Band:	Nyktophobia
Album:	To The Stars
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	July 2024

01. The Gateway
02. To The Stars
03. Farewell
04. Charon Gate
05. The Fall Of Eden
06. Progenitor
07. Behind The Stars Exists No Light
08. Millenium
09. Voyager 1

Join Nyktophobia on their epic melodeath journey To The Stars; let's just hope you'll be immersed enough to reach the end of the voyage.

Nyktophobia is a German melodic death metal band formed by vocalist Tomasz Wisniewski back in 2015. The band's style is mainly rooted in Scandinavian melodic death, with influences ranging from Finland's Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum to Gothenburg legends Dark Tranquillity. The band introduced themselves with their full-length debut Fallen Empire in 2017, before going on to release another 3 albums, this latest offering included. On this latest venture, the band head To The Stars as a quintet, with the only change in line-up being new drummer Michiel Van Der Plicht.

As both the cover art and album title might suggest, the album is centred around a dark cosmic-based fantasy theme, with atmospheric elements introduced alongside the band's classic melodeath approach to match this theme. It starts off with a conveniently titled intro "The Gateway", a short melancholic piano piece leading into the title track. You could say this song introduces all of what was once so majestic about the early days of Scandinavian melodeath, containing heavy melodic intertwining twin guitar riffs performed by Michael Tybussek and Phillip Reuter, enchanting keyboard melodies rich in cosmic atmosphere, powerful, rapid rolling drum beats, and a harsh and passionate vocal duo consisting of blackened croaky shrieks and deep gnarly death growls. This densely layered structure is brought together by quite a wonderful production, and this standard but very effective form of melodeath continues on through to the following track, "Farewell". By this stage you'd easily mistake this band for being Finnish or Swedish, but then Germany ain't exactly the other end of the universe, is it?

The third song, "Charon Gate", is where we see a slight change in direction, as it features a more upbeat and rapid tempo, and in this instance listeners can hear the band's heavy melodic side prioritized over their softer mid-tempo melancholic side, although the two styles regularly vary between each other over the course of the album. "The Fall Of Eden", for instance, takes the slower mid-tempo, melancholic approach, with a touch of atmospheric synth work, and is also a track containing a noticeably heavier bass presence, whereas "Millennium" is perhaps more repetitively structured song here, mostly driven by one of the album's most melodic and catchy riffs. The keyboards/synths remain an ever present feature, but really shine more so on the epic final track "Voyager 1", which leaves the listener with a sense that this is just the beginning of an intergalactic voyage into the great, vast, seemingly infinite cosmos.

Although there's not a great deal to differentiate between each of the songs, the level of quality is consistently there, both performance-wise and in terms of songwriting, and the production is also a clear step up in quality from past efforts. Although the intertwining guitar work, alternating between heavy melodic riffs and sweeping melancholic leads, is nothing entirely new in this genre, they're expertly crafted and well performed, but the synth presence is what sets the band's music apart from being a run-of-the-mill melodeath band, and in doing so fits with the cosmic theme of To The Stars. However, it's the vocals that remain the most striking feature throughout for me; the two harsh vocal styles alternate with each other, and serve as the album's main driving force.

Overall, Nyktophobia have all the correct ingredients in place for creating an excellent melodeath record, and I believe they almost achieve this feat here, but in the end it doesn't quite live up to the standards of those great Scandinavian melodeath acts. Maybe the band's intention was to separate themselves from standard traditional melodeath by introducing an essence of cosmic wonder to the equation, but it just doesn't quite have that memorability factor that makes them stand apart from the legends. Even so, To The Stars will most likely, and deservingly, make it high on many metalheads' lists come the end of the year, as it's still a more than worthy effort overall.