Virgin Steele - Nocturnes Of Hellfire And Damnation (2015)

Containing 14 tracks and clocking in at almost 80 minutes, Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation certainly has a lot of material to digest. The band has managed to create an album that should offer something to please fans of their earlier work, as well as fans of the more recent darkened sounds.

With the release of Visions Of Eden in 2006, Virgin Steele had changed direction, playing a somewhat gloomy and melancholic style of epic metal. The album was keyboard heavy with guitars taking a back-seat to the vocals and keys of David DeFeis. The Black Light Bacchanalia followed and offered the same style of music, but with guitars being far more prominent. Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation comes 5 years after and changes things again. It is yet another great album to add to their already impressive discography.

Gone are the whispers of David DeFeis, sometimes barely audible on his last outing and right from the beginning you can hear some power and raw emotion with some spontaneous roars and screams thrown in. Tracks like "Lucifer's Hammer" and "Black Sun - Black Mass" would not be out of place on earlier heavier albums. Thankfully the production has been improved, with all instruments being at least audible and I was genuinely happy when I heard the bass guitar; it is no longer completely hidden. In short, this album is definitely the heaviest since The House Of Atreus Act II.

Around halfway through the album there is a rather noticeable change in direction. While the first half offers heavier and faster songs, the second half returns to the band's more recent style; mid-tempo, keyboard heavy and dreary. Fans of Visions Of Eden should really enjoy the second half of the album. This is what I found to be one of the most impressive aspects of Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation, a mix of older and newer styles. The band successfully achieved what they set out to do; create a collection of songs that offer a mix of bluesy moments, moody chord changes, and monolithic riffs with new ideas. Each song stands alone instead of following an overall concept and there are genuine surprises within; "We Disappear" begins with a crunchy guitar riff that has just been missing from recent albums, "Persephone" contains some of the best melodies the band has written and "The Plague And The Fire" would work anywhere in the band's discography.

Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation is not a complete return to the epic metal days of the mid to late 1990's where the band could simply do no wrong, nor is it a simple continuation of the darker sound of the 2000's. More high tempo songs would have been great, but the compositional ability of David DeFeis is still as impressive as ever. Virgin Steele has been successful in creating an album that is a mix of styles, a bold direction and one that impresses further each time I listen to it.