Review: Urarv – Nychta Psychis
Style: Experimental Black Metal, Psychedelic Rock (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dødheimsgard, Maudlin of the Well, Darkthrone paired with mushrooms
Country: Norway
Release date: 16 October 2026
Though hailing from the cradle of black metal, Norway’s Urarv is anything but a group of purists. Made up of Oslo scene veterans and with a name meaning “Ancient Heritage”, the band simultaneously evokes and repudiates the sounds of the 90s, creating “a sonic landscape where many of the classic elements of those days are still utilized, while their limitations are continuously challenged.”1 Since 2017 the band has carried this mission of exploration through two-full length releases and an EP. On Nychta Psychis2, the band’s third LP, Urarv synthesizes the sonic assault of classic black metal with thrash, punk, avant-folk3, and psychedelic rock-and-roll. I’d settle on describing the band as “atmospheric black metal” if “psychedelic disorientation” counts as a valid atmosphere. Across thirty-three minutes, the band wields effect-laden guitars, psytrance synthesizer accents, and evocative walls of swirling noise as handily as they dispense blast beats and sharp black metal riffs.
It isn’t merely the genre-hopping that makes Nychta Psychis disorienting but also the jarring structure of the songs. Blast beats change on a dime into classic thrash patterns; psychedelic post-metal passages accelerate into classic black metal riffing; strange acoustic breaks open, bisect, and close songs. A clear example is the opening to single “Operation Genocide”, where a brutal Converge-like hardcore riff pauses for a jazzy lounge interlude before resuming at full intensity. Another surprising moment occurs when the dark folk intro of “Nychta Psychis” suddenly resumes in the middle of “When Consciousness Identifies with Matter It Is Lost”. This disjointed approach to songwriting makes the album feel like a set of fragments placed in a pleasing order, not necessarily like a set of cohesive, easy-flowing pieces. This unusual approach to song structure gives the album a strong overall mood of dreamlike destabilization, but the breakneck discontinuity might rankle the unprepared listener.
Frontman Aldrahn’s vocal performance is one of the more surprising and exciting pieces of Nychta Psychis. He possesses a very solid black metal rasp, but that is not his only, or even his dominant, register. He wails theatrically in the interlude of “When Consciousness Identifies with Matter It is Lost”, he plays crossover-thrash frontman on “Dødheimsgard”, he does his best Michael Gira (Swans) impression on the outro of “Nychta Psychis”. Lyrically he’s evoking darkness—but not the darkness of Hell or a Scandinavian winter. He sings about the endless void of inner space, of the infinite gap between consciousnesses, of the ashes of dead suns. It’s a personal type of darkness, grounded in subjective isolation and turmoil: black metal for Gene Wolfe-heads rather than Tolkien fans, in other words.
Though I’ve stressed its atypicality, Nychta Psychis is still recognizably a black metal record, and a good one. It’s a testament to Urarv’s members’ clear mastery of the genre that the record just straight-up rips as hard as it does, even as they incorporate psychedelic synths, phaser pedals, and extended post-metal codas. This irreverence for the strict boundaries of genre reminds me of maudlin of the Well, in spirit if not in sound. I’ll admit that I prefer when the record veers toward punk and thrash rather than jazz and folk, but I have to admire the mettle. They know the rules of black metal well, so they understand how to break them.
Recommended tracks: Dødheimsgard, Operation Genocide, Youniverse
You may also like: Dold Vorde Ens Navn, Alfahanne, Vafurlogi
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Darkness Shall Rise Productions
Urarv is:
– Aldrahn (guitar, vocals)
– Sturt (bass)
– Sakis (guitar)
– Tybalt (drums)
0 Comments