Noctiferia have released "Paradox Redux", the second song from Axiom I, which Nika Records put out on 20 November.
The subject is scale. "On a cosmic scale, humanity is little more than a microscopic speck, fragile, temporary, and seemingly irrelevant," the band write, before turning it round: consciousness and imagination make us "appear almost godlike", and we are "simultaneously prisoners of our own limitations and creators capable of transcending them".
The album matters to them for a plainer reason. It is the first record they have made with a new lead singer in more than twenty years, with Milos Mihajlovic on vocals and David Bordon on drums behind guitarists Igor Nardin and Andrej Blatnik and bassist Uros Lipovec.
It was recorded in Slovenia and mixed and mastered by David Caplinger in Ohio, and the band call it their most technical and aggressive record. A thirtieth anniversary follows in 2027, which is a lot of weight to put on one album, and they have chosen to put it there anyway.