Teufel - Absinth

Artist: Teufel
Title: Absinth
Genre: Industrial Metal
Release Date: 17th September 2010
Label: Teufel Records (Soulfood Music)



Album Review

The intro begins in wonderful creepy style, with a lurching, mechanical sort of heartbeat rhythm behind eerie spoken vocals. It sets the scene very well for 'Der Fährmann', the driving second track, which builds in intensity until it's almost unbearable with guttural raspy lyrics, only adding to the overall effect and giving the likes of RAMMSTEIN a run for their money in terms of interesting lyrics and sheer power. 'Der Todesengel' comes next with some fantastically disorientating mastering, throwing the sound from side to side in a deliberate attempt to convey a sense of trepidation in the listener. A violently beautiful track, the tragic refrain prevalent in the instrumental certainly makes this, for me, one of the best tracks on the album. Those familiar with TANZWUT will really appreciate 'Der Dürre König' as it has a more familiar feel to it than most of the album which is a unique and very clever step away from what TEUFEL has done before.

'Alles Nur Ein Traum' comes next, a deep resonating song that quarrels with itself about whether to be a driving demon or a gentle angel of a song. I find that the more tracks I listen to of this, the better and better I like it with deep and disturbing lyrics married to tunes that just keep rattling around your head and an overall dark and eerie feel to the whole thing. More of that clever mastering comes next with 'Den Speise Ich', an anthem of a song, whilst 'Kalt Ist Mein Herz' with all its dark ferocious agony is a masterpiece of a track. 'Neigt Euer Haupt' with its disembodied vocals and hectic rhythm is a change of direction but not an unwelcome one, being different but no less great than the preceding tracks. They say it's wise to name an album after the best track on it and TEUFEL must have heard that somewhere too, for the album title track 'Absinth' is nothing short of brilliance in every conceivable way. The tune is pure magic, tragic and memorable, whilst the vocals overlaying it work to fantastic effect. Masterpiece!

The interestingly named 'Die Moritat Vom Mackie Messer' is another crushingly slow track almost like a funeral march, being an odd and totally inspired version of the swing track ‘Mack the knife'. I'm sure if anyone had described it to me without me hearing it I'd have thought it was a terrible idea - but actually it works really well and is stand alone in being inspired madness. 'Tick Tick Tack' takes us back to more normal territory with a blazingly good tune and aggressive vocals that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. There is a certain surreal quality to 'Schwefel', an all too brief excursion into sublime weirdness, which is followed by the unforgettable 'Komm Näher' (I'm STILL singing it) before we're treated to 'Hymnus Codex Gigas', a grand and authoritarian track with all of the imposing nature of TEUFEL's other project CORVUS CORAX. It's certainly a track deserving a special mention, as it's alone with its music, no vocals, yet stands out as one of the greatest tracks on a very great album.

And so we drew to the end a very special album with just the bonus track 'Phantasien' to go. It brought us full circle, being reminiscent of 'Tritt Ein' and finishing off the album beautifully. A lot of thought has gone into the composition of this album and a lot of hard work has been done in production for the mastering, oh the mastering, is sublime. I suspected that this album would be good, as TEUFEL's other projects all meet an exacting standard, but I didn't realise exactly how good. This is one of the best albums of the year, and no mistake, so you'd do well to check it out for yourselves!


Tracklist

01. Tritt Ein (Intro) 3:02
02. Der Fährmann 4:33
03. Der Todesengel 4:47
04. Der Dürre König 5:12
05. Alles Nur Ein Traum 4:03
06. Den Speise Ich 4:18
07. Kalt Ist Mein Herz 4:49
08. Neigt Euer Haupt 6:01
09. Absinth 5:20
10. Die Moritat Vom Mackie Messer 4:41
11. Tick Tick Tack 5:25
12. Schwefel 3:01
13. Komm Näher 4:39
14. Hymnus Codex Gigas 4:20
15. Phantasien (Bonus) 4:55


Website

http://www.teufel-music.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/teufeltv


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 9
Sound: 9
Extras: -
Total: 9 / 10


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