With its body composed of slime it floated and crawled through nuclear chaos. Inside its body a maggot-infested brain slowly moved through the oozing mass. The only thing solid in place was a giant, madly gazing, eye.
The primordial jelly slithered around a gateway of seemingly solid rock, a strange thing to see in this order less empty hell. Though not audible, it formed babbling words and enchanting phrases into the minds of its victims. The gateway was decorated by a single, night black seal: Ixaxaar. The mucky slime entity stared through the gate to a world with cultivated lands, blue oceans, large cities and busy people.
Hear then His Voice in the dark hours, answer His call with thine own; bow ye and pray at His passing, but speak not His name aloud.

Nox is a Dutch death metal band, which came together in 2003. Its band members are Rob Oorthuis (guitars), Seth v.d. Loo (vocals), Bob Dussel (drums) and Patrick Boleij (bass). Rob used to play in Centurian with Seth and Patrick. Patrick also used to play in Pyaemia and plays in Severe Torture, where Seth also does the drumming.
I read somewhere that Bob plays or used to play in the great Dutch black metal band Perditor. A note of interest is that Seth left Nox after releasing Ixaxaar. Nox is now looking for a replacement.

Before this debut album, Nox only released the demo Zazaz in 2003.
Ixaxaar is a fast and furious technical death metal beast. The drums are rattling like machine guns, keeping tight rhythms at ultra fast pace. Guitars play blackish death metal hymns, building an atmosphere. Floating, foreboding guitar solos add to this feeling. Somehow an Eastern theme crawls into your mind, which bands like Nile, Septic Flesh and Belphegor sometimes seem to achieve. The bass guitar is a bit soft in the mix (as seems to be far too often with extreme metal) and plays along with the guitars.
Seth’s great grunting vocals are a highlight on this album. Since having seen him (last minute) replacing Glen Benton at a Deicide concert, reading the lyrics from a piece of paper, I have great respect for this man. Though reaching Benton’s blasphemous death grunt is near to impossible, Seth comes frighteningly close.
The music is in a fast pace at all times, but it is very diverse and technical, so it stays interesting for a good while. It does keep attracting attention though, so the album is not suitable as background lounge music.

In short, Ixaxaar is a great, fast paced death metal album with a blackish atmosphere. Original and interesting. For fans of innovative technical death metal.