While cleaning up a hard drive full of promos, I stumbled upon one I had apparently missed: the latest EP from the German project Nightwalker. After the cover artwork first managed to burst a vein or two in my eyes, I decided to sit down with it properly, sometimes you have to endure aesthetic pain to be rewarded musically.
2026 is no ordinary year for the project of Noxathra. Nightwalker celebrates its ten-year anniversary this year, a milestone that will undoubtedly be marked later on with a full-length album. For now, however, we turn our attention to this EP, which was released in March 2025 via Amor Fati Productions.
This wasn’t the only release Nightwalker unleashed in 2025. Already in January, Wiccecræftappeared as an extremely limited CD run of just thirty copies — one of those releases you either grab immediately or end up cursing forever on Discogs. A few months later, this EP followed, after which things have remained conspicuously quiet in Kassel.
Whether that silence points to reflection, preparation, or simply the incubation of something larger remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that even after ten years, Nightwalker still has a habit of resurfacing when you least expect it, even while sorting through an overstuffed promo folder.
Back to that eternally burning flame of death. This EP contains three new tracks steeped in raw Black Metal, with an unmistakable connection to the Norwegian scene of the early ’90s. No modern embellishments, no polished edges, this is cold, repetitive, and deliberately uncomfortable.
The spirit of the first wave of Norwegian bands hangs heavily over these tracks: icy tremolo riffs, restrained drumming, and a production that deliberately keeps anything warm or accessible at a distance. Nightwalker isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel here, but rather pays homage to the fire that was once ignited and has never truly gone out.
Still, it never feels like a soulless retro exercise. Within these strict stylistic boundaries, Noxathra manages to maintain enough tension to prevent the three compositions from dissolving into pure repetition. Instead, they function as short, violent eruptions, as if the flame is reignited again and again, just before it threatens to fade.
80/100
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