Review: Nyarlathotep
Nyarlathotep
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences - of electricity and psychology - and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare. Brooding, yet electric: the scent of buried secrets, roiling nightmares, the essence of the Crawling Chaos, the Father of Knives and Locusts, the Hunter in the Dark. This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone.
Initially, this is a little bitter fruit with a lot of acrid nuttiness on top. Once on though, it settles down gradually to a woodier smell (but not coniferous, perhaps oak or something similar) but still acrid. Like the smell of the blackened bits of wood left after a fire and doused with water. Burnt and acrid wood. There's a slight spicieness too, but it's not strong. The wafts of scent, although faded now, were pleasantly spiced hardwood, but up close it was still acrid and burnt.
Now, several hours later, the acrid note has faded away completely and I'm left with a slightly spiced powdery incense, quite faint.
Pleasant, but faint and slightly unremarkable. I'd've liked more of the spiced hardwood phase.
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences - of electricity and psychology - and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare. Brooding, yet electric: the scent of buried secrets, roiling nightmares, the essence of the Crawling Chaos, the Father of Knives and Locusts, the Hunter in the Dark. This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone.
Initially, this is a little bitter fruit with a lot of acrid nuttiness on top. Once on though, it settles down gradually to a woodier smell (but not coniferous, perhaps oak or something similar) but still acrid. Like the smell of the blackened bits of wood left after a fire and doused with water. Burnt and acrid wood. There's a slight spicieness too, but it's not strong. The wafts of scent, although faded now, were pleasantly spiced hardwood, but up close it was still acrid and burnt.
Now, several hours later, the acrid note has faded away completely and I'm left with a slightly spiced powdery incense, quite faint.
Pleasant, but faint and slightly unremarkable. I'd've liked more of the spiced hardwood phase.