Nightfall – Children of Eve

vote
7.5

• Band:
  Nightfall
• Duration: 00:43:17
• Available since: 02/05/2025
• Label:

• Season of Mist

Streaming not yet available

After the success, at least artistic, of “At Night We Prey”, the Nightfalls try to insist in the same direction giving the prints “Children of Eve”, a work that consolidates their collaboration with the now historic French label Season of Mist. A path this time also not without turbulence, given that the Hellenic group has again faced line-up changes, including the detachment from the guitarist Michalis Galiatsos, an important figure of many career phases. On the other hand, those who know the story of the Nightfall well know that their discography is characterized by numerous changes of stylistic address and that, despite the fact that at the head of everything, Efthimis Karadimas has always remained, these are also and above all been dictated by the changes in the formation that surrounds the historic frontman.
“Children of Eve”, in any case, is grafted precisely in the wake of the predecessor, however accentuating the search for incisive chorus and a greater structural linearity, with the intent perhaps to enhance the live yield. However, this is not yet another attenuation of the band's extreme matrix: the disc in fact preserves a rather vigorous nature, avoiding certain particularly explicit gothic/dark languor that characterized other phases of their production. The riffing of tight guitar and an aggression never free here too dominate the scene, diluted by an epic solemnity that infuses cohesion to work.
From a stylistic point of view, the album is therefore placed in a hybrid dimension, in which a sort of Melodic Death Metal is tinged at times of Gothic-Doom shades, evoking the work of compatriots Rotting Christ and Septicflesh at their most smooth moments, but also a classic nineties vein in the smell of Paradise Lost and Moonspell (see a song Outlandish Desire to Disobey “). Finally, there is no shortage of calls to the past of the band itself, with some old school solutions that refer to a record like “Athenian Echoes”. Fotis Benardo's battery marks the sound narration with its unmistakable impetus, but, as mentioned, in this circumstance it is the vocal weaving that stands protagonist, channeling its efforts into a long series of choral interventions that punctually punctuate all the pieces.
It can be said that “Children …” is therefore a little less varied and dynamic than “at night we prey”, even if it should still be underlined how this expressive range a smaller thread does not translate into a pedantic or too monotonous work. Considering the qualitative oscillations of the group discography, the album is positioned in an area of ​​sure reliability, also thanks to a level production, careful to enhance the shades of the composition. Some particularly successful episodes stand out, such as “Inside My Head” and “Christian Svengali”, in which moments of true inspiration emerge.
“Children of Eve”, in essence, does not aim to reinvent the verb of the Nightfalls, but firmly reaffirms its recent identity, showing that the group still has something to say in its own vein. A work that, without excess of ambition, imposes itself for consistency and expressive power, wrapping the listener in a development capable of combining vigor and a melodic suggestion fortunately not too Pacchiana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n12raxoaqwc