Not a band I’m overly familiar with, but as this ‘seastorming extreme metal ‘ German band prepare to record and release their fourth album, they also decide to re-release this their second album from back in 2011. I always find the timings on such re-releases curious but I guess it builds a little publicity and expectation which is all good.
If you haven’t guessed from the name (and incidentally I suspect that all the odd spellings of Cthulhu are down to copyright issues. Very elder god…), this bunch are very much of the Lovecraft inspired variety, playing in a fairly orthodox mid paced black metal style.
I guess the problem is that being a bit of a mythos nut I tend to be very hard to please and have preconceived ideas about what sounds work with it so I tried to leave my mythos head at the door and instead just listen to the music. And Ctulu have a very competent black metal sound and style. Opener (of the ways) ‘Arckanum Der Triefen’ has a lovely fluid style and a little of a Sargeist edge to the melody, even. Mid paced, direct and pretty good. There is good use of ominous backing vocals too on the album, lots of nice ideas and very tight playing; in fact the kind of thing you’d hope to hear on a sophomore album – a display of ideas, a step or three in a distinct personal direction, that kind of thing. ‘Nachtwind’ for example slows things a little and for the better, and weaves a nice atmosphere too. ‘Mondsucht’ the actual album closer, has the best atmospheric intro but after that dives back into the relentless mid paced riffing that the band rely on and it’s that riffing which, while good, becomes a little predictable over the whole album and, I know I left the Lovecraft fan hat by the door but whilst stormy and dark it doesn’t really howl “Phtagn! ” to me. But it is good music, especially for that tricky second album. Its good a fair production on it, too; clear if maybe a little standard where bringing it three backing vocals in particular might have been nice. Nicely packaged too.
If you’re a fan and missed this the first time round then here it is with an actually genuinely interesting acoustic version of ‘Nachtwind’ which weirdly shows a not inappropriate folky/sea shanty feel to the band and some lovely musicality. Probably my favourite track and makes me wonder if they have since this album navigated anywhere closer to waters between The Vision Bleak and early Ahab. Probably not though.
The thing is overall I’m much more interested in where the band is at musically now, so I guess this is a stop-gap for me. Interesting but not being a Ctulu completeist, a bit of a place marker.
(6.5/10 Gizmo)
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