Artist: Die Apokalyptischen Reiter
Title: Moral & Wahnsinn
Type: Album
Label: Nuclear Blast
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter is a band that has changed massively from their early days, not just with various guitarists, but also in style. I’ll happily admit to anyone who asks, their early work left me cold, being black metal screams tempered with some folk styling, so for many years I didn’t give them a listen. All this was changed by their fantastic 2009 performance at Bloodstock Open Air, where their sheer infectious joy as well as musicianship blew me away, and had me searching out their CDs, as well as trekking all the way to Edinburgh to see them in 2010 when I couldn’t make their London show. Those shows were in support of their fantastic ‘Licht’ album, and ‘Moral & Wahnsinn’, (Morality and Insanity) is their 2011 follow up.
Dyed in the wool fans of the band’s early work will doubtless be disappointed by the new CD, moving even further away from their early works, featuring Fuchs’ vocals at their cleanest, and encompassing a host of non metal influences. ‘Die Boten’ has a positively Hispanic feel, whilst tribal drums open ‘Gib dich hin’ before the guitars pile in. This is even further enhanced by the mariachi horns of ‘Dir gehort nichts’ accompanying a dominant piano during the stripped back verses. All sacrilege to the hardcore metaller, but it’s infectiously composed, and the band’s enthusiasm for their material shines throughout.
In ‘Dr. Pest’, a track named for the band’s gimp suited and whip wielding keyboard player, the band sounds at their most stereotypically Teutonic. Kicking off with a dark brooding intro melting into almost ballad like choruses, but with an undertone of a militaristic marching beat to the drums, it builds into the operatic crescendos of the chorus, a positively bombastic combination of strings and choral backing, played over a goose stepping guitar progression. Title track ‘Moral & Wahnsinn’ starts out with the hardest metal guitar riffs of the album before a funky beat breaks through, a light counterpoint to Fuchs’ growlingly spoken lyrics.
Eclectic is a word that is overused, especially when describing acts like Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, but it is so appropriate, that even if I ate a thesaurus I couldn’t find a better one. From flamenco, to opera, to traditional metal, and even a nod to their black roots in the guitar work and shouted vocals of ‘Erwache’, the band refuse to be restricted to one genre, playing what they want, and laying it out for the public to take it or leave it. Me, I’m a convert to the band, and would encourage anyone to buy this album and get to their shows. Even when they played to a scant 200 last time I saw them, the band played like they were headlining a stadium, bringing fireworks, both metaphysical and real, waving the flag, and displaying an impossible to fake enthusiasm. This shines through in their music, so don’t worry that it’s sung in German, just enjoy.
http://www.reitermania.de
