Madness with its frightening but also liberating aspects has been a topic that has fascinated metal musicians from the genre’s very beginnings resulting in various approaches. While some openly professed to being paranoid, others hesitantly wondered whether they should answer madness’ call, still others actively went in search for mental disturbances, exploring them as a state of mind and embracing what they brought.
Krater, a long-standing black metal band from Germany founded in 2003 and since then constantly active, have released the latest madness-themed piece of music and thus continued a decades-old tradition. Phrenesis, the band’s fifth full-length album, following Venenare (2019) which we also reviewed here, explores “the darkest corners of the human psyche” and gives a sonic representation of the turbulent and uncontrollable descent into madness.
The majority of Phrenesis’ seven tracks sound pretty convincing and so they should. After two decades with a rather stable line-up, the band have had enough time to master their chosen instruments, to acquaint themselves with each other and to develop and refine their sound.
Album opener Hopesmoker – Celestial Apex attests to the fact that the time that the band have spent together has not been wasted, but has been constructively used to master the black metal sound template. Possibly the best track on the album, Hopesmoker will immediately grab your attention with its fury, audible in the relentless drumming, the memorable guitar riffs and the deep, throaty vocals.
Things continue in a similarly brutal fashion with Schattengeister. Some of the album’s song titles and lyrics are English and some in German. Not that you can understand much of what is being sung. But I do like the fact that the band writes lyrics in their mother tongue and I find that the tracks with German lyrics have an extra edge to them.
Slightly different from their last album, the band seem to have made an effort to think outside the box and have included tunes and that go beyond the scope of your usual black metal album. Apart from melancholic melodies and introspective lyrics, this includes in track number six Once – Into the endless Void clean vocals and a bit of goth rock, a very good addition if you ask me.
There is still, however, some room for improvement, as some songs, like for example Withered Hands and Enlightenment’s Grieving do not share the cohesiveness of the album’s other tracks and are thus somewhat less persuading. Also, title track and album closer Phrenesis, the albums longest piece of music, includes quite a lot – dashes of punk and death metal alongside black metal. Maybe here less would have been more. I really liked the beginning and the end, but am not so sure about the middle part.
Altogether a lot more to like than to dislike and a lot that will pique the interest of fellow black metal fans.
(7/10 Slavica)
Leave a Reply