This is a German band singing in their native tongue, labelled as black thrash, but to my ears its more melodic death metal. The production is powerful and vibrant, I’d give a comparable to the late 90’s and the Gothenburg sound. A particular highlight is ‘Der Reaper’ which is pounding and memorable.
‘Russisch Roulette’ feels a little “Orgasmatron” at its initial start. The remainder is akin to late 90’s Gorefest, their “Chapter 13” period. At mid pace, the drums and bass have lots of power, with a gnarly vocal waking you up from whatever state you started in. Then the track simmers down and actually favours some melodic atmosphere.
‘Sonne’ varies the time signatures, the basic stance is mid paced, there’s some modern breakdowns included. The sense of melody is captured once again with a few diminished chords added to keep your ears on point and that little uneasy. After nearly 5 mins, the song changes, it’s an instrumental until then. The remainder of the journey to 8 minutes is more rabid death/thrash possessing those grooves that the band have produced on former tracks. What I will say about this, its gets going, changes, seems too simple, then bam, the character changes; you are waiting for this, the anticipation is a nice touch of the arrangement.
‘Abendrot’ is a lot more upbeat, straight ahead modern-ish metal, the solo that comes out of this track is quite peppery and bright. ‘Tanz des Todes’ once again delves into their sphere is precise melodic death metal, with a good balance of aggression and the memorable aspects, the dynamics work in this tracks favour, even where in other tracks a light industrial element is present, especially on ‘Endzeit’.
Overall, after hearing Terrorstahl for the first time, there are some real positive aspects, my limitation is the language barrier, but barring that, there’s plenty of bigger names whom have made worse albums than this. The album flows with a balance of ebb and flow, light and shade, it works, it’s enjoyable.
(8/10 Paul Maddison)
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