SilentScream213 After The Gathering finally settled on a unique and strong sound of Ethereal, Progressive Gothic-Doom on their last album, Nighttime Birds is a continuation of this sound with just a few changes. The songs overall are a bit less heavy, with clean instrumentation aplenty, and a bit of psychedelia for good measure.

Atmospheres here are layered and dreamlike, lyrics are similarly abstract, and the multi-layered vocals of Anneke usually take center stage. She’s a crazy good singer, but I will say she “over-sings” a bit for my taste. Does every single line need to be multi layered? Still though, most of the time her voice is wonderfully dreamy and captivating.

It's not as strong as Mandylion and I wish the lyrics were a bit less abstract, but songs like “Kevin’s Telescope” go down as some of the best in this style of Gothic Metal.

SilentScream213 So this is where Dave Lombardo went after leaving Slayer, huh? It certainly shows, as the drumming here is bar none the best I’ve heard on anything that could be called Groove Metal. Dave is still thrashing like a maniac here and thankfully it ensures the album is always in the energetic, aggressive realm of Grove even when it does slow down, and never stuck in dull, one-note repetitive rhythms.

The amount of Thrash riffage on this album is another pleasant surprise, with Polish guitarist Waldemar Sorychta churning out melodic yet ripping Thrash riffs one after another. The soloing also leaves nothing to be desired, again being somewhat melodic for Thrash/Groove but still with a twisted chaotic edge. Bass is surprisingly good as well, doing a fair amount of riffing itself instead of pure rhythm. Vocals are strong, aggressive, and full of social disgust lyrically.

The album unfortunately opens with an unbearable intro featuring what sound like monkey noises repeated over tribal drums. I will never understand why bands feel the need to put offensively bad intros/interludes/outros on their albums but you can bet this one loses points for that. Otherwise, fantastic, one of the best Groove album I’ve heard as of yet thanks to its generous amount of Thrash.

RuneWalsh2112 I've had some great times with this release and by the sound of it so has the band! Right after his collaboration with Fantômas, Dave Lombardo returned to his long running side project. Together with Waldemar Sorychta and Gus Chambers he manages to deliver the best Grip.Inc release by far! It's quite unfortunate that this turned out to be the last album released by the band. The tragic and unexpected death of Gus Chambers was quite a blow for me considering that there was a point back in 2005 when I played this album pretty much non-stop for days on end. Gus will definitely be missed!

From the first tones of "Curse (Of the Cloth)" it was pretty clear that this was not the same Grip Inc. that released the first three albums. The tone is much more experimental, probably helped by the fact that Lombardo got a feel for Avant-garde Metal while working with Mike Patton. The pattern continues to evolve all throughout this release and, with the exception of the lackluster closing track "Man With No Insides", turns into one of the most exciting releases of 2004!

I wouldn't really recommend this album to fans of traditional Thrash Metal since there isn't really much of it going on here. There are a few burst of Slayer sound here and there but the overall approach is much more melodic and mellow. Definitely a must for fans of eclectic metal music!

***** star songs: Curse (Of The Cloth) (5:04) The Answer (3:49) Endowment Of Apathy (3:06) The Gift (4:12)

**** star songs: Prophecy (4:18) Enemy Mind (3:24) Skin Trade (4:25) (Built To) Resist (4:27) Privilege (4:48) Blood Of Saints (5:03)

*** star songs: Man With No Insides (5:34)