Published: January 6, 2025

This is absolutely amazing. I mean, really, really amazing. It’s one of those albums where I think “It’s hard to believe human beings made something so beautiful”. While I never heard of Notturno before Hypnotic Dirge sent me three of their albums to review, I did some research and found out that one of the members was in Himinbjorg and another in Handful Of Hate… two bands I know and love very much.

As soon as the album starts you are greeted with sublime music played by guitars, drums and cellos. Rael cellos and not cellos recreated with a keyboard, and they are very well played. The musicianship is phenomenal. I’d say most of the music on “Our” is acoustic Folk/Neo-Folk music, but the album also has a healthy dose of depressive Black Metal as well. It’s hard to believe just two musicians are taking care of all of the music here. Most of the time the album has a sad, lonely and eerie vibe and I just can't get enough of this.

The vocals are some of the best I’ve ever heard. Kjiel has numerous styles she uses with ease. A beautiful clean vocal style, a style where she sounds like she’s grieving heavily and a pure Black Metal wail and everything In between. Her voice is as varied as the different notes that can be plucked on a guitar.

The album was mixed by Stefan Traumuller who did a wonderful job getting all of those traditional instruments to sound well with the Metal.

The cover art is a photo of a woman in a flower garden or maybe a cemetery. She’s holding a sword and wearing a beautiful red dress. This cover is amazing! Inside of the digipak there is another photo of the same woman (I’m assuming it is the vocalist) and the back panel has the tracklist and a photo of a woman’s hand caressing a skull.

If I had heard “Our” last year it would have been toward the top of my Best Of 2024 list. It is perfect in every aspect. The music, the vocals, the production and the great photography that sets the mood of the album so well. I recommend this on a level I can’t even explain. The passion of these musicians on this album needs to reach as many ears as possible. Thankfully Hypnotic Dirge sent me two other Notturno albums that I will be reviewing soon, and I hope we get more albums from the band in the future. Seriously, you need this and since it’s limited to 500 copies, you better hurry. Thank you to all involved with this release.