The Night Terrors, “Pavor Nocturnus” LP

cover - night terrors pavor nocurnusCombining the best of two worlds of classic cinema scores, the Night TerrorsPavor Nocturnus is an absolute blast. Working in tandem as it does with sci-fi theremin and a huge pipe organ, all of this album sounds akin to modern rescore of something like Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — horror in space, essentially.

Recorded on the largest pipe organ in the western hemisphere, which stands an astonishing 32 feet high and uses two motors to power the whole thing, one at 15 horsepower, and the other at 20. The sound this thing is far more powerful than any synthesizer could ever hope to be. There’s just a deep resonance to Pavor Nocturnus I’ve not heard in a recording before. The grandiosity of the pipe organ actually allows for quite a study in contrasts.

A very good case in point is “Megafauna,” which has synths and the organ playing counterpoint melodies, and the difference in the thinness of the synths contrasting with rich fullness of the pipe organ really makes for a sonically dynamic track. “Blue Black” is the most masterful use of a theremin I think I’ve ever heard — it took a solid minute of the song before I figured out it wasn’t some oddly-modified violin. It’s nicely complimented by the beats and drumming on “Gravissima,” and that’s what makes the Night Terrors so interesting on this album: there’s a basic theme from which they work, but they diversify so much from that point, that you can’t help but want to know what they’ll come up with next.

Frankly, the entirety of Pavor Nocturnus is that it almost out-Goblins Goblin. The Night Terrors work in that same sort of progressive rock meets abject fear vein, and their first two albums, Back to Zero and Spiral Vortex, I’d not really been able to get into, despite quite a bit of acclaim on the second. There’s something about the addition of this pipe organ that lends the band a bit more gravitas than they’d previously been able to drum up, and makes their sound far more unique than the previous idol worship.

This is the first release on Twisted Nerve, the new music imprint from Australia reissue label Dual Planet and Finder Keepers. I’m happy to see so many of these reissue labels branch out into releasing new music, and this is a very exciting start to Twisted Nerve. I can’t wait to hear what comes next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijvq2xVbjIk

More details on the Melbourne Town Hall pipe organ, where the album was recorded, can be found here.

For more information on the Night Terrors’ Pavor Nocturnus, or to purchase the album when it comes out on Halloween, you can visit the Dual Planet website.