It was at last year’s Party San festival, the morning after which Endstille had performed, when I asked my German neighbour ‘did you see Endstille last night?’ She replied with an incredulous ‘Yes!’, before following ‘...but I didn’t like it...there was no melody.’ I just had to laugh. Later in the day, I happened upon their bassist Cruor, querying him about what direction they were going in musically for the next album. Apparently they were aiming for an emphasis on atmosphere, like on 2005’s Navigator.
He most certainly wasn’t lying. ‘Verführer’ follows the incredible discordance of ‘Navigator’, whilst ditching the moderately polished production of 2007’s ‘Endstille’s Reich’, opting instead for a bassy murk out of which blast-beats fly for the most part in an unyielding manner. It really is a bloody racket at times, although the Burzumic tinges are present again; the band having dabbled in slower gloomier passages in the past with ‘Endstille (Leichnam)’, funnily enough from ‘Navigator’ too. Oh yes, and there’s another ‘Monotonous’, so in a way you could see it as a continuation of their pre-Regain days.
‘...Of Disorder’ is as good an introduction to the world of Endstille as any I suppose, an Iblis shriek commanding the Kiel war machine to launch, all guns blazing. Grey riffs abound, shifting between the dramatic and shredded simple chords which characterise the band’s distinct style.
What many won’t be expecting is ‘Depressive/Abstract/Banished/Despised’, which I’d go as far as suggesting is homage to early Gorgoroth. I say this because it reminded me so much of ‘Possessed (by Satan)’ that I had to go and check how the Infernus version sounded. Needless to say Endstille aren’t the kind of band to be possessed by a wood or rip-off their influences. Here the tempo is slowed down to at least a mid level pace and the riffs aren’t so bloody claustrophobic, meaning people will definitely appreciate the rhythm when it is played live; something these war-obsessed Neanderthals can’t fail to do, seeing as a video has been made for it.
‘Ursprung’ (German for ‘origin’, according to my dictionary), brings the pace down even further and is built upon a couple of those typical miserable monotone tunes Endstille have a penchant for writing. And then there’s ‘Monotonous’, which to be honest does get a bit monotonous after the fifth minute, and really, I don’t think ‘...III’ from 2004’s ‘Dominanz’ can be beaten.
The final three tracks all have that Burzumic quality mentioned earlier, whether it springs up in places (‘Suffer in Silence’), appears briefly (‘Dead’) or is inherent throughout (‘Endstille (Verführer)’). The title ‘Dead’ is so befitting; it’s blunt, wretched and crawls slothfully at rock bottom. The briefest of pauses sends the monster hurtling along into Wachtfels’s void of swirling grey – something he’s oh so good at constructing. The latter song is probably the finest self-titled work these swines have written. The mood and atmosphere are so deep and penetrating, making for an extremely powerful end to a very strong album.
It’s not for everyone – pure, disharmonious, noisy, crude and genuinely horrible. If pretty Black Metal is your forte, stay well away from Endstille.
http://www.endstille.com
http://www.myspace.com/endstilleband
http://www.regainrecords.com
