Artist: Black Messiah
Title: The Final Journey
Type: Album
Label: AFM

Germany’s Black Messiah have been going since the late nineties although the bulk of their five releases have been since 2005. They sing often but not exclusively in their native tongue and play folk inflected black/viking metal with various historical and mythological themes. They also do a, nice line in album covers. Any good?

‘Windloni’ is certainly a nice opening attack. Once the intro bit is out if the way it’s a good, catchy bit of driving melodic Viking metal with the folk element entirely carried by the melody rather than choice of instrumentation. The sort of rousing number that would buoy up any Paganfest set. I also had high hopes of the following track ‘Der Ring Mit Dem Kreuz’ with the initial fiddle and riff flurry, but the jig it lurches into suddenly makes my soul sink back into familiar ground. It just doesn’t work for me and seems to have little if anything to do with the rest of the song which would be a nicely dramatic fiddle led ride if it wasn’t for that jig always being just around the corner. Great for drunken gigs, not for me just listening to it I’m afraid.

Overall it’s a reasonable production sound here, the guitars nice and sharp and the choral keys used to good effect but there is a dead sound to the drums which can cut the floor from the band at times. It’s not fatal and I suspect many could ignore it but particularly on ‘To Become A Man’ it niggles me.
Musically they cover a few bases quite neatly; a bit of a lighter Amon Amarth here, some Eluveitie there, the kind of dramatic sweep that Moonsorrow touch on in their shorter songs and they do it well with no lacking of skill or fluidity. But this kind of music needs to immerse the listener and the songs themselves too often leave me on the outside, which is a shame.

Bundled together the last four tracks have the overarching title of the ‘Naglfar Saga,’ Black Messiah being a band who favour the epic and the narrative approach to music which is always nice to see in this genre. Heralded by a spoken word and violin intro explaining Hel and Helheim to the uninitiated, it leads into some clean baritone vocals before dropping into more black vocal territory. There’s a nice swing to the music and the clean vocals (including some female ones) but it steadfastly refuses to engage me I’m afraid. It’s well played and constructed, like the whole album is, but the songs just never seem to step up and shake me by the throat. Theres something to the formula that just slides away from me and fails to snag me like, say, Einherjer’s last did. Some crescendo not reached or some emotion falling away just before it touches me.

I’m sure if you are a viking metal fan this is worth checking out as there is not one thing wrong here, just nothing that transports me to the world the band inhabit. OK, but I’ll pass I’m afraid. Sorry.

(6/10 Gizmo)

http://www.myspace.com/blackmessiah2