DIABOLICAL MASQUERADE Nightwork (1998) CD

Anders Nyström had already mapped out Katatonia's grief when he moonlighted as Diabolical Masquerade, a one-man black metal project that cared more about atmosphere and weirdness than scene credibility. Nightwork, released in 1998, is a product of that restlessness, a record that sits somewhere between the Norwegian second wave and something far more theatrical and strange.

Where a lot of late-nineties Swedish black metal was content to replay the Scandinavian template, Nyström twisted it into something more unpredictable. Nightwork has that cold, fog-soaked tone you'd expect, but there's a compositional curiosity underneath, melodic detours and left-field arrangements that make it feel like a fever dream rather than a blueprint. It's the kind of album that rewards patience from people who've already worn out their Arcturus and Borknagar records and want to go deeper into that experimental Nordic rabbit hole.

CD. 1998 original release. Diabolical Masquerade was a solo project by Anders Nyström of Katatonia. Recorded in Sweden.

Fans of: Arcturus, Borknagar, Solefald, Emperor, Katatonia