This German trio have quite the work ethic, releasing their eighth album here since the first ‘Glorification Of Pain’ back in 2009. Although I only discovered them relatively recently, tackling just three of their releases, it’s obvious that they are not the easiest band to categorise as they stylistically shapeshift and reinvent themselves like a pop diva changes costumes over an arena show. Of-course there are common tropes that have had them united as a dark metal act and with this album a death sludge band but absolutely nothing should be taken for granted here. One thing that is quickly noticeable is that they have ramped up the number of songs on Der Alte (The Olde One) and cut the fat from them cramming 13 tracks into a running time of just over 37-minutes.
The first thing to do is throw track titles into a translation engine and get the results which read like a dystopian science fiction novel. We have ‘Command From The Future,’ Saturn Era Xenomorph,’ Longing For Infinity’ and ‘Evil Star Mother’ to name a few. It kind of sounds like musically we could have some strange hybrid on this evidence bridging a gap between Hawkwind and Samael. Interesting though that would be it’s not the case here. Opener ‘Asbach’ is an acerbic punky grinder that is blatted out with huge emphasis on the brutal drumming, strangulating riffs and harsh indignant vocals. Crikey they don’t sound happy but have evidently gone down the abrasive route this time round. ‘Höhle Hölle’ is slower and adds some gothic guitar melodics to give things a bit more atmosphere but the heft of the drum blows and hellacious screams in their Teutonic spat out discourse are not tempered in the slightest. This is a ‘Cave Hole’ apparently and one can see our heroes being attacked by mutants and mowing them down with laser beams. Doom pervades at times such as on ‘Kommando aus der Zukunft’ but there’s still a gnarly and grime encrusted distemper about it all which sets the listener on edge and warns them off complacency.
One band that has been mentioned by myself as a comparison in the past is the mighty Godflesh and this is true here as the assault continues taking on an industrialised rumbling fervour. There are plenty of moments that bring them to mind along with the tribal thwack of Amebix on songs such as ‘Urecho’. This is suitably dystopian sounding and adds post-punk to the many genre influences making it all particularly appealing for someone who cut their teeth on such artists. They also give us the somewhat lighter side of the same coin later on the jangling guitar riposte that is ‘Sehnsucht nach Unendlichkeit,’ channelling artistes such as Jesu and Loop. It would be absolutely no surprise to see some forthcoming remixes courtesy of Justin Broadrick somewhere on the group’s horizon. It’s mainly all clamouring urgency here though and probably one of the best examples is the militant thud of the short and sharp ‘Hektor’ which has an incendiary impact before the comparative dub heaviness of the title track.
Plenty going on here and with the accessible running time it’s an album to draw you back for repeated spins. Firing a warning shot across the bows in a world where science-fiction is rapidly turning into science-fact Valborg have probably never been more relevant and the anger displayed here, more valid.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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