When an album description uses four existing genres and one made up by the band, chances are you’re going to be listening to something that is a) not as described (happens depressingly often when you review as many albums as I do), b) a god-awful mess, c) something genuinely new and interesting, or d) some unholy combination of the above. Now, “[an] epic and cinematic mix of post, post black, black and folk metal” hits a lot of my buttons, and I can’t pretend I’m not intrigued by the idea of “Black Forest Metal”, so here goes.
The real trouble with Jenseits is where exactly to start. Everything about this EP is dense, complicated and bordering on impenetrable: from the music that’s almost equal parts dark, twisting folk metal and guttural post-black, to the lyrics that look and read more like a novella than lyrics, to the constantly shifting vocal styles. Then there’s the fact that it’s actually a single 39-minute track, divided into four chapters, and the other – rather singular – fact that this is very much a folk metal project (albeit a significantly blackened one) that isn’t actually about anything even vaguely to do with folklore. Finding a way into this album has been a bit like being presented with an apparently ordinary box, with the promise that it contains multitudes, if only you can get in. Peeling back the many layers has, at times, felt like pressing each corner of a puzzle box in turn, waving magnets over it, and possibly even invoking the dark arts, in the hope that it will eventually spring open and reveal its secrets. In that respect, the label of “Black Forest Metal” is possibly an apt one, because finding the right path through Jenseits is much like navigating dark, sprawling forests (like the Black Forest itself), not to mention the dense, dark nature of a lot of German folklore.
One thing I’m going to stress at this point is that while Jenseits is absolutely folk metal, I mean that purely in the musical sense – the lyrics (in German) are both a fairly embittered statement about dystopian aspects of the world (including, specifically, social media), but also aspiring to better things despite the world around us – there’s a sort of aspirational dystopian vibe going on here, as it were. The music around the lyrics is darkly melodic, with a sinister edge that recalls the nastier, more menacing end of actual folklore (if you’ve never read the original stories that Hans Christian Andersen adapted, you’re in for a shock, to say the least – some of them are downright nasty), while also having enough distortion and harsh vocals to justify the invocation of black metal in the description. In short, there’s no elves, maidens, or charming odes to the delights of beer to be found here.
What there is to be found is one, single, epic track divided into four chapters: Freiheit (Freedom), Dualität (Duality), Reflexionen (Reflections), and Katharsis (Catharsis). They’re all well named, and by the end of Catharsis, it does indeed feel like Finsterforst have taken you on a journey, possibly on multiple levels. I can’t take you on that journey in a review (you’ll just have to entrust yourself to Finsterforst for that experience), but I can provide you with a sort of traveller’s guide:
And just like that, I find myself in another week, another episode of “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that”. The that being some very powerful, almost chant-like clean, acapella vocals (with just a hint of a loose-jawed yodel) that hit you right out of the gate when you press play on Jenseits. With a choir of harmonies, no less. It’s very well done, and effective at setting the mood for the rest of the EP, but it’s a very intense opening. Finsterforst haven’t just opened their EP strongly, they’ve done so – quite literally – with their whole chests. This remarkably pretty bellowing goes on longer than you might expect, so it’s just as well it’s as good as it is.
Then, just past the minute mark, the big voice and the sinuously woven harmonies combust into a crashing, seething soundscape with no small amount of hook and groove propelling it forward. There’s some squealing, vaguely power metal guitars, slightly menacing folk vibes, the occasional wisp of an accordion, and raspy, guttural vocals that recall both black metal and the harsher, more brutal end of classic folk metal. It sounds like some sort of mash-up between Orphaned Land, Sepultura and the more vicious end of Turisas, and whatever you may think about that description (as with so much of what I review, I suspect responses to this will be polarised), it’s certainly different. An actual original take on folk metal no less, however unlikely that sounds in this day and age. Well, mostly original. It still conjures up images of burly men waving their swords and bellowing at the enemy from a handy promontory, so it’s not entirely non-traditional folk metal.
From there things only get darker and murkier with Dualität, which despite initially sounding much the same as Frieheit, soon settles into a downshifted tempo where everything has been taken down a few notches, which almost creates the illusion of distance. Like you’re suddenly listening to Jenseits through glass or something. The hooks and grooves that dragged you along for the ride thus far are gone, and in its place is a far off, very nearly doomy, sinisterly rushing river of sound that gives you just enough musical chinks of light to keep you going. There’s also a dudek used to spectacularly menacing effect towards the end, before lapsing into a sparse, delicate melody that drops you right in the middle of Reflexionen.
Reflexionen, continues in this vein, acting like a break in the storm, and reminding me forcibly of Orphaned Land’s Mabool, where there’s a literal calm after the storm in the suitably epic telling of the biblical flood story. Things slowly get more folky as it progresses, giving the accordion and acoustic guitar a chance to shine before we get hurled back into the maelstrom.
The maelstrom in question being Katharsis, which is as distinct as the three chapters that have gone before it, but in a different way. It’s a whirling morass of all the disparate elements that made Freiheit, Dualität and Reflexionen sound so much like discrete chapters of something bigger, combined with the sort of vocal blood-letting that makes it sound genuinely cathartic. There are softer, hookier passages that lean more towards uplifting, and dark, dense passages that take you back into the stifling doom of Dualität, and the overall effect is stunning. Something of a bruising experience, but stunning nonetheless.
And then, in the last few minutes, those vocals from the very beginning are back, straining through the whirlwind of sound, before all the many and varied elements that make up this last track suddenly start falling away. More and more fades out across a harsh, stuttering diminuendo as the tortured final notes sprawl and screech out into the distance, leaving only a desperately faint, soft melody to drift off into eventual silence. I don’t know if it was intentional, but this gradual thinning out, separating into harsh and softer elements before the eventual, inevitable silence, is particularly effective if you’ve on repeat, because just as you finally reach the silence, Those Vocals come out of it and it all begins again. Back to the same place, but coming at it from a very different angle.
So there you have it, the traveller’s guide to Jenseits, as far as I can describe the experience that is this EP. I think part of the reason I struggled to find a way into this album is that I kept trying to listen to it while doing other things, and it’s not that sort of EP. It’s so complex and multi-layered that the whole only really makes sense if you give it your undivided attention, which by the way, I thoroughly recommend doing.
(9/10 Ellie)
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