Lost in translation. It can strike in the most unfortunate ways. Die Toten Kehren Wieder Mit Dem Wind translates into the language of Benny Hill and Carry On films as The Dead Return With The Wind. Very unfortunate for the serious stuff on offer here so perhaps I'll stick with Die Toten here.
This is a German example of the one-man black metal band, multi-instrumentalist Bradhenr having released four previous albums since 2004. This, his fifth, roughly translates as 'I Dream Of Darkness' and so despite knowing nothing of their previous output and my German not being up to the press release, I was expecting pretty much standard depressive black metal fare.
I love being wrong. Really.
The intro, Schopska Pensen is a short, religious sounding piece of chanting female voices which brings to mind Greece or perhaps Eastern Europe. It is a nice scene setter and when the first guitar on 'Morar: Ich träume von Finsternis' rattles in to life unaccompanied, soon joined by a second and some full bodied bass we are ushered onto the start of a journey that begins with some lovely, cold, classic black metal where Burzum's 'Filosofem' casts a long but not overbearing shadow. Melody comes in on the kind of treble, trilled notes that Ameseours and Alcest have used to paint a little beauty over the riff but here it is like glistening jet on the cold darkness.
The vocals deserve some special praise: here they howl in the background before seeming to creep a little closer, muttering and snarling to someone that you're fairly certain you can't see. Throughout the album Brahenr uses the voice so well, twisting into the mood rather than simply one style banged out again and again.
Once more the guitar scratches into life for 'Herbst I' (Autumn I) and begins a similar route into the cold classic black metal sound before the melancholy and hugely entrancing melody rises stronger and pushed higher up the mix. Two thirds of the way in the riff has joined it, the enveloping bass is throbbing like your temple will rupture and there are some rich spoken vocals stalking the ruins you seem to have come to. Almost as soon as you notice them and strain to catch them they fall away leaving a strained madman's cry and guitar ranting somewhere still just beyond sight.
Its a weird and eerie place this far in, but curiously beautiful too as simple picked notes lead the fade out.
'Ritual: Mittsommerende' is stumbled upon like a break in the overgrown stone and at first seems full of fascination and beauty until the mandman's strangled, twisted voice comes out of the shadows, closer this time. So of course you go closer, into the entrance to some church or cavern. And then realise you can't see the way you have come.
'Illum Opportet Crescere, Me Autem Minui' is where the darkness closes about you. Initially the soft sounds of strings, the eerie sound that Amber Asylum can conjure at their slowest wraps a slow lilting tune around you as you move further inside and then the vocals are there, just behind you. Howling, twisting as though to some torture invoked by the violin and cello before lapsing into whispers as the sound of keyboards, drums and a simple guitar pull you on.
'Herbst II: Wehmut' is the heart of this church. Sparse sounds ripple and fall as a single choral voice chants some ritual that might just be an echo of what happened centuries ago. It fades and slow insistent guitar riff and the snarl of a voice, the drip of cold 'Dunkelheit' keyboard notes warn you all is not well. Then the guitar falls apart, discordant, wrong, and broken it collapses and something else far heavier and evil rolls out of the shadows like a deluge. It is malevolent and dark and you run, blindly.
You lose it, or lose yourself and the drip, drip of keyboards, freezing water on stone and the pressing sound of horns lull you into the belief that you have escaped but the voice stalks closer again, searching. And finds you and the great wave of dark riff and howl crashing through again.
The aftermath of this attack is 'Herbst III: Novemberkathedralen': a bleak sound of broken things scraping against and cavernous chants reminding you that you are very much alone, somewhere in the caves beneath and the slow realisation that you are utterly lost. 'Chthonos' lets you wander alone down there before the riffs return and the cinematic ending, cyclopean subterranean abysses stretching out forever...
Yeah, I got lost in this album. Beautifully written and paced it deserved to be heard. Whether deliberate or not Bradhenr's influences stretch much further afield than many. Lest we forget, he current trend of what is called shoegaze black metal isn't an unexpected mutation for people with long memories. Whilst here we do get broad swathes of the kind of mournful but light guitar melody that you might get with Agalloch or Alcest, it is heavier and darker. Also on the whole this reminded me and made me look further back to when the Akhenaton/Daemonium albums 'Divine Symphonies' and 'Dark Opera Of The Eternal War Spirit' were being released in the early to mid 90s. Or the more bizarre Angizia on 'Die Kemenaten scharlachroter Lichter' putting a simple piano accompanyment to the Black Metal vocal style (seriously, dig out a copy and see). Add in Amber Asylum, Bathory, and when the tortured, anguished vocals break through we are ushered into a shadow haunted cathedral where the touch of first trilogy Elend has twisted the religious overtones into something macabre and beautiful. A twist of Goblin in the keboards crushing the air from you, too and you are almost there. This is not to say 'Ich...' is experimental in any way, in fact there is a real vein of the traditional here, just perhaps a tradition you don't here much of these days, and all superbly executed.
So if the idea of the tiniest bit of post rock, some neo classical and dark goth mixed in with your Burzum black metal sounds digestible, give it a chance.
I ended up captivated.
http://www.myspace.com/dietoten
