Friday Full-Length: Aleph Null, Nocturnal
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 2nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Throughout their relatively quick five-year run Aleph Null were only ever Philip on guitar/vocals, Carsten on bass and Jens on drums. The band was founded circa 2012 in Düsseldorf and Nocturnal was their lone full-length, self-produced and self-released with a pickup soon after by RidingEasy Records for a 2LP issue. By then, the German three-piece had already garnered a reputation for choice riffs and plus-sized tonality for which the seven-song/42-minute offering would end up serving as something of a culmination, having released their first EP, Dale, in 2012, and a second, Belladonna, in 2013. And though they’d follow Nocturnal with the not-unsubstantial four-songer Endtime Sisters in 2016 as their final release, it’s the album itself that seems to most encapsulate who they were as a band, where they were coming from and where they were going before they decided, ultimately, not to go.
It was, as I recall, a well-hyped record. The social media word-of-mouth among the international underground had taken hold by the time 2014 came around, and an eager audience surfing Bandcamp tags and other recommendations found Aleph Null with a sound to devour, able to crush as with opener “Roman Nails” and the slowest lurches of 11-minute finale “Nocturnal Part II,” but in all the ‘cool riffs bruh’ discussion of Nocturnal I ever saw — and granted, I don’t read reviews and this was eight years ago — I don’t remember much mention of the band’s ability to pivot from their sludge-rocking foundation into other styles. A record that goes from reinventing the verse of “21st Century Schizoid Man” to Sabbath-boogie-circa-’75 on centerpiece “Black Winged Cherub,” never mind the sleek, Graveyardian groove of “Muzzle of a Sleeping God,” topped off with cowbell as it is, or the vocal layering in second track “Backward Spoken Rhymes” adding melodic breadth to the feedback-laden rolling plod of the leadoff’s ending — there’s a lot more going on with Nocturnal than just the manner in which it riffs, though that too is a thing to get excited about.
Part of what makes the album so satisfying to dig into these years after the fact is that righteous bit of misdirection at the top. “Roman Nails” is a massive, spacious-feeling groove, communicating its largesse through tonal density and vocal echo, and even the snare drum manages to sound thick. It is slow enough to be called lumbering but not as slow as Aleph Null will get, but where one might expect it to lead into more of the same from the rest of what follows, they instead decide to reinterpret ’90s-style heavy rock — definitively not grunge but not long after it in the timeline — into the creeper sensibility of “Backward Spoken Rhymes,” declining lead guitar swirling around before a chugging verse takes hold in leading to a bigger hook, like a dirtier-toned version of Deliverance-era C.O.C., but more born out of that influence than trying to capture it exactly. That is, in particularly impressive fashion for it being their first record, Aleph Null bring that style into their own context rather than try to convince the listener all of a sudden they’ve gone Southern heavy. It’s a striking one-two, and it’s not the last twist, as “Muzzle of a Sleeping God” — which indeed seems to start with backward speech and swirls, manifesting the prior title — plays through its languid shuffle, making its way smoothly into a more weighted progression in its fourth minute as a kind of arrival point for where that initial movement was leading. When this band wanted to, they could land with a thud to shake the ground, but clearly as represented across Nocturnal, that wasn’t all they had in mind.
The aforementioned “Black Winged Cherub,” with its hey-remember-mashups vibe, leads fluidly into the longer “Stronghold,” which is suited to its position ahead of the two-part closer. Slowed down The Sword riffing, with an effectively shouted chorus, leads into a dreamier stretch of lead-topped nod, but it’s the bass that’s the bed for the verse while the guitar spaces out, the drums giving skeletal structure beneath but not overplaying — you wouldn’t immediately think of it as classy or thoughtful, but it’s both. And the way the vocal melody aligns with the guitar feels like what would’ve been a sign of things to come from Aleph Null for future releases. If I was reviewing it as a new album today, I’d talk about “Stronghold” as broadcasting their potential for listeners to hear, right up to its noisy, multi-tiered feedback finish, which fades out before hitting seven minutes and gives way to “Nocturnal Part I,” the three-minute instrumental interlude-plus that seems wholly intended to hypnotize ahead of the more extended capper “Nocturnal Part II,” its rumble indicative of a threat of what’s to follow even as the quieter ambience feels like a departure from nearly everything else on offer with Nocturnal thus far.
“Nocturnal Part II” arrives — and it is an arrival — with a seamless transition and feels right to move quickly into its verse. Its roll is immediate, encapsulating, engrossing and the doubling of the vocals for the last line of the initial verse signifies the change into a speedier push, a vital swing playing back and forth with the tonal morass as the title line is dropped after three minutes into the march. They cycle through again, growing more chaotic simultaneously as they reinforce the underlying plot they’re following, and hit into the last big slowdown with time to spare, feeling well within their rights to tear down the wall of sound they’ve worked so diligently to build all the while.
As noted, Nocturnal isn’t the final release Aleph Null had during their time, but it is something of a shame that the LP didn’t get the sequel it seemed to set up throughout its run. In 2017, Philip and Carsten re-emerged with the duo Milkbrother and issued a first, self-titled EP (discussed here), and there was potential there as well, but to-date there has never been a follow-up. The history of rock and roll, let alone heavy rock, is littered with footnotes of one-album killers who never manifested what might’ve been, and maybe Aleph Null belong in that category, but that does nothing to undercut the accomplishments of this debut.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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This was a pretty shitty-feeling week. On a personal level, this is a pretty shitty-feeling time. And I’ve been kind of bummed on the site too, the whole process of reviewing trying to keep up with news, doing premieres, emails coming in that I don’t have time or really desire to answer, on and on, and I’ve been asking myself what I’m continuing to do this for. Not money, since there isn’t much if any to speak of. Not free records, since even bands I’ve written about for over a decade are giving me shit about sending a download like I’ve been working the long-con writing about music for the last 18 years so I could start leaking stoner rock albums now, so what is it? There’s an audience, I think, but if I’m doing this for an ego boost, I’m selling myself cheap, and that doesn’t really feel good either. So what? I can write for Creem? Do a show on Gimme Metal? I can travel to fests a couple times a year if I’m lucky and can get away? That last one is actually the best argument, but the payoff for the level of labor it actually takes to do this thing the way I feel like it needs to be done is still low.
I know I want to hit 15 years, which I will in 2024, but if things stay the way they are now, I’ll reassess after that where I’m at with this whole project. I told myself I wasn’t going to make any big decisions during the pandemic when there was no live music happening, and I’ve been really, really down on any number of things lately, so this doesn’t seem like a time to decide either way, if it’s just that I’m in a shitty place mentally. But when would be good? Am I delaying ripping off a Band-aid if I say another year? And who am I without The Obelisk? It’s been so long I don’t even know. I barely know who I am with it.
This weekend I’m driving to Richmond, Virginia, to attend the Alabama Thunderpussy reunion (info here), and next week I’m going to Sweden with the guys in Kings Destroy to the Truckfighters Fuzz Festival in Stockholm. My hope is that these events and the respective and concurrent time with friends will redirect some of my general energy, because if you want to look back, I’ve had kind of a sour taste in my mouth since I returned from Psycho Las Vegas, and every trip I take in service to covering bands, I pay for in resentment from my family and my own guilt upon my return. It can be and has been a brutal metric.
Even if I stopped The Obelisk tomorrow, I can’t really ever see myself not writing. Could I freelance? Think maybe Lee over at The Sleeping Shaman would have a spot to let me do what I want? I don’t know. To be honest I haven’t given a post-Obelisk life much thought, I think in no small part because The Obelisk takes up such a significant portion of my time and my identity now. Could I just be a dad for a few years? Would I go out of my mind? Am I not going out of my mind now?
Maybe not. Things could be and have been worse. But it’s been a while since I’ve looked forward to getting up in the morning, even though the coffee is good. I’ve been hit or miss on music the last few weeks though, and that troubles me deeply. Though the new Forlesen record has been blowing my mind this afternoon.
A few hours alone in the car will do me good driving to Virginia and back, and Sunday is the Gimme Metal Obelisk-athon, so that will be something to listen to at least for as long as I can stand the sound of my own voice. I want to review that Forlesen next week, and Sky Pig if I can get to it. Looking like the Quarterly Review — another 100-album one — will have to wait until January, because the task is year-ending stuff for 2022 will be significant. Blah blah, scheduling.
I also just booked a Witchthroat Serpent video premiere for next Wednesday. So that’s a thing.
Thanks to everybody who’s left a list so far in the year-end poll, and thanks for reading. Have a great and safe weekend.
FRM.
