War. Huh! What is it good for? Well, according to Canadian battlemasters Visions Of The Night, it’s good for ridding planet Earth of that foul beast known as humanity, and the band’s second album Nocturnal Militia is a rip-roaring blast of extremity that touches on both Black and Death Metal equally. Although there’s not a great deal of diversity between the songs here, all have one thing in common: they absolutely crush. Intense and focused, switching between mid-paced Bolt Thrower-esque brutality and speedy all-out-assaults, the band has been going since 1999 and it shows in their professional playing and self-control in regard to the songwriting. Hints of Morbid Angel and Suffocation show the intelligence behind the butchery, and the sensitive usage of keyboards throughout proves that there’s a mastermind in control of the slaughter.

Whilst Nocturnal Militia isn’t a particularly pleasant album to listen to, it is a rigid, stern-faced rumble of discontent that will excite many. Initial tremors form with Supreme Militarism, hints of catchiness forming behind the keyboard-infested blast, sampled war sounds imbued with a surprising hint of melancholy flail in the background helplessly before the band switches to an old-school Death Metal beatdown. The likes of Human Failure may seem rather repetitive at first, exactly the sort of ‘War Metal’ that amateur bands from around the planet seem intent on pushing on our poor tired ears, but Visions Of The Night have something, some survival gene and genuine imagination of the crushed grandeur of soldiers and warfare, that keeps them atop the pile of corpses. Moments like the atmospheric torrent of Total Victory call Panzer Division Marduk to mind, and the general intelligence and variety in the music is excellent: the melody of Transcendence Of The Physical Plane, the sternly epic drive of Eternally Self-Victimised... this band truly has what it takes to survive in the cutthroat underground.

A decent label deal and a more refined sense of slaughter will result in a truly killer album from these guys. Given a decent budget and the time to fine-tune their sonic warfare, Visions Of The Night will produce an aural recruitment manual fit to turn even the most peaceful flower child into an Arnie-in-Commando-esque killing machine. This is unashamedly violent Metal, for people that find the more mainstream elements of the genre too tame. Ultimately, better will come from this band, but for the moment Nocturnal Militia is an astonishingly professional effort that should guarantee the band a place in future Best-Of lists.