“Deadwater” Is Nokturna’s Anthem for Anyone Who’s Burned Their Old Life Down

Nokturna aren’t playing nice anymore. The once-jazz combo turned metal wrecking crew just cracked open their next era with “Deadwater,” a track that doesn’t just dabble in darkness, it drinks it straight and asks for another round. With Jamie McIntosh and Ethan Hippel ripping on guitars, Liam Tupling detonating the kit, and Leland Haas locking the whole thing in place, Nokturna have ditched the warm glow of improvisational jazz for something far more feral. Good. It suits them.

“Deadwater” is ugly, honest, and necessary. This song was born out of real-life collapse, the kind you don’t post on Instagram because it’s not aesthetic. It’s the sound of standing still too long in your own head, of realizing the life you built doesn’t fit anymore, and tearing it apart anyway. When they spit lines like, “Drown inside the deadwater” and “A newborn infant, spineless cold,” it’s not for dramatic flair. It’s because rebirth isn’t cute. It’s violent. And sometimes it starts at the bottom.

Sonically, Nokturna drags you under. Riffs slam like concrete blocks, drums hit like they’re trying to break bone, and melodic breaks bleed just long enough to remind you you’re still alive. Fans of Gojira, Slipknot, and early Metallica will feel at home here, but Nokturna aren’t copy-pasting anybody. Their sound swings between primal terror and razor-sharp introspection, and the tension is addictive.

What keeps “Deadwater” from rotting in its own misery is the flicker of defiance underneath. Nokturna knows damn well that isolation breaks people, but it also forges them. The track doesn’t promise a perfect comeback, just the right to crawl out of whatever hell you’re in and start again.

As their first major statement after Fractured Reality, “Deadwater” makes one thing brutally clear: Nokturna didn’t evolve to fit in; they evolved to take over. They’re building something heavier, deeper, and far more human than genre constraints will ever contain. Anyone who’s ever suffocated in silence or had to rebuild from wreckage will hear themselves in this track.

“Deadwater” explores isolation and rebirth. How personal was this writing process for the band?

Very, Deadwater came about at a very tumultuous time in our band. There was a lot of internal tension, rivalry, and, most of all, separation. It was probably the most separated we had been as people during that time. Deadwater explored a lot of the feelings we were feeling, and eventually, how we got through it.

You began as a jazz combo. How did that early foundation influence your approach to metal?

Well, in all honesty, we had no idea we’d end up doing metal in the beginning, but we all kind of felt like that genre fit better with the kind of art we wanted to create at the time that we switched over. We kind of see Jazz and Metal as two sides of the same coin, both having a heavy focus on musicianship, technicality, and overall, both genres are an amazing way to convey emotion and feeling through technically complex music. So it just felt right, and overall didn’t really change how we approached creating and playing music together. In all honesty, it just made us feel more comfortable.

The lyrics balance bleak imagery with hope. How do you find that line musically?

During our writing process, we often start with the instrumental and then write the lyrics over top. So most of the time, the lyrical topic is usually decided after the instrumental is complete. In this case, after writing and practicing, we had decided to name the track “Deadwater” and base it on isolation and rebirth, some key ideas that will be reappearing in future projects. Afterwards we revisited the instrumental to make some specific changes to reflect that, the verse sections are very dry and almost claustrophobic feeling, as that’s where a lot of the bleakness sits, and then the chorus/bridge/breakdown sections are much bigger, filled with reverb and a lot of space, to reflect the more hopeful feelings behind the lyrics in those sections.

Nokturna draws influence from giants like Metallica and Gojira. How do you carve out your unique identity within those shadows?

Ever since the beginning of the band, we’ve been massively influenced by bands we love, even starting out our metal era by doing mostly Metallica covers. But as we evolved into doing our own original stuff, we developed an ethos around paying respect and combining all of our influences into one big melting pot of ideas. All of the bands that we love are majorly important in our lives, and to us, it’s incredibly important to show that through our music, it’s all about looking at what came before and evolving upon it.

With Deadwater signaling a new chapter, what can fans expect from your next era?

There will be lots of big changes coming your way, the music’s getting heavier, the lyrics deeper and more storied, and the live shows getting crazier. We’re entering an era based on rich, emotional storytelling and brutal, heavy music. We cannot wait for everyone to hear what we’ve been working on.