Siberia’s Grima and I are old friends. Even though I only managed to snaffle reviewing rights on their last outing, 2022’s Frostbitten, each of their three releases since I started my indeterminate sentence here at AMG Industries has made my year-end Lists. From the raw, folksy, accordion-driven black metal charms of Will of the Primordial (2019), through the more grandiose (if ever so slightly tropey) atmoblack of Rotten Garden (2021) to pick-of-the-pack Frostbitten, Grima has my number. Keeping runtimes tight (apart from their 2015 debut, always in that 43-48 minute sweetspot), accordions high and temperatures close to absolute zero, brothers Vilhelm and Morbius (also of Second to Sun1) just know how to construct great albums. Since we last saw them, however, Grima has moved away from the great black metal label Naturmacht Productions, to join Napalm Records. While no doubt very good for the band, and deserved recognition of their labors, this left me doing infuriating battle with Napalm’s stream-only version of latest outing, Nightside. Have the repeated pauses and refusals to play2 dented my enjoyment?
At this point, it feels like Grima’s songwriting is quite deliberate. That may feel like an odd thing to say. Isn’t songwriting always deliberate? Well, yes. And no. Perhaps “reflective” would be a better descriptor. What I mean is that it seems like the brothers take time to digest their last work before tweaking the dials to lock in what worked while refining other parts. We saw the ‘atmoblack’ dial being cranked for Rotten Garden, while it was nudged back down again and the ‘speed’ knob twizzled for Frostbitten. For Nightside, the dial marked “accordion/bayan” has had a damn good thrashing (courtesy of Sergey Pastukh, once again) and, if there were an adjustment labelled “urgency,” that has also hit 11. Nightside feels vibrant, alive and dripping atmosphere (“The Nightside”), with guest drummer Vlad in propulsive gear (“Beyond the Dark Horizon”), while Vilhelm and Morbius’ dual guitar attack channels every crystalline, hoarfrost encrusted tremolo we could want (“Where We Are Lost”).
Taking everything that was great about Frostbitten, Grima has circled back to sweep up some of the more traditional influences on Will of the Primordial, combining them with liquid smooth pacing that shifts perfectly track to track. It seems unnecessary at this point to note that Vilhelm’s harsh vox are among the best black metal rasps available today, marshalling the iciest of tundra winds to shred your eardrums. On “Impending Death Premonition” and “Curse of the Void,” he is joined by guests Savely Nevzorov and Ilya Panyuko, who contribute deep, clean backing vocals that elevate the sound further. Echoing this vocal feel, in the slower moments of Nightside, there’s something teetering on the edge of a symphonic doom sound (the opening to “Flight of the Silver Storm” and mid-sections of “Skull Gatherers”). While, in the faster passages (including the accordion … riff? … that rears up during instrumental “Intro (Cult)”), there is a sort of rabid intensity that hits peak Grima (front half of “The Nightside” and back half of next track “Where we are Lost,” forming a great arc).
Mixed and mastered, as before, by Second to Sun guitarist Vladimir Lehtinen, Grima sound just as good on Nightside as they did on Frostbitten (subject to the caveats around only having a stream, yada yada, etc.). The guitars are quite forward in the mix but their crystalline tone means they don’t dominate, while the accordion is given a lot of space to do its wonderful thing. Vilhelm’s vocals are well-balanced and cut through like the proverbial icy wind, giving the whole an extra bite. Grima’s songwriting continues to progress, and Nightside feels like the most nuanced and best-paced outing to date. If I have one criticism of this record, it’s that I’d like it to just go a little harder in a few places. The one-two of mid-album cuts “The Nightside” and “Where we are Lost” is some of, if not the, best material Grima has ever written, and that is because they go hard.
So, did the stream ruin Nightside for me? Well, no, but it tried its bloody hardest. And I do think that, if I’d been able to enjoy this record’s obvious flow without it constantly stopping, refusing to play, and so on, the score could have been even higher than it is. While that may see Steel celebrating, and I hope the new deal serves Grima well, I don’t know why it’s so hard for labels—if they insist on sharing stream-only promo—to make those streams, I don’t know how to put this, um, work? Since it tends to be higher profile bands that are impacted by this, the labels are only harming their most valuable assets.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream only
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: grima.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/grimablackmetal
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025
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