NDE * Krieg Blut Ehre Asche (cd 2009)
Yet another project of Dead Man’s Hill, Alle Sagen Ja, Eisengrau, etc. NDE makes a mix between black metal, martial industrial, bombastic orchestrations and noise. The result is a heavy pompous sound with distorted screamed vocals and raging guitars. Quite extreme, quite original, not alway quite good. There are some nice orchestral noisy tracks, but as soon as the guitars set in, I loose my interest. I think this album will appeal to people who like the later sound of Karjalan Sissit with the noisy orchestrations and screamed vocals, but then with guitars added.
Links: NDE, Cold Spring
Wow, it has been almost 10 years since Gaë Bolg suddenly appeared in the scene with their crazy medieval drumming sound with trumpets, weird singing and idiotic costumes. According to Discogs recordings of their 9/9/00 legendary show in an Amsterdam squat (which I attended) has been released already five years ago. I liked Gae Bolg’s earlier sound, but I did not really follow them after the “Oran Môr” vinyls because they were not all that good. Besides, the band brings some humour to the scene, but I do not often feel like playing humoruous music. So with a gap of about 8 years, I decided to get myself the latest attempt of the “Grand Maistre de la Gymnosophie”. The music seems to have become even more crazy than in the early days. Drumming, singing and copper, they are still present, but also discobeats and manic “lalala”s. Gae Bolg definately have not lost their touch, so this is a nice release should I ever feel like crazy music.
However I have known this Belgian project since the early days, I never really followed him. When Dead Man’s Hill was still new, I saw him live a few times. I heard some of the releases, but was not interested enough to buy them besides two split releases. Interested in what DMH would sound like nowadays, I got myself this cd. The sound is still more or less the same: slow and pompous industrial with slow beats and orchestrations. The sound reminds quite a bit of 
As ORE keeps releasing new albums, my interest deminishes, the last Triarii album is a great album though and the “Roses For Rome” song that these two did together is very nice too. So what would an entire album of a combination of these two projects sound like? Besides the first and last track, it seems that ORE had a lot more influence on the sound as Triarii. The songs are tranquil, ORE-like and only on the background are some martial industrial or orchestral sounds. It is funny to hear the similarities of the sounds of both projects and “Three Hours” sounds better than ORE alone, but I would have like a bit more Triarii sound in here. I must say that like with Triarii the simple melodies start to work better after a few rounds in the player, so maybe this album will grow on me a bit more.
When I saw this album on a distribution list I did not realise that I knew this band from some online compilation (“
When you read my reviews of the previous albums of Karjalan Sissit you will notice that I never really held this project in high regard. His music is alright, but there are better projects in this style. With the previous album Pesonen gave a bit of extra gass and he recorded an album much more agressive than anything in the “bombastic industrial” style of that time (and still). Too bad that on the latest album, he just repeats himself and made a copy of “Tanssit…”. Nice dark soundscapes with speechsamples are alternated with bombastic and sometimes orchestral industrial with fierce drumming and very aggressive vocals. Not really boring, but not really great either.
In an exquisite digipack comes the new album of Von Thronstahl. This controversial band will amplify the opinions about them with this pretty political release. A “musical terrorists network” was founded (with a funny “wanted” leaflet in the middle of the booklet) and the quotes and lyrics that come with each track are clear enough (but can of course still be either fuel or water depending on your own ideas). 19 Tracks seemingly going over most of Von Thronstahl’s musical history with orchestral tracks, marchdrums (fierce of subtle), rocksongs, neofolk and a lot of martial bombast, but also the more sound-collage oriented tracks. Especially the first part of the album is very good with a variety of good tracks and songs with of course a load of samples. The overall length is 70 minutes. For people worrying about the musical direction of the band: the way the songs are created may remind of “Bellum, Sacrum Bellum?!”, but sound does not really. On the other hand, neither is the sound as dark as on the early releases (which I guess will not be topped anymore). “Germanium Metallicum” is a real Von Thronstahl album and like all of the others, it is pretty good too.
My reviews of the previous two Triarii albums are very critical and it would be easy to be the same about this new one. “Muse In Arms” sounds like it has been recorded during the same sessions as “Pièce Héroique” (2006), it sounds almost completely the same. I have never given Triarii points for originality, he tends to either sound like other projects or like himself, but you know what?, from the vast stream of bombastic industrial and martial music, it is only Triarii that I still put in the player every now and then. The previous albums are more consistent in sound and level of quality than for example Sophia or Karjalan Sissit and the style has better survived the years than Wappenbund or A Challenge of Honour. “Muse In Arms” is again built of sampled classical music and opera, layered with martial drumming, making a bombastic piece of orchestal and martial music. With vocals here and there, simple but effective melodies, Triarii manages to work on my mood. A magnificent track such as “Europa” (are the lyrics as dubious as I think to hear?) will most likely still “make me go whoo” in a couple of years. Even when the martial orchestral sound is almost dead and I rarely play it these days, “Muse In Arms” is a good album to ‘relive old times’ every now and then. A sound (and lyrics?) that will disturb some people, but who gives a damn? I don’t know if Triarii has a message and actually I don’t care, the music makes me feel glorious and victorious just like many years ago a few industrial projects managed to do. Again perhaps not the most original album, but a great one and highly suggested to people who want to get a great new piece of martial music.
According to the label this album “is easily one of the most anticipated records in the neofolk underground scene”. Well, Der Feuerkreiner is a nice band that mixes different kinds of music to their own style, doing that well too, but the selling-line is a little overdone in my opinion. The releases that I already have are very enjoyable, but I do not play them too often. “Unsere Zeit” brings no news in the style of this Italian band. Female vocals sometimes making almost “heavenly voices” music in combination with soft orchestrations, to follow by some harsch and distorted industrial with clear sounds, lots of drumming and bombast. Listening to the new album, the style seems to have been polished a bit and comes out better than before making “Unsere Zeit” a good new album, but without surprises.
For their hundreth release The Old Europa Café label has released a 7-cd compilation with a track of each band and project they have been involved in during the years. However looking around the internet it seems like the bands are featured alphabetically, this is not the case, the cds are ordered somewhat thematically / according to style. “Somewhat” I say, since it is not completely that there are industrial and folk cds, there is some overlap. That is only for the better, the compiler of the cds has a rather good ear for things. In the beginning I had the idea that there are alternally more industrial and more folky cds, but this is not entirely true. The compilation opens with a cd with mostly not too extreme noise, a nice cd. Then follows a cd with more (neo)folky music, but not the too typical sounds of a compilation that I reviewed a few days ago. Then we have cds with power electronics and the extreme, chaotic style that isn’t mine, but also more old industrial things, strange experimental soundscape music and more of an old neofolk cd that I find awfull (Ain Soph, that sort of bands). Having heard the whole thing, my temporary conclusion is that the first cds are the most interesting and towards the end are some cds that I will probably never play. I think that four out of seven cds are enough of my taste to put in the player every now and then, so the “price/quality balance” is not that bad. 
The Eastern Front has released a very nice double cd compilation with a whole range of famous bands on the first cd, most of them not from their own label. Cd 1 (“Grief”) has bands such as the resurrected Belborn, Cold Fusion, Cawatana, Kammer Sieben and Horologium and includes a cooperation between H.E.R.R. and Von Tronstahl. Most tracks are bombastic and militant, sometimes more orchestral, sometimes more neofolky and in most cases quite enjoyable. The second cd (“Birth of Psyche”) has mostly more minimalistic and ambient tracks from Artefactum, Rose Rovine, Shining Vril, Bisclaveret and a range of projects that are new to me. This cd surely isn’t bad, but less interesting than the first cd, but the projects Wach and Sitra Ahra offer a nice surprise. Both cds have a running time of well over an hour, so you get what you pay for! The simple but very nice booklet looks good, like we get used to from this label and also the limited amount of 1000 copies goes for this compilation. I noticed that it is available from about every descent mailorder, so it shouldn’t be too hard to lay your hands on a copy.
However the demo is rather old and almost sold out, recordings of a full-length with the same theme are in the make, so you may regard this review as a teaser for an upcoming album. That theme is Johannes Bureus about whom I wrote 
I already listened to a few tracks on the band’s Myspace when I reviewed the Cold Fusion album. The review of that album just as well applies to “Elegy”. Regardless of the development in the scene, ATR just made a bombastic, orchestral, martial industrial album as if we were five years back in time. Just like with Cold Fusion, the sound is not brilliant or original, but really not bad at all and certainly not boring. I guess these two albums are for people who still long for this sound and I must say, it doesn’t hurt to play an album like this once in a while and when new ones are released every now and then, I don’t have to play the same albums all the time.
I obviously missed most releases of this French industrial project. I only had the “Forever War” cd from 1999. I don’t like that cd too much, so that may be the reason, just like the fact that this new (but not latest!) album has been released by CMI was a reason to give “Septentrion” a change. Of course there is a big gap between the two albums that I now have and I have no idea how D&DE developed in this period, but “Septentrion” sounds quite different from the martial dark ambient album that I already had. This new cd is much more martial, much more industrial, much darker and in most tracks, also better. Some tracks have singing, others have a nice industrial sound, but there still are parts that remind a bit too much of the monotous sound of ‘that other album’. There are five tracks making a 44 minute album, which is not very long. In total, “Septentrion” is not at all a bad album, but also not a masterpiece.
I used to follow ACOH quite fanatically, but recently I miss most of Peter’s releases. What I do hear does not always sound too great. Of Der Feuerkreiner I have the first “La ‘Nvidia” vinyl and the first cd. It is a nice band with an original sound and some nice tracks here and there. When I saw this split I decided to get it and find out what these two projects are upto nowadays. ACOH opens with a statement against the occupation of Tibet (very good) and continues with “Arabian Tradition”, a rather easy-to-listen track. The next track comes from the “Verdun 1916″ album which I don’t have and has the older ACOH sound with orchestral samples and a slightly military touch. The next track comes from “Monuments” which I do have, but I don’t recognise the track. It is also more accessible, but quite minimalistic and not too good.
I can’t help thinking of a young and new band when hearing the name Cold Fusion, but they have actually quite a few releases out. “Simmetria” is the band’s latest release (but already followed by a reissue and a side-project) and seems to be regardless of what is hip and new. A couple of years ago there was a flood of orchestral and bombastic (martial) industrial, but nowadays the poppy sound seems to be more popular. Cold Fusion just releases an album with a sound between Sophia, the older material of HERR and Thorn/Agram. Not too original indeed, not sounding brilliant, but not boring either. “Simmetria” became just another nice, bombastic industrial release and what I heard from the Across The Rubicon (the side-project) Myspace site, the same goes for this project.
I am afraid that I have vastly over-estimated this Polish project. My first encounter was “The Fire Sermon”, a very nice ‘ambient noise’ album with an original sound. After that I bought some of the limited releases which mostly consist of some orchestral music build of classical music samples which sometimes sounds nice, but are mostly just making something of somebody else’s work. Unfortunately the same goes again for “The World…”. This time the sound is a bit more bombastic and here and there martial, but still the music remains a collage of samples and nowhere comes to the level of “The Fire Sermon” and not at all regarding style. Too bad, after a flying start Horologium seems to become just another project in the scene. The album is not horrible, but if you asked me, I would advice to spend your money on something else.
Long ago CMI was a progressive label with all kinds of exciting music. This developed into ‘the CMI-style’ and however the label never really had one sound, my interest deminished a bit. Then CMI started to meddle a bit with already popular kinds of music, such as neofolk. Now it seems that Roger Karmanik is trying to get back to being (one of) the better labels from the scene. I adore Rome and in Pimentola from Finland, CMI has found a highly original and high-quality project with a very progressive release. It is almost impossible to describe Pimentola. The music goes from weird horror sounds with screamed and distorted vocals, to orchestral and bombastic industrial, from ‘jazz-ambient’ to almost Novy Svet-like passages. This album had to grow on my, but I love it.
I have known this bands since long before they ever released something and when they did, I missed it for some reason. I ran into this release on a P2P network, but wanted to get a copy myself. Equilibrium Music from Portugal still have a few, so… “Ar Dievu” contains music that -as often- has to be described as orchestral and sometimes martial music with neofolk and industrial elements. Not too original you may say, but this project sure has its own style which is very interesting and the recording is very good. This surely is a classic and I only got to know it more than two years after its release… <27/3/07><4>
I don’t know if I knew this French act, but I got a copy of their 7”. Bombastic martial industrial with a very nice track on side A and an alright track on side B. <24/3/07><3>