Album Review: Nattfly – Flocken
Band: Nattfly
Title: Flocken
Label: Kvlt und Kaos Productions
Release date: July 25th, 2025
Country: Sweden
Format reviewed: High-Quality Digital Recording
Album Review: Nattfly – Flocken via Kvlt und Kaos Productions by Sílvia
Don’t know how to even start with my review, because I’m still in shock. “Flocken” is an extremely painful album, in terms of the feelings it can convey to me. For those of you who are not familiar with Nattfly, this is a one man Black Metal band which main sound is provided by distorted violins that play, swirl, entwine and dance as if they are practising rituals to cleanse the souls of those who dare to listen with open ears and heart. Not in a cheerful way but dark and twisted. This is not an easy listen and not for everyone, I guess, but for me… it’s been cathartic.
The artist behind this massive musical creation is Ask, a person who remains anonymous. Maybe he prefers to remain in the shadows to focus on his music, and truth is that Ask’s musical universe is rich, crafted by tons of mastery at playing violin, with big sensitivity… which is shown in the way he expresses himself with this instrument.
Violin. Ah. One often thinks of this instrument as a source of harmonious and beautiful music, but what happens when its sound is distorted, when several layers of that distortion merge, and it is also tuned as low as possible…? No. It’s not chaos. Nor is it musically “weird”. It’s astonishing, brilliant… It’s damn beautiful.
For me, the beauty of this album lies in its eccentric yet poignant sound. The music is highly dissonant, often like being at the center of a sonic whirlwind that tightens around you and crushes you, oppressing you, until you’re breathless but never suffocating. But you feel that anguish, that bite in the soul, that infinite darkness… and it’s pure desolation, agony, a stabbing pain in the heart.
In addition to the layers of dissonant violin, there are the ever-present drums playing Black Metal patterns with an abundance of blast beats, the bass pedal usually at full speed, magnificent rolls and use of cymbals, bringing great strength and a massive sound. The songs are dense, one can feel overwhelmed by all the distortion and apparent chaos, but it’s like a cleansing for the soul.
And the voice. Woah. Ask truly performs as he was channeling all his inner pain and suffering through his throat, and shouting out loud to the world. His raspy shrieks border the most extreme and obscure agony. Black is the voice, as black are the emotions it expresses.
The album starts with “Dansa med flocken” (“Dance with the flock”), a piece that becomes more and more addictive as it progresses: all that distortion and dissonance, the layers of violin mixed with extreme accuracy, the perfect drum patterns, the insanely dark and twisted vocals, the ultra low tuned violin that acts as a bass… everything, I mean EVERYTHING makes me feel a bit of uneasiness mixed with astonishment. This song is an absolute sensory assault.
While some songs are like crazy whirlwinds turning and spinning fast, some others are more slow down and become hypnotic, mesmerizing, like a ritualistic mantra. “Gungfly” (“Quagmire”) for example: violins are constantly repeating the same “phrase”, cradled by drums that play in a restrained tempo, while vocals are harsh and agonic, and the second half of the song the rhythm increases and so does the oppressive atmosphere that surrounds the listener. When the song comes to its end, it’s like a relief. I mean… I enjoy the sensation of being emotionally oppressed, even if it hurts, ’cause it’s something cathartic. But it needs to end.
And there’s a delicious instrumental piece, “Speglingar” (“Reflections”), only two violins playing and entwining with lots of distortion, building an unsettling landscape with brief moments of lucidity. The vibration is pure delight and with some classic playing, it’s something beautiful within the dissonance. After this brief respite, “Sielser” (“Prophecies”) turns you back to where Nattfly belongs: the realms of chaotic patterns and mesmerizing loops of discordant violins, cradled by relentless drums.
Lyrically, Nattfly’s universe is built on dark imagery, where songs tell us stories that blend nightmares with spiritual visions. At least this is what it seems to me, attending to the translation of the lyrics that are in Swedish. There are some recurrent elements such as crows, the night, death, the land and the Mara, a malignant entity in Scandinavian folklore.
The closing track, “För mina demoner” (“For my demons”) is like an invocation for a dark entity, or an ode. It starts with delicacy and soon it turns into a stream of dissonance that runs slowly at first, and it speeds up as it progresses and builds a desolated sonic landscape. Vocals are extremely harsh and painful, they contain as much darkness and grief as they can. The solo violin playing high notes is a heartbreaking contrast and I’m not ashamed to say that it brings tears to my eyes at some points. It’s so beautiful that it hurts, this is it.
If someone had told me time ago that I’d fall for an album based on swirling distorted violins, I’d have said “I don’t believe you”. Of course, some years ago I had not yet entered the realms of Black Metal and its subgenres, and from the moment I set one foot (or ear) in it, I was instantly seduced. Black Metal is the most overwhelming genre, in terms of all the emotions it can convey. And in this case, the album “Flocken” by Nattfly has a big dose of thrill. It distills sensitivity, despite its rough sound. You must listen to it in order to understand this. 10/10
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10/10 Immortal Classic
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