‘I was prematurely born, Sat through an endless dawn, For years and years, Like me, It was half-formed, Outworn, Like me, An artless effigy for his scorn’ (Dream Deicide)

The debut album from Berlin’s Noj is saturated in bleak foreboding and a darkly dissonant energy.  The groundwork for their industrial post-punk is laid by the throbbingly infectious bass grooves and punishingly rhythmic drums, while the guitars veer from tautly angular, bleakly melodic incisions to squalling noise-fuelled eruptions.  The semi-spoken vocals are coldly detached, emotionally austere as they explore sombrely allusive themes of memory and loss, illusion and delusion, myth and reality.

You are lured remorselessly into the band’s stygian embrace as they relentlessly build momentum towards a never to be quite realised crescendo.  Haunting backing vocals, mournful violin, melancholic instrumental interludes, and pulsating electronic flare-ups, all feed the unrelentingly claustrophobic atmosphere.  The album’s architecture remains consistent throughout, shifting shape in emphasis, but never intent, from the slow-build escalation of opener, No Room Cut To Fit, to the fiercely propulsive dynamics of Forgotten Realms and 49 Days.  The title track itself is a superbly realised evocation of the album’s smouldering essence, the sinister rolling acoustic melody elicits shades of South Of Heaven-era Slayer, as it entwines itself through the discordant, staccato aggression.