I have been rather partial to the previous two Equilibrium albums finding that the Germans go that little bit further creating music encompassing the folkloric metal plateau inhabited by a plethora of clans all seemingly trying to outdo each other. Certainly last album ‘Sagas’ was a wildly inventive ride and if anything perhaps tried to fit a bit too much into its massive 80 minute running time. It has been described as around the world in 100 riffs and that’s pretty much what it did as it voyaged off to distant shores like a Jules Verne novel adventuring along the way and packing in an almost overwhelming amount of tales within its chapters.
This leads onto new album Rekreatur, which sees the group rekreated with both a new drummer and vocalist entering the fold in February this year. What caused the departure of the former players is not really explained but the band had pulled out of a festival at the last second saying they were restructuring. This is not too noticeable as you go into the new album, it is a bit shorter 62 minutes but it still has one hell of a lot going on in it. Again with everything in its native tongue we are gently eased into ‘In Heiligen Hallen,’ which quickly builds into a filmic and epic mindset, pompous, determined and brash. The new rasper Robert "Robse" Dahn from Vrankenvorde (nope me neither) quickly stamps his authority on things in hoary fashion and the music romps along with a triumphant swagger running through it. The easiest thing is probably just to sit back and go with the flow, again it’s akin to a bit of a wild magic carpet ride. Verbrannte Erde (Scorched Earth) sees vocals go into gruff troll overdrive with a militaristic two-step from the now slower paced instrumental section; it’s kind of a march to victory although the song before it states that such things are everlasting anyway. Listen out for the part where in the blockbuster movie the hero gets the girl, it’s all going down in this. We carry on up the Amazon with ‘Die Affeninsel’ (The Monkey Island) chattering away and dashing off on a manic mission. Luckily for our intrepid musical explorers it has more in common with Peter Jackson’s King Kong than the Italian Cannibal gut-munchers and it seems like they survive to gallop off to other kingdoms.
Things are kept chugging along nicely and although hinted at the annoying twee Celtic vibes never come near the forefront as we battle our way through things. ‘Aus Ferner Zeit’ (From Time, Faraway) goes like the veritable clappers and is the stuff of epics even throwing a dog bark into the mix. Whoever was responsible for penning metal staples such as ‘Ride Like The Wind’ the translation is lost in a breezy old ‘Fahrtwind’ and we guffawed too at that one. If the band were not into overkill the slow stomping almost gnarly ballad etched ‘Wenn Erdreich Bricht’ (When Soil Breaks) would have been a good ending to the album. I like this one and it has a neat melody and is different in execution from the rest of the album. However the group are not done with us yet and the rather pointless ‘Kurzes Epos’ (Short Epic) a 13 minute instrumental is perhaps a joke too far. Oh and of course if you still want more apparently there is a bonus 5 track acoustic CD with the digipack. For me though the first 50 minutes is plenty to keep me going until the band make their debut UK appearance at September’s Heidenfest.
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