Saltatio Mortis are rather well described in an excellent review of their recent live album by Gizmo elsewhere on Ave Noctum so really it would save a lot of time and effort if you could all read that review first then this one.
http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/03/saltatio-mortis-manufactum-iii-live-auf-dem-macht-napalm
Done It?
Great – thanks for that (Cop-out? Moi? Perish the thought…)
So now you all know we are dealing with Melodic Metal + pipes and Hurdy Gurdy. This is NOT Folk Metal. It seemed unfair to put Giz through another Saltatio Mortis release in the same year (my claims that he was now an “expert on the band” fell on deaf ears…probably caused by shrieking bagpipes…get well soon mate…) so I thought I’d have a bash at this, their new one. I did Lordi as my Ave Noctum initiation after all…and quite by coincidence we start “Das Schwarze Einmaleins” with what must be Germany’s 2013 Eurovision entry! What? It wasn’t? I’m sure I heard it last May. Well it’s a weird track to open the album with then, I actually thought it was a joke to start with but it turned into a four minute song! It’s wet, cheesy, falsely quirky and too catchy – It’s utterly Eurovision! Oh dear, that’s not a good start…
Things don’t improve with the second track that appears to be loosely based around the German National Anthem. As the album goes on (and on) the blueprint seems to be; Acoustic or pipes intro, a blast of main riff, quieten it down for the verse (bridge optional), then an overly catchy chorus with the hurdy gurdy or pipes in the background. Most of the album follows this pattern, which is rather disappointing for a band with so many obviously talented musicians at their disposal. It all just gets a bit predictable. The band’s sound ranges from Rammstein, through a kind of watered down Eluveitie (thanks to the Hurdy Gurdy – though I’d rather hear Anna Murphy any day!) to a Bonfire/Axxis style Melodic Metal, but always with those bloody overly catchy choruses. It’s all very well, but Saltatio Mortis are writing catchy choruses that only Germans can sing along to! I know that makes me sound incredibly arrogant and ‘English’, but this is really limiting the band, and on the one track with some English lyrics in it, ‘My Bonnie Mary’, the vocalist does a really good job too! If Saltatio Mortis are happy just being popular in Germany then this is absolutely fine (they are a Charting band over there so I guess stick with it!), and every nationality has every right to sing in their native tongue, but to a non-German ear the ballads on here really seem to suffer for it. Doro only just pulled it off on the excellent ‘Fur Immer’, but all that happens on this release is far too many consonants and “sch” sounds being crammed in where drawn out vowels are needed. I would say the same if English lyrics were just as overpowering.
I’m up for most things, everything deserves a chance, and all the ingredients are here, but they just seem so poorly executed. That’s down to the song-writing really. Any vaguely rousing, budding Metal anthem is quashed after the intro by an apparent obsession for ‘catchiness’ and it really annoyed the crap out of me in the end. The good news for any long-term fans sadistic enough to still be reading this is that I felt this way when I heard their 2nd and 3rd albums ten years ago, so nothing has changed there…mores the pity. Sorry, Saltatio Mortis have failed to impress me either, who the hell are we going to give the review to next time??
(4/10 Andy Barker)
http://www.saltatio-mortis.com
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