First impressions are everything, folks. Despite Napierdalać’s fledgling status, I was immediately encouraged by its presentation and professionalism. The State of Love and War is the band’s debut album, yet everything looks as tidy and organized as most label-backed promos, even using their own website to host the files for the music. This is a downside regarding the promo sheet, though, where reading like it was written by a label is not necessarily a boon. The sheet describes the album with superlatives aplenty and waxes poetically about a Shakespearean plot underpinning the orchestra-backed black/death metal. Does the music live up to the highfalutin chest-thumpin’ advertisements?
Well, not quite. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value in The State of Love and War. At its best, Napierdalać reminds me a fair amount of Valdrin, whose Effigy of Nightmares was a major highlight back in 2020. After the intro, the opening duo hits hard with aggressive and malevolent black metal backed by orchestration that sounds straight out of an evil king’s court. “DNR” steps it up another notch, its choruses blasting wanton brass like the band borrowed half of Fleshgod Apocalypse for a few minutes. “To Crown a Pale Horse” mixes portentous doom into the Emperor-esque blackened grandeur for a nice change of pace. The vocals sound truly vile in the best way, a nasty, gnarly rasp that conveys sheer iniquity and rage, and it combines really well with the pseudo-baroque symphonic sections.
THE STATE OF LOVE AND WAR by Napierdalac
Sadly, a lot of time is wasted on far less enticing experiments. “Sonnet 41” is one-third black metal ballad and two-thirds maudlin half-whispered spoken word poetry over lethargic open chords. The title track is nearly 7 minutes of staccato piano chords with little sense of flow or progression, killing all momentum and desecrating its corpse before unleashing the 10-minute closer “Exitus.” This track makes for a fine finale overall, but by the time it’s over, we have nearly an hour of music behind us, and it could stand to lose 20 minutes easily. Besides the mentioned momentum murderers, the first five tracks feel especially interchangeable, using similar formats in riffing and supplemental symphonics alike.
This may be at least partially attributable to the production as well. The State of Love and War sounds both stark and claustrophobic, like a dusty hallway in a poltergeist-ridden house with the contrast slider cranked way up. Its efficacy at conjuring a gothic atmosphere as well as the decent mastering score suggest that this has been a deliberate choice, and for that I must commend Napierdalać, but it’s not without its downsides. Without room to breathe, the orchestral contributions get squeezed into only the most forward components without adding further depth and detail. With the homogeneity in songwriting across many of the tracks, such depth and detail could have gone a long way to add more variation. Instead, the variation now primarily comes from the doddering deviations mentioned earlier.
The State of Love and War wins a few battles, but loses the campaign. Listening to one or two songs, their flaws may not immediately reveal themselves. Napierdalać has a solid grasp on an enticing sound that could have fueled a fun, more succinct version of this album to successful completion. Instead, conceptual overreach led the band to misjudge several inclusions and repeat themselves too often elsewhere. The more successful variations like “To Crown a Pale Horse” and the closer give me hope that the band can find a better way going forward, though, and I look forward to hearing its next attempt.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 128 kbps mp3
Label: Self-released
Websites: napierdalac.bandcamp.com | napierdalacband.com | facebook.com/napierdalacband
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025
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