layer to the extremity of the music. It is an evolution I did not see coming, but it is one I cannot stop listening to. If you are a fan of the cult, you are a fan of Nighnacht. Period.

The Sixth Sin, The Artwork

The artwork carries a fierce black/death energy, yet it is shaped by a heraldic sensibility that lifts it above standard war‑metal disorder. Instead of relying on shock alone, the design follows a disciplined, almost medieval framework that gives the artwork its own distinct character.

The Seventh Sin, Disrelish

There is nothing here to disrelish. Limb Service is forged in darkness, hostile by design and uncompromising in execution—a record that offers no relief, no accessibility, and no escape.

Promotional material provided by Morbid and Miserable Records.

The Hymns

01. Witches Brew
02. Lime Service
03. Torn Apart By Wild Dogs
04. Spirits
05. Descent Into Shadows
06. Taphpphilia
07. Worms Wriggling
08. Troll Bridge
09. Brawl Of Bone And Fury
10. Lovers Vomit