NACHTLIEDER have been producing some ferocious, brooding Black Metal since its formation in 2008. This one woman act laid the foundations for great music to come with the bands first, self-titled record, an album that established the Gothenburg based one piece as a force to be reckoned with. Now, just two years after that release, with refined and expanded upon song writing and musicianship, Dagny Susanne entered the legendary Necromorbus Studios to commit to tape her latest, sophomore effort, "The Female of the Species", an album that might just prove to be a break through release for the band.

This records opening number, "Malice, Come Closer", bursts out of the speakers in a blaze of sharp, ferocious riffs and drumming. The music, overall, sounds very tight, and is tinged with melodic hooks that immediately draw the listener into this record. It's a powerful opening gambit, and it sets the bar nice and high for the next seven songs. "Nightfall" continues in very much the same vein, with precise, bestial tremolo picked leads acting as the focal point for this aggressive, chaotic offering. The music on all fronts sounds incredible, and it's very hard not to like this track. "Fatale", the third offering on here, takes a much more measured, dissonant approach musically. It's a much slower affair than the previous two songs initially, and is built around monolithic drumming, thick, harrowing and hellish vocals, and above all, jarring guitar lines. The pace promptly quickens, and the listener is thrown headlong into one of the darkest, most impassioned performances on the whole record. "Lonely Mortal" is one of the faster piece of music on the record. It's a short, sharp shock of visceral, venomous Black Metal, characterised by punishing drums, thick bass lines and razor sharp, authoritative guitar lines. It's everything you could want from a Black Metal song; dark, aggressive and, ultimately, grim.

By contrast, "Eve" is a slow, thick, crushing tune, with lots of granite heavy, down-picked rhythm sections, peppered with melodic touches and acidic, stinging vocal passages. The whole song sound robust and colossal, and it stands out vastly from the rest of the album in the best possible way. "Silence and Devastation" maintains some of that thick tone and beefy guitar work, but this is a much more speed driven, lean number than its predecessor, with a much quicker pace and more complex, hook-laden leads. As the album reaches its climactic moments with "Cimmerian Child", another mid tempo juggernaut of a song, it's clear that the album is winding down somewhat. Nonetheless, this has a lot of great music on it, with plenty of hooks to draw the listener in, especially with regards to the vocals and the sick, groovy guitar lines. It's a great song on which to bring this record to its apex, before the final, titular song begins. This is a sprawling, monolithic song, spanning nearly eight and a half minutes, and it really brings this record to a close on a high note. The guitar lines sound confident and expansive, the drumming is absolutely precise and varied. This song features some of the most imaginative and memorable musicianship on the whole record, whether it's the melodic hooks or the frenetic aggression that characterises the drum lines on here.

This album is nearly immaculate. It's clear that Dagny has trimmed the fat from the bands sound, and produced a much darker, fiercer and more brooding slab of Black Metal as a result. The strengths of the debut and the preceding demos have been built upon, and, on the whole, this is an amazing record. Only good things can come from a record like this, and hopefully it will bring with it the level of wider attention and critical acclaim that this band, and indeed album, so readily deserve.