Step into the intriguing world of Nox Sinister, who position themselves with the ‘soft lore’ of being a medieval court that decided to conquer the world through music. The American collective offer up a dramatic metal sound that they describe as “Violent Musical Theatre.”
The quintet first formed when frontman Nathan Shapiro, aka “King Night,” discovered guitarist Erick Garcia, who in turn discovered bassist Jonny Heinz. After a few lineup changes, the band was completed by the King’s high school friend Ben Schwartz on guitar and drummer Clayton Barnack. And the band’s members take on roles including a despot king, a captain of the guard, a scheming vizier, a headsman and a war-boy.
On the sound they’ve crafted, the band told us: “Our music is funny because nearly everyone who comes up to us says we sound like a different band than the last person. The two key elements are theatricality and aggression. We like to get experimental, we like to mix up different styles of metal to the point where people can’t confine us to a single subgenre. High concept storytelling in the lyrics and highly technical orchestrations in the instrumentals. Violent musical theater. Ever have your face melted while reading Shakespeare? It’s kinda like that.”
To give us a taste for this, the band sent us Tell Me, Father, which was released in October. It starts out in dramatic fashion with a blistering blast of guitars and lively drums that drop into an engaging, almost sermon-like verse. The intensity builds with stabbing guitars and a moody background guitar, before dropping back into the opening riff, which flows into a powerful chorus. That drops into rolling drums and a darting riff over spoken vocals, which give way to a piercing guitar solo. Stabbing guitars take over, teeing up a big final blast of the chorus.
On the track, the band told us: “The reception has been immaculate so far. We’re happy to see that it resonates with so many people and we’re happy that the music video is making inroads with people. For those who haven’t listened or watched the video yet, they can expect a refutation of religious dogma and the hypocrisy of holy men. We wanted to create a goth horror video experience to complement the themes of blasphemy, sacrilege, and individualism. Sonically, they can expect catchy riffs, shredding solos, an anthemic chorus and a rallying cry against the chains of theocracy.”
That’s since been followed by Faun, which was released at the end of last month and you can check out below, and we firmly recommend checking out the band’s debut album Knight Terrors.
The band describe their musical influences as “like if Iron Maiden had a love child with Opeth that they conceived in the broom closet at a Broadway musical.” The King Night’s vocals draw influence from the likes of System of a Down, Jorn Lande, Powerwolf and Death Angel. Erick likes Steven Wilson, Megadeth and shares a love of Dream Theater with our Jonny who, in the band’s words, “slaps it like Steve Harris and Geddy Lee.” Ben draws inspiration from Paul Gilbert and enjoys Cryptopsy and Black Dahlia Murder, while Clayton apparently swears by the fact that Animal from the Muppets is the greatest drummer ever.
And on what inspires them to write music, the band told us: “Lyrically and thematically, our songs are very inspired by medieval literature, history, horror films, dark fantasy, comic book supervillains, and any intersection of these themes. Also often uniting these concepts with themes of primal humanism, heathenism and blasphemy. Our singer writes all the lyrics and he’s a huge nerd. For him, it’s all about high-concept storytelling meeting with expressions of raw humanity.”
And the band added: “Sinister Credo is defined by ‘The Evil That Is Justice.’ In our world, injustice continues to be the grander prevailing narrative, we’re socially conditioned to be unkind to one another, and are taken advantage of by the systems put in place supposedly to protect us. The notion of justice is unpopular, and thus, deemed by society itself to be ‘wrong.’ Societal standards of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are often paraded as what is ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ We embrace what appears to the established order as ‘evil.’
“If society and the systems that govern us deem kindness, truth, generosity, brotherhood, courtesy, and goodness unto one’s fellow man to be evil, then we shall embrace evil. To be against the grain is evil. To defy the puritanical fundamentalist ways established countless generations ago is evil. To them, to not embrace the droll groupthink of pop culture and theocratic fundamentalism is evil. To them, individualism is evil. Embracing our darkness, our scars, our traumas, our societally stigmatized flaws and growing past them to make ourselves better and thus be better unto others is evil. Evil is darkness. Darkness is justice. Justice is evil. Those in power have done everything it can to show us that morality is relative. So we will use this notion against them. Truth, honor, and rebellion. For the dejected, discarded, and disposed of. Everyone and everything Sinister. And if you’re not Sinister, your time is over.”
You can follow Nox Sinister on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Deezer, Soundcloud and YouTube.
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