Nocturnal Rites is one of those metal bands I hear and think “Hey, I can share these guys with my sister so she listens to Linkin Park less”. It’s the pretentious asshole in me. Still, I like them because their past several albums have all had a different sound. New World Messiah is more reminiscient of traditional power metal while Afterlife carries a much more brutal tone to it. Their recent albums, Grand Illusion and The Eighth Sin both have similar pop-style sounds, but continue to sound excellent and maintaining one of the primary goals of the band’s formation: melodic singing.

The band also continues the fine power metal tradition of being ugly and having crappy videos.

Overall, I’ve included Nocturnal Rites on the list because they are one of the few bands in a long time that I’ve actually wanted to go out and buy an album from, and afterwards was pleased as most of the songs were pretty good. I’ve long since turned into a hunter of tunes off of Amazon’s MP3 shopping list as most bands have a couple good tracks and then bland crap, but Nocturnal Rites was a pleasant surprise. Their subject matter is varied, but in the end I always feel energized by their music. They may not sound like they worship Satan, but they have all the qualities of metal that matters.

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