Equilibrium
Erdentempel
Nuclear Blast
2014
Returning to the scene after 4 years with a brand new album and prior to its release seeing 2 of your founding members, Andreas Völkl (guitar) and Sandra Van Eldik (bass) leave the group… ain’t the best omen for any band, according to me. They were both replaced, after a while, by the guitarist Dom R. Crey (Wolfchant, Nothgard) & bassist Jen Majura (Knorkator). Anyhow, the album was ready to hit the stores and so it did.
What we get on “Erdentempel” is a fairly good, straightforward, extreme, death/black metal album with utter folk melodies and fine atmospheric passages. Not something which the band’s fans weren’t expecting. The production values are also very high, with the band’s songwriter, guitarist & keyboardist René Berthiaume delivering the goods. Great sound indeed… probably the best the band had to date.
What holds the band back, imo, is the use of German language. Even though this album features their first track in English, “The Unknown Episode”, still it is not enough. Of course, the German language in some cases works fine but since it’s not a “lyrical language” at all, it doesn’t offer anything to a band’s music. Then again it’s OK for the brutal vocals. Anyhow, the band’s followers will fancy “Erdentempel”, cuz it has some nice tracks… yet, I do not see how they can manage to make it big – since this is their 4th full-length album.
What we get on “Erdentempel” is a fairly good, straightforward, extreme, death/black metal album with utter folk melodies and fine atmospheric passages. Not something which the band’s fans weren’t expecting. The production values are also very high, with the band’s songwriter, guitarist & keyboardist René Berthiaume delivering the goods. Great sound indeed… probably the best the band had to date.
What holds the band back, imo, is the use of German language. Even though this album features their first track in English, “The Unknown Episode”, still it is not enough. Of course, the German language in some cases works fine but since it’s not a “lyrical language” at all, it doesn’t offer anything to a band’s music. Then again it’s OK for the brutal vocals. Anyhow, the band’s followers will fancy “Erdentempel”, cuz it has some nice tracks… yet, I do not see how they can manage to make it big – since this is their 4th full-length album.