Nightmare is a heavy metal band from France formed in 1979, releasing twelve albums across a four-decade career – ‘Encrypted’ is the band’s twelfth, and was released in 2024.
Founded by bass player Yves Campion, Nightmare has enjoyed a lengthy and very successful career despite disbanding for a decade between 1988 and 1999. The band have appeared at many of the biggest metal festivals in the world – Hellfest, Wacken, and 70,000 Tons Of Metal to name just a few, and opened for some of the greatest ever heavy metal bands such as Blind Guardian, Grave Digger, Rhapsody Of Fire, Sabaton and Saxon. There’s also been numerous personnel changes over the years, the current Nightmare line-up featuring lead singer Barbara Mogore, drummer Niels Quiais, and guitarists Matt Asselberghs and Franck Milleliri alongside founder Campion. The band’s new album is ten songs and forty-eight minutes of hard-hitting metal with power metal overtones and even a little melodic death too, making ‘Encrypted’ Nightmare‘s most varied release to date – ‘Nexus Inferis’ slowly striding into life building one helluva anticipation filled atmosphere, ready for the band to let rip at the minute mark! And when I say let rip – a barnstorming rampage of foot to the floor metal packed to the rafters with pace and purpose. What a pulsating opening salvo!
And if you thought that was good, ‘The Blossom Of My Hate’ is heavier, meaner and just a tad more aggressive, the band maintaining their full on and head bang-able start to ‘Encrypted’. And whoa! What’s that? Harsh vocals! Sure is – the band mixing vocal styles, landing in a number of different metal genres to attract a very wide array of fans. A simply barnstorming (opening) double, Nightmare means business…and business is good – ‘Voices From The Other Side’ bringing a more anthemic feel to the fore. Just as heavy and pummelling as the two previous songs, ‘Voices From The Other Side’ maintains the incredible intensity the band began the album with, crushing everything and everyone in sight! And with no respite from the weighty avalanche of all-out metal, ‘Saviours Of The Damned’ hammers home just how fucking heavy the band are! Fast, furious, and overly head bang-able, ‘Saviours Of The Damned’ is gonna blow yer fucking socks off – and send you flying into next week too! Nightmare are on top form, delivering heavy metal from the heaviest end of the traditional heavy metal genre, keeping their collective feet planted on the old-school heavy metal monitor!
The band are an unrelenting and unforgiving metal machine, marching on with the foot stomper ‘Wake The Night’. Shuddering the ground with immense force, ‘Wake The Night’ is gonna shake buildings and wobble walls, waking everything up – not just the night! In fact, ‘Wake The Night’ is gonna shatter the night – the title song ‘Encrypted’ oozing more hustle and bustle than any other song heard so far. Yet among all the band’s weighty aggression and foot to the floor mentality, there’s a huge melodious intent in there too, every song highly infectious and a hundred percent head bang-able! And methinks I’ve now mentioned “head bang-able” three times, of which I’m not sorry, ’cause the album up to this point has been immensely head bang-able! And with no signs of the head bang ability disappearing anytime soon, ‘Encrypted’ (the album) thunders on with the heavy-hitting ‘Incandescent’. And a pulsating jackhammer riffing that’s gonna smash concrete as if it’s the softest thing in the world! ‘Incandescent’ also sees – or rather hears – the return of harsh vocals too, the varied vocal style on offer attracting death metal fans to the band too, along with metal traditionalists and thrashers! What an album so far, definitely a contender for the Album Of The Year award.
And oh my fucking God – the classic guitar tone so synonymous with the legendary NWOBHM evolution pours outta ‘White Lines’ like water pours over a waterfall, Nightmare perfectly echoing a forty-year-old sound! ‘White Lines’ also features anthemic leanings too, the band maintaining their staunch quest to deliver top-notch, foot-on-the-monitor heavy metal. Quest completed as far as I’m concerned, ‘Borderlines’ roaring into sight to become the fastest song on the album – for all of the first thirty seconds or so! ‘Cause Nightmare throws a little progressive metal into the mix, constantly changing gears and tempo as ‘Borderlines’ marches tall and proud with shoulders back and head held high. The final song on offer ‘Eternal Winter’ (2003 version), is a modern-day re-recording of the original that first appeared on the bands 2009 album ‘Insurrection’. Keeping true to the pace and feel of the original, ‘Eternal Winter’ (2023 version) is highly anthemic and bombastic, maintaining an unbroken level of intensity that began with song one minute one.
Overall, a thunderous mix of traditional, power and melodic death metal, ‘Encrypted’ is an infectious and head bang-able, top shelf album.
TRACKLIST
Nexus Inferis
The Blossom Of My Hate
Voices From The Other Side
Saviours Of The Damned
Wake The Night
Encrypted
Incandescent
White Lines
Borderlines
Eternal Winter (2023 version)
Nightmare: Facebook
Release Year: 2024
Label: AFM Records
Category: Album
Country: France
Reviewed by Iron Mathew for Frenzy Fire and Metal-Roos.
