Nehemah is one of many French Black Metal bands carrying the flag of traditional Black Metal. While many Scandinavian bands have abandoned the corpse paint, black and white album covers, and traditional song structures, Nehemah proudly maintain all the staples of classic Black Metal.

The music of Nehemah is at times highly influenced by Darkthrone. In fact, many riffs and rhythms are almost direct rip-offs of certain Darkthrone tracks. Nehemah throw their own twists into the song writing as well, so this isn’t a total Darkthrone copy. Along with a style that is frantic and aggressive comes a slower, plodding, more doom like style of Black Metal that in end remains highly atmospheric regardless of the tempo. I have to say I enjoyed the fast version of Nehemah more than the slower, but for Black Metal fans that enjoy a lot of atmosphere, and most do, Nehemah do have plenty of it. The overall sound of the band is very reminiscent of early 90’s Norwegian Black Metal and this CD easily could have been released along the CD’s of that era. Though perhaps the quality isn’t as high as those classic releases, the style would have fit right in.

As one can expect the production is raw. The bass drums are louder than most Black Metal bands but otherwise the sound is quite standard for traditional Black Metal. The vocals are very grainy and harsh and fit well with the sound of the CD. Most of the songs are quite interesting, but the 6 minute plus epic tracks that occasionally populate the track listing drag on but those songs are not without their strong moments either. Some minor use of keyboards show up in some songs and they never really add to or detract from the music, but they are there in the style of Graveland on about 5 percent of the CD.

If you long for some traditional Black Metal in the vein of Darkthrone, Nehemah can definitely fill that void. While there really isn’t anything overly amazing here or original, Nehemah do a good job of making quality Black Metal that is here to carry on the flag of Black Metal without any Death Metal elements, gothic keyboards, or over-produced chug fests. And for some of us, that’s just what we need.