Alright, cool, it’s been a year – I can write another post! So yeah, my blogs have been suffering heavily due to Facebook and a general lack of free time. Instead of album reviews, I’ve posted links to a number of videos on Facebook in lieu of writing here. This is much quicker, and doesn’t require as much writing. Anyway, you can check out my links on Facebook, but I haven’t completely abandoned hope or lost interest here.
Oomph! - Monster
I haven’t been overly-impressed with Oomph!’s latest stuff. GlaubeLiebeTod was their weakest in a while, Delikatessen was just a best of, and even Augen Auf, save for the title track, wasn’t horribly exciting. With their latest album, Monster, which continues the all-German-all-the-time trend started with Augen Auf, they have returned to their roots a little. Most of the songs are really enjoyable, in the vein of something from Ego or Plastik. The electronics are a little more subdued, the guitars shine through, Dero’s singing his heart out… a solid listen beginning to end. The slower “Auf Kurs” is a nice repreive between the predominantly hard-rocking tracks, and “Labyrinth” is simply fucking awesome! The album is maybe not quite as creepy and disturbing as parts of Unrein, but it comes a bit closer. I don’t have much more to say, Oomph!’s weaker albums aren’t that bad, really, and this is certainly one of the better ones. If your exposure to German hard rock (Neue Deutche Härte) is limited to Rammstein, please find some Oomph! right now.
Wow, one a week… hah! So, it’s been some months now since I gave this any attention. I do think about writing reviews for most everything I listen to, I just don’t have time to do posts like I want to (with links and youtube vids and such). So, I’ll just have to add that stuff in later or something.
Anyway, today I’m going to write a little bit about an album my sister got while she was in Lithuania this past summer. Before she left, I didn’t really have much music from Lithuania, but I knew of Altorių Šešėliai and Žalvarinis. I had one album from the former — which is rather heavy, almost too much for my tastes — and had heard a few samples from the latter. I figured there was probably a bigger metal scene than I really knew about, or at least a growing one. I mentioned a few bands from the Baltic states if she had time to hit a music shop… Metsatöll from Estonia and Skyforger from Latvia, plus the aforementioned Lithuanian bands.
Upon her return, she had all sorts of gifts… textiles, amber, kitchen utensils, recipies for cold beet soup, pictures, stories, and so on. She didn’t have any music, though… which was fine, she went there to teach English, after all, not to support my eclectic music habit! However, for my birthday, she did surprise me with a couple CDs she had picked up… thanks for holding off, Chris, I really was surprised. She got me Folk ‘n’ Rock from Žalvarinis and Gyvybės Medis from Obtest.
Obtest - Gyvybės Medis
I’ll focus on the latter here. I had actually downloaded Gyvybės Medis at some point, but hadn’t really given it a good listen. First, as much as I hate translating band names and album names, I will mention that “Gyvybės Medis” means tree of life, which could be cognate to Yggdrasil… the Norse tree of life. The Lithuanian Wikipedia article seems to relate it more to the Kabbalah Tree of Life, but it could just be a link error, as other languages link to the Tree of Life disambiguation page or even the Biblical Tree of Life. That could suggest a folk or even Viking tint to the music, but I don’t think I would classify it as such. It’s not even remotely Viking, does have a very slight folk feel in parts, but it’s mostly heavy metal with a big dose of punk. That would seem to describe power metal, but this doesn’t sound powerish or cheesy… not that I understand a word of it. Most places classify it as pagan metal or black metal, which in my experience is much folkier, plus the vocals are all clean. I’m sure the lyrics are about old traditions and such (note the tree of life connection), and perhaps it is reminicent of some of Glittertind‘s punk tracks, but I wouldn’t otherwise compare Obtest and Glittertind. In my first ten listens or so (left it in the car CD player for a couple weeks), I was thinking it reminded me most of Stam1na and The Transplants (the track Vedlys in particular, but I’m still not convinced The Transplants is the band I’m thinking of).
Overall, the album starts very strong, the first five tracks are all quite nice, and Ažuolas at #6 is outstanding, probably my top pick. It closes with a couple slightly weaker tracks with the excellent and most punk-sounding track in between at #8 – Tai Ne Pabaiga. This is definitely a strong album, and grows on me a little each time I listen to it. If you like Stam1na or Glittertind, I think you would find something you’ll like here. If you like folk metal, you will probably like it, just know it’s not incredibly folked up. If you really are only interested in pagan black metal, I can’t say this would be a perfect fit… perhaps if you understand Lithuanian, or if you don’t absolutely have to have blackened vocals or a depressive atmosphere. In other words, give it a try!
YouTube love:
- Vedlys
- Ažuolas (live, not the best quality)
- Sakalo Vaikai
So, I’m not sure if I should start with some old favorites first or what, so I’ve just decided to go with what I’m listening to right now. Typically, I “acquire” some music and put in my foobar retagging playlist. It stays there while I listen to it a few times and decide I like it, make sure there are no crazy glitches from encoding, etc. Currently, my main playlist has 2,308 songs, and my retagging list has 867! I’m a little behind in evaluations, but some of that in retagging is well over a year old and I never got into it… I should just dump it.
Eichenschild - Mondscheinlegenden
Now I find myself listening to something for evaluation. Of course, the title kills the suspense, I’m listening to the debut from German band Eichenschild, a nice folk rock album from 2000 called Mondscheinlegenden. It’s definitely not folk metal, which is probably why it has lingered so long in my eval list. After just a couple prior listens, I find that I remember a few of the tracks, which is always good. I’d call this a mix between Schelmish and Morgenstern, if that helps at all. Several times I’ve thought this sounds very much like something from Morgenstern’s Feuertaufe, but with more energy, and less… I don’t know… camp? Morgenstern makes me feel like a dork, like I should be wearing chain mail and being a flaming medieval reenacter, or a LARP dweeb throwing verbal lightning bolts and what not.
Maybe it’s the production on the disc. It’s not the greatest, and like Feuertaufe, it sounds a little hollow and tinny. But, that’s not all bad, it makes it feel a little more authentic. Certainly In Extremo‘s later and overly-polished efforts don’t feel like authentic anything. At any rate, Mondscheinlegenden is a keeper. If you like slightly more traditional sounding folk, but are ok with some modern elements, you’ll probably enjoy this. Standout tracks right now are “Hexennacht”, “Letzter Gesang” and “Thorin von Eichenschild”. Best of all, this one’s a freebie, download it from their website and enjoy.
Hallo! Wilkommen bei meine musik blog.
And that’s about all the German you’ll get other than band / album / track names. I figure my family and friends don’t really like the same kind of music that I do, so this is where I will put up all my music reviews. I used to do this in a yearly überpost on my pre-Wordpress blog, but that was time consuming, and due to server problems I didn’t do it last year (2007). I have too much accumulated by now, one post would be ridiculous.
Not sure how often I will review albums here, but hopefully once a week or more. I certainly don’t write posts on my other blog that often, so we’ll see. If you are interested, you can check out my musical tastes on my About page. At any rate, I hope these reviews are helpful if anyone is looking to purchase some quality music and support German (Scandinavian, Russian, Baltic, etc.) music so that more places start offering it for sale in the States.
