A few months ago, I covered Heretoir’s new EP, Wastelands, which showcased where they were creatively and how that could foster ideas for a new album. Wastelands was, in practice, a musical bridge, giving us a look back at 2017’s The Circle with three live recordings from that album; and three new songs that seemed to meld black and post-metal together, placing more emphasis in their post-metal sensibilities. Now, with their third(!) full-length, Nightsphere, Heretoir bring those ideas to fruition, creating compelling yet beautiful music that rivals its concept.

First and foremost, Nightsphere is a concept album, telling the story of a man who both worships nature and is in awe of machines. However, it can also be inferred that he hates humanity, preferring to see either of these two forces win over humans. Over the course of five tracks, he begins to slowly realize that trying to be the bridge between nature and machines was a terrible idea, as now the machines seek to transform his world by burning it to the ground. Even though he ultimately fails in saving nature and dies in the machines’ onslaught, he dies with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. After all, he has brought “twilight into the world of man,” seeing himself as a catalyst for humanity’s destruction. Although the story itself can have various interpretations, Nightsphere borders on the misanthropic and the funerary. Here is the story of a man who claims to worship nature and its splendors and mourns its destruction as he tries to save what he can from the machines. However, he ultimately reveals that he secretly wishes for the death of humanity, as he thinks of himself above them. Even at the very end, he sees either force as a catalyst for progress, which ends with either consuming humanity. In a way, Nightsphere sits in the middle of the nature-machine dichotomy, as the speaker does not care who wins in the end as long as humanity is taken out.

The album’s musical themes also tie into the central conflict Nightsphere poses, especially when it comes to the band’s instrumentation. First track “Sanctum – Nightsphere Part I” starts with acoustic accompaniment before the (electric) guitar kicks in, giving the track this reverent, atmospheric tone that idealizes a stripped-down view of the world. You, as the listener, are fully pulled into the speaker’s perspective – someone who sees nature as a living entity that demands worship and full compliance from its followers. In return, the music becomes majestic and cavernous, as if offering you a glimpse into what could be if you choose to go down this path. However, underneath this majesty, there is something insidious about it. As the album progresses, those light “electric” elements, such as the guitar and the synths, become more and more pronounced, as heard on “Twilight of the Machines,” and coming to fruition on “Pneuma.” “Pneuma,” the album’s first instrumental track, is both the emotional anchor that holds the weight of the speaker’s actions and the climax of the story. This is where the “electric” elements fully take root, becoming something between a funerary dirge and an ambient, dream-like backing that came straight out of a Nine Inch Nails album. It’s a reflective song, filled with what sounds like strings layered underneath this somewhat synthetic tone that seems to invade the more traditional aspects of the instrumentation. It also makes the listener question whether the speaker’s intentions were correct – by letting things die, by choosing to remain neutral, he can only grieve for his god but remains satisfied with these series of events. In the end, there was only silence and the death of everything, the death of man.

All in all, Nightsphere is a solid, fantastic album whose concept is brought to life by the music Heretoir has created. It’s clear that Wastelands was the steppingstone for the musical and artistic direction that Nightsphere veered into, and I am excited to see what else Heretoir has in store for future releases. Come for the music, stay for the story – I promise that it will devastate you.

— Hera

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Nightsphere is available now on Northern Silence Productions. For more information on Heretoir, visit their Facebook page.