Artist: Leichenwetter
Title: Legende
Genre: Gothic / Metal
Release date: 15th October 2010
Label: Echozone
Album Review
LEICHENWETTER’s forte is to put poems of dead German or German-writing poets to the test of their music. They say it’s not so much to influence the youth to read poetry but because their singer Numen is fascinated by infusing the two components together. Hats off to him for he does it wonderfully well, it’s an aspect of their music I definitely enjoy not only because some of the poems he’s taken on are by some of my favourites (i.e. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann Hesse and George Trakl) but because it punctuates the music with great atmosphere of poetic narration. Even if poetry is not something you enjoy, their music is epic and powerful enough and if you don’t know any German, it’ll be all the same to you anyway. Their singer’s voice is dramatic and strong, it’s very suitable for both the Power and Gothic brand of Heavy metal and it makes for a striking combination. After three albums released with EigenDistribution and Metal Axe, they’re bringing out their fourth one, ‘Legende’, with Echozone.
‘Romanze zur Nacht’ (Romance for the Night) - I’d love this even if it wasn’t George Trakl’s poem sung here. The fragile and strange beauty of his poems combined with LEICHENWETTER’s energetic rendering creates a wonderful song, no wonder that Echozone, their new label, included it with their compilation (VA Plasmatic Mutation). ‘Chor der Toten’ is a tremendous song, LEICHENWETTER worked it with a text by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, and whilst the original is just a second rate poem with usual post-romantic fanfare (yawn) they fully elevate it. If they decide to cover lame living poets, they will become multi-millionaires for making bad poetry sound brilliant. The song itself has a chilly atmosphere in a beautiful way, cinematic and expressive vocal narration; the choir chorus a great touch also and together with superb music this rocks, one hell of a belter, and quite a memorable song it is! If this was the vinyl edition, it’d have melted by now by repeatedly playing it. Combining German with English in ‘Out of the Dark’ underlined with beautiful atmospheric built up comes for another arresting song.
In fact, each and every song deserves repeated listening and many times at that. This album is simply superb. What are you doing sitting there reading this? Go and get it already.
Tracklist
01. Anrede - 4.32
02. Romanze zur Nacht - 4.39
03. Erlkönig - 4.58
04. Verklärung - 4.28
05. Chor der Toten - 5.12
06. Beschwörung - 5.24
07. Abendlied - 4.37
08. Out of the Dark - 3.47
09. O Schweig - 3.19
10. Betörung - 4.29
11. Schwanenlied - 4.08
12. Herbstseele - 5.20
Line-up
Numen – vocals
Dawe – guitar, vocals
Rawen – drums
Doc.Bawin – keyboards, bass
Websites:
http://www.leichenwetter.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/leichenwetter
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 9
Sound: 9
Total: 9 / 10
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