Nik Nocturnal Return(al)s After Six Months Away, Drops New Track “Collapse”
Roughly six months ago, prominent metal YouTuber and purveyor of “fun metal things” Nik Nocturnal announced he was done. He was done doing the constant content rat race that he’s partaken in for more than a decade. He wanted to take stock of his life and touch some grass for once. He was retired. Well, until he suddenly wasn’t.
Over the weekend, Nocturnal explained his decision making in a video posted to his main channel featuring an electronic death core strack of his own making titled “Collapse”. You can check the track out below, but it’s got headu fuckin riffs and Nocturnal’s definitely been working on his channel.
Fast forward a couple days later and Nocturnal was back on ihs page, announcing that he was returning to the content creation game, but with a better understanding of what he needed to do to avoid burnout in the future.
“I wasn’t in a good spot in my life. I needed to take time. I needed to reprioritize things for myself, for the people around me, just… everything. It was unhealthy. It wasn’t sustainable the way I was going, and I needed to upgrade my mental capacity, my life, and just take a second, you know what I mean?
“I’m going to talk a lot more about that on Twitch, probably right after this video is uploaded. Come hang out at twitch.tv/nicknocturnal. We’ll do some fun stuff and I’ll explain a lot more. Literally the day after I left, I told Paula, ‘Just throw my phone away.’ I deleted Twitter first, and then we went to the park and fed squirrels. I think a lot of people assumed that when I left, I did something crazy or was partying or whatever. But no—we were going to the park every day feeding squirrels.”
In his time away, he took care of his personal needs, as well as the needs of his loved ones. He found joy in things other than being constantly connected to the vw skills. That was different for me. Taking the time to properly learn a little bit of production, or how to mix, doing some URM courses, even learning Portuguese… And of course, vocals. I had so much fun learning vocals again. It reminded me of being a teenager, learning how to make content and use Adobe, Photoshop, and Premiere for the first time. That excitement of wonder built off pure curiosity.
“After a few months, I noticed I wasn’t necessarily taking a break from metal, but I was holding back. I didn’t keep up with anything. I wanted to truly disconnect. Eventually I’d open Spotify and see new releases—new Despised Icon, and I’d be like, ‘Oh damn,’ and get stoked again…It was great to feel that sense of wonder again without it being tied to ‘this is out, you need to react to it, everyone expects it.”
So yeah, metal got back one of its more prominent online voices. I’d suggest you check out the videos below and get ready for some fun metal shit.
