Band : Nembience
Album title : Through Times Of Despair
Label : Casket - Copro
Distributor : PHD – Bertus
Release date : 05/04/2010
Release : CD

Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Melodic Death/ Thrash Metal act Nembience was founded in early 2005 when guitarists Jose Cruz (a Spanish native) and Martin Rasmussen teamed up with drummer Kasper Rottböll and started writing songs together. Following some line-up changes, the band was completed when lead singer Kenneth Reby and bassist Jakob Lykkebo joined in.

Eventually the band stepped onto the Danish stages in early 2006, to support different Danish bands as well as international bands passing through their country. That same year they released a promo CD entitled Demise, which was bestowed the honour of being nominated at the 2007 edition of the Danish Metal Awards in the category “Talent Of The Year”. Mid September 2008 the band entered the CB Studios in Holsted (DK) to record the material that would be comprised in their debut album, with the aid of recording engineer & co-producer Christian Bonde Sörensen (whom also mixed the album). Eventually, the album was mastered by the Danish Master in that field, Jakob Hansen. Mind you, the band self-financed the whole thing, but sent out a message to record labels through their MySpace page that the album was upcoming. In the run towards getting that distribution deal for the album, the drummer had to leave the band for a number of reasons in September 2009, and following several months of auditions the band was finally able to announce the completion of their line-up with the addition of Frameless Scar’s Peter Mathiesen in January 2010. In the meantime, they had gotten the seemingly unattainable deal, with Casket Music, and an initial release date was apparently set for February 15 (date which was postponeed for several reasons).

Listening to the 3 songs posted at myspace.com/nembience (there’s also some studio footage in the blogs), you will be able to assertain for yourselves whether Nembience indeed succeeded in giving the Melodic Death/ Thrash Metal genre aa touch of their own! All I can say is, they succeed in giving the listener a good time. There’s a couple of songs with added clean vocals (in one case brought by the producer), bringing in the welcome bit of variety. Very nice release indeed!

90/100

Tony.