NYX is a female-fronted black metal duo from Germany. The band began in 2011, but Home is their debut album, recorded and produced in Blackout Studio (Enthroned, Corpus Christii, Emptiness, Lvcifyre) with Enthroned's bassist Phorgath.
I must say, my first reaction is best defined as "confusion." The heavier parts sound like Myrkur at full tilt, but the lighter ones are like a bizarre cross between Undersmile and Kittie. Maybe a little grunge thrown in for good measure. There are some fairly standard tremolos with melodies that work for me, but they do feel a little worn at times. The drumming follows suit with a mixture of double bass and blastbeats. If it weren't for the odd injections of purposefully unpolished clean vocals, I might have passed on this.
But as it stands, I still quote enjoy this album. The shrieks and howls are strong, and they play nicely with the choice of distortion. There are also some riffs that were a bit different, like "Chaos Pt. 38" with its difficult-to-describe mixture of memorable effects and noisy structure. I also bang my head vigorously to the driving beat and vicious guitarwork of "S.ave O.ur S.ouls" and the proggier moments of "Going On." And the ambient "Prelude" is the perfect union of pretty and creepy.
I'm not sure if my aforementioned description of the clean vocals may have turned you off, but let me clarify that the strange union actually works well for the genre. Black metal, in its inception, was never meant to be pretty. In that, this album is much more in line with the 2nd wave sound than something like Myrkur, which will likely garner a wider audience. NYX seem more interested in disgusting you on some level than making sounds that are always aesthetically pleasing. That's almost the definition of BM.
And so despite some initial hesitation, I give Home my seal of approval. While I hope to see the band grow in differentiating their more extreme moments, I applaud the unique sounds that happen in between. And really, nothing on this album is bad. I enjoyed every song, including the acoustic closer that oddly reminded me of From Autumn To Ashes' "Short Stories with Tragic Endings." You can stream the album in full RIGHT HERE, and pick up a copy through the links on their website above. Enjoy.