Mediaeval Metal is something that Germany seems to specialise in. Looking at the artwork on this 64 minute album with the rider in the stormy night and the overbearing castle in the background, it was suggestive that something epic was on the cards.
And so it is. Like a work of Classical music, this is a musical vision. In fact much of the first section is Classical with its rich and heavy (in the ponderous, rather than style of Metal music sense) orchestration. The problem for me is that it’s so serious and leaden-heavy that it’s like being weighed down by a brick. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect jollity which is just as well because I just wasn’t going to find it. What should have been folksy levity on “Valley under Two Suns” was delivered in tones of deadly earnest. If there’s passion in the creation, it doesn’t show. As a typical example “Belpareire” plods on in a pedestrian fashion with a lumpen beat and uninspiring vocals. As we moved from one dark slab to the next, I didn’t find that I had any context. I didn’t know what “Munsalvaesch” is all about. It does have moments of delicacy and melancholy, and I have no criticism of the music itself other than it is too leaden and depressive for no apparent reason. One thing I found profoundly irritating was the periodic tendency to several seconds of silence. Was this to make the listener reflect? But about what? “The Journey” was quite pleasant and I liked the delicate acoustic passage at the end of the final track “Sheafs of Sparks” but as an overall listening experience, this left me numb rather than inspired.
Unlike Enid’s 2000 album “Abschiedsreigen”, there’s no claim about this being a concept album. It might have been better if it had been. I could only to a small extent feel the atmospheric nature of “Munsalvaesche” and I couldn’t find any continuity in it at all.
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Andrew Doherty
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