To put it bluntly, I have been more bored this year with releases than I was coming to expect. However there were a couple of albums that saved the year for me such as Edguy’s Space Police, Battleaxes’s Heavy Metal Sanctuary, and Novembers Doom’s amazing album Bled White. But not much of my favorite genre of black or death metal really emerged anywhere for me. Maybe being buried in academics had a lot to attest for this, but it wasn’t until I came across Ego Dominus Tuus by Nightbringer that solved my problem of being barred from delving into some truly dark and chaotic wickedness.

It’s only a more fitting environment, being a few days before my favorite holiday Halloween, that Ego Dominus Tuus has found its way into my hands. The opening into track Prayer of Nephal, is filled with demonic shrieks, surrounded by horrifying and vicious ambience. But its venomous riffs emerge in the most violently sound state, in Et Nox Illuminatio mea in Deliciis Meis.

The blast beating is absolutely fierce, as is the guitar work. Tracks like Lantern of Eden’s Night, my personal favorite, really twists the music into a chaotic feast for the ears. It’s the sort of track that you can put the image of angel’s spiraling downwards toward earth while the skies are ignited with the red flames of hell.

Many tracks are lengthy in bulk, as with the entire album which is a good chunk of black metal to get comfortable with for a pretty long duration. There is a shorter ambient track located within the midpoint of the album entitled Call of the Exile. It’s a disturbing sounding piece and does a nice job of taking a break from all the pandemonium but its short lived and the hellish disorder continues forward.

It’s not all about sporting the excessive blast beating of the drums as I came to expect. Yes, there is a huge abundance of hectic riffs and intense drumming, but songs will slow down a bit here and there. Tracks like Where Fire Never Dreamt of Man, really relax the tempo and tries to be more epic and powerful in scope. The Witchfires of Tubal-Qayin does this formula quite well also. Between all the aggressive moments and clever black metal guitar leads that flow very effectively in this superb track, it leaves some of it behind to visit slower more menacing music.

This long and intense album offering from the Chicago native black metal band Nightbringer is one of the best experiences I have come to find this year. Bands like this are the reason I listen to metal. Its hellish sounds of fury and the constantly engrossing tracks that emerge one after the other will keep my playlist bombarded with Ego Dominus Tuus for quite a long time.