Album review: NAUT – Hunt

The darkness doesn't always have to be terrifying or violent. In the case of Bristol's NAUT, it's a seductive, alluring thing. Acolytes of the gutter glamour of ’80s goth and post-punk outfits like Fields Of The Nephilim, Joy Division and early Killing Joke, and walking a similarly shadowy 3am street to Grave Pleasures, on this debut they revel in the joy of noir, at once both morbid and celebratory. Having slowly built their name through the underground over the past six years or so, via a clutch of EPs and a collaboration with similarly minded Swedish post-punk head Henrik Palm (formerly of In Solitude and Ghost, now a killer solo artist), they are absolutely brilliant.

Built on stark drum-machine rhythms, chorus-soaked guitar melodies and echoey retro synths, NAUT are experts in this stuff. The hypnotic, robotic spine of much of it – All The Days' one-string melody, the persistent, down-down-stroked basslines on Nightfall and Unity Of Opposites – gives it a cold, haunting edge, making the choruses of songs like Dissent and the excellent Gold & Death soar when they do come. When they get going, this is rock’n’roll for the last goths standing at the afters' afters; shades indoors, fag in one hand, flick-knife in the back pocket.

Of course, there's a lot of worship here, but that's half the point. And this stuff isn't as easy as it can sound. The greatness of NAUT is how they take a minimalist, granite riff like the one that pulses at the heart of 8 In 3 and use it to paint in so many shades of black. That they do it so stunningly and consistently throughout here is genuinely genius.

Shadowy and mysterious, but bursting with thrilling vitality, Hunt will fill even the blackest of goth hearts with joy. Run to the dark.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Grave Pleasures, Fields Of The Nephilim, Zetra

Hunt is out now via Season Of Mist