Non Serviam - The Witches Sabbath (2000)

Necrotical was obviously not meant to be the end of Non Serviam's trajectory, as they released another single around the turn of the century, and there was enough interest to get their demos out through Nocturnal after Invasion Records had pretty much folded. Having only a middling opinion of their 1997 debut Between Light and Darkness, I wasn't too excited by what The Witches Sabbath would represent, a re-issue of the two demos the band released leading up to that debut. Also, like the two albums, the band just never had good cover art, it was always a little bland or obscured, and this twisty digitally tooled image of some chicks lusting with the devil or a demon is just another prime example of how this style wouldn't age well whatsoever...

The demos sound fine, however, in fact they probably sound a little more engaging than the debut album, and most of the same tracks appear on both, so it's understandable why the band might want these put out there for the public to consume. That doesn't really improve the musical quality, they were gunning for that nexus between the Swedish black metal and melodic death all along, but I would say that the sounds here, perhaps being slightly cruder, favor the former genre just a smidgeon. A couple of cuts like the title track from that second demo sound pretty decent in this incarnation, wistful and erotic black metal with enough atmosphere to carry you back to that vital 90s era when so much of this was breaking new ground for us crusty old heshers. In fact, I'd say that if you could just track this collection down, and then head straight over to Necrotical, or the Hellspell album; that would be in your best interest, the tunes just seem a little more authentic in this format. But then again, it's not that inspiring when there were so many better choices during these years.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

Non Serviam - Necrotical (1998)

If Necrotical surpasses the Non Serviam debut in any way, it's that it just remembers to rock your face off much harder; the way they've taken the same elements they were championing on Between Light and Darkness and translated those into punishingly fun tracks. Perhaps they cranked up the death metal influence here a little bit, as you'll feel in a tune like "Hatred Unleashed" in the verses, but you've got still got plenty of that vintage Swedish melodeath, and some surges of obvious black metal. The sophomore doesn't really settle down for any one style more than its predecessor, but it doesn't actually need to, because this time the chords and vocals fit together in more memorable patterns, and they really lose nothing of the wider net they were casting just a year before.

Don't get too excited, because this one can't exactly rub elbows with any of the A- or B-tier successes from that Swedish scene, but if you were into albums like Night in Gales' Thunderbeast or either of the Gandalf full-lengths from Finland, you might appreciate how this is just a simpler and rocking distillation of the black and melodic death metal ingredients. The harsh vocals are more sustained and carnal, and the scarce cleans sound better placed, though still a little awkward. The drums just sound like a thunder sustaining the rest of the instruments, and they'll tear out these brief leads like in "Which Eternal Lie" that soar over the remainder. When the band gets mellow, too, they actually do well to set up the transitions back into the crushing force, but my favorite bits here are tunes like "Haunted Domains" which are just catchy as fuck headbangers which balance off the evil and the melody.

Now two of the members of this band also released Hellspell's Devil's Might, which was clearly a better produced and higher quality extension of the black metal aesthetics from Non Serviam, and I would recommend that album before either of these, despite its ugly cover. But Necrotical is one I can listen to from time to time and won't switch off once it starts, it's very straightforward in catching your attention, and while its own production isn't much better than the debut, it's just denser and darker and effective.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Non Serviam - Between Light and Darkness (1997)

Non Serviam was another Invasion Records act which was attempting to service a number of the dominant Scandinavian metal trends of the time, without falling too much into a single category. Certainly there is a giant amount of Dark Tranquillity or At the Gates going into this debut, from the melodic riffing heavily reminiscent of the former, to the main rasped vocal that resembles Lindberg. At the same time, they were obviously immersed in the melodic black metal of peers like Dissection, Dawn and Dissection, so you have these two represented in about equal measure through Between Light and Darkness, without either one ever winning out, and both performed competently enough that anyone who was seeking out some of the same on either end might have have a go at this for a couple weeks when it was new.

As for myself, I don't particularly enjoy the production throughout this debut, it's snarly and does the job enough to make out all the riffs and instruments, but feels a little dry and depthless. The keys and bass guitars sound decent, the drums a little too splashy, and the vocals feel a bit plain when they are supposed to be spitting such vitriol. Non Serviam was not a band that lacked competence in the riffs, and the selections here were passable for either of the main styles wound through this, but often they come off as bland and predictable. There are quite a few that feel like pure heavy metal progressions (as in the title track), but these have just been done before elsewhere and better. The synthesizers were wisely just used for some emphasis on atmosphere, but even then they seem a little dull, they border on transforming the album into pure symphonic black metal in places but never quite arrive.

There are also some obnoxious clean vocals that pop up ("Satan's Spree") which aren't necessarily a bad idea on paper, but come off a little rough. However, once can't really deny some of the positives to this one, like the excellent bass playing or the kind of dark, dingy mood to which they twine these styles together. Between Light and Darkness has lots of potential, and they'll have another chance to manifest that, but I usually only listen to this one in small bursts, it's just not an album I wanna visit from one end to the other. Still, if you're basically a living encyclopedia for all these Swedish sounds of yore, this is one you might want to at least sample since it forms like a nexus of so much of what was happening in that scene in the mid 90s.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]