NIGHTBEARER launch the crushing performance video ‘His Dark Materials‘ as the first single taken from their new full-length “Defiance“. The third studio album of the German death metal bookworms, which is based on a concept inspired by Sir Philip Pullman’s fantasy book trilogy “His Dark Materials”, has been scheduled for release on June 13, 2025.
Video clip ‘His Dark Materials‘ is available for immediate publication via this link: https://youtu.be/U5Zh5HcyY1k
NIGHTBEARER comment: “The tell-tale title ‘His Dark Materials’ is both, lyrically and musically, an excellent representation of what we are about to unleash with our third album ‘Defiance’ in 2025”, vocalist Michael Torka declares. “We hurl ourselves into the millennia-old war against the tyranny of a god who never existed, against his corrupted earthly and celestial vassals. It’s a fight against brutal oppression that is carried out in the name of liberation from superstition. This is the final, relentless battle for freedom!”
A brutal war is raging between the forces of ancient superstition and scientific enlightenment: NIGHTBEARER are leading the charge with their crushing third full-length “Defiance”. The German death dealers from the City of Paderborn in Eastern Westphalia have hammered out an album that retains their signature HM-2 chainsaw guitar sound and also maintains their unapologetic love for melodic death metal of the Swedish kind.
“Defiance” also marks another step in the careful but steady evolution of their sound by adding a black passage here and a doom-spiced moment there to their old school sound. The result is an overall much more atmospheric album, which perfectly suits its lyrical concept. The album is directly inspired by the renowned “His Dark Materials” trilogy of books by English author Sir Philip Pullman. The lyrics introduce key characters and events in the plot that revolves on a deeper level of meaning around humanity’s emancipation from oppression by religion. NIGHTBEARER defiantly engage with the resistance to bring about Enlightenment 2.0.
When NIGHTBEARER were formed by vocalist Michael Torka and guitarist Dominik Hellmuth in 2017, they were driven by a fervent love for old-school death metal and its golden age in the glorious 1990s. Yet nearly two decades later, the Germans saw plenty of good reasons not to dwell too much on gore and splatter as that had already been done ad nauseam. Instead, they followed their second passion for literature, particularly of the fantasy, grimdark, and horror genres including such classic authors as J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Jordan, and Philip Pullman.
