Title: Erde Ruft
Artist: Oberer Totpunkt
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 19th June 2009
Label: Danse Macabre
Album Review
The German trio OBERER TOTPUNKT (Top Dead Center) entered the dark music scene in 2007 with their debut album ‘10 Grad vor OT’ and surprised both critics and music addicts with their unconventional musical approach. With ‘Erde Ruft’, their second album is soon to be released on Danse Macabre.
I’m honest; I’ve skipped the first album of the trio so I’m a newbie to their sound and was surprised to find that there’s actually no real singing contained within the songs. Everything’s spoken word performance with the lyrics delivered in German. They’re narratives touching upon the insanity hidden behind the ideal façade some of us call reality. ‘Blutmond’ opens the album and the lyrics seem to describe a kind of warped, twisted pendant to a birth accentuated by minimalist electronic beats, Gregorian choirs and darkly looming soundscapes. In ‘Schlacht(Tag)’ we have a choleric Jesus screaming at us and after going through this song in it’s entirely you have to seriously ask yourself “what if all the stuff that is written down in the bible is just a bloody, big lie?” The musical backdrop for this is made of pulsing electronics and we celebrate a reunion with the choir from before as well. ‘Sie sind da’ sounds like the disturbing monologue of a lunatic asking herself if it could be that god created all of this madness just to get it out of his mind, following an advice from his own shrink. If you look at what happens in the world every day it suddenly doesn’t sound that crazy to you anymore.
Musically, it’s a down tempo track that just through this fact already generates an eerie mood and together with the lyrics it even increases it up a few levels.’Erde Ruft’ as a whole is a disturbing manifest obtaining its fascination first and foremost from the pervading spoken-word by Bettina Borman who sometimes acts a little halting with the intonation and should work on that. The other complaint is that the music - even though you like it - sounds a bit amateur-ish and could definitely benefit from a better production. That being said goes what I said above and for those liking such narrative tunes it’s one record to check out.
Tracklist
01 Blutmond
02 Hamburg
03 Schlachttag
04 Sie sind da
05 Gaia
06 Hexenjagd
07 Imperator
08 Letzter Gang
09 Sepultura-Asini
10. Erde Ruft
11 Dies Irae
Line-up
Bettina Bormann - Vocals, Lyrics
David Nesselhauf - Double Bass
Michael Krüger – Music & Drums
Website
http://totpunkt.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/totpunkt
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 7
Sound: 6
Extras: -
Total: 6.5 / 10
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