Band:	Nicodemus
Album:	The Supernatural Omnibus
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	2003

01. Something In The Walls
02. Nightfall Bares My Burden
03. Afterglow
04. Harlot
05. Of Pride & Necessity
06. The Lazarus Syndrome
07. Within The Glow Of Embers
08. Deepening
09. Shards Of A Bitter Night Wept
10. Benedetto Sia

While many bands these days prefer showing half-naked vampiric vixens on their cover arts, Nicodemus went for an artsy and beautiful cover of a lady holding a book and gazing to the ground, sadly, the same level of artistic development isn't found in the booklet, just the lyrics and some background images, the same that appear in the cover.

Nicodemus has been both praised and criticized fro this album, so the question that popped in my mind after a few spins was, are they so bad? Are they so good? It seems that there's no middle point with this album, either you love it, or hate it.
But luckily, yours truly has been working for a while doing reviews, and I have a pretty wide sense of musical variety, and also I think that albums are like books, there's not one book that is so bad that doesn't contain something good.

Well, on with the music, Nicodemus could be classified as Progressive Gothic Black Metal, yep, that's it, nice isn't it? You have Black and gruff vocals, enchanting female vocals, some clear ones and keyboard driven mid-tempo compositions, some will think that this is another beauty-and-the-beast release, although that kind of style has slowed it's spawning.

The album starts with "Something In the Walls" a catchy song that have some good keyboards that resemble bells, "Nightfall Bares My Burden" is another good track, begins with some clean singing and nice piano lines. "Afterglow" has good vocal effects in all the song, this is one of my favorite tracks, "Harlot" shows us the slower part of the band, its fun if you look this song as a Black Metal ballad, if there's something like that?

"The Lazarus Syndrome" is an excellent instrumental song, the riffing, the soloing and the keyboards intertwine perfectly to make this incredible piece.
After that, the second half of the album, Nicodemus fails to grab my attention, songs tend to get to repetitive and sometimes even unbearable, like the song "Shards of a Bitter Night Wept", sounds like a really bad imitation of Cradle Of Filth, is sad, because the first half is very good.

So, the record ends and leaves me a somewhat bittersweet taste in the mouth, good songs versus bad songs, nice musicianship and creativity versus awful production, you see? Either you get past those details, or you just throw this away.
But one thing is clear, Nicodemus have talent, some compositions have fresh ideas, and that with a better production could do wonders for the band, I'll be waiting for the band's next album.