Misanthropic Antichrist

In a recent review, I wrote that I feel some kind of fear when I receive independent releases by one man bands. Well Albtraum, an one man band from Germany which was formed in 2012, arrived in order to verify this fear. “Misanthropic Antichrist” is their first demo release which contains two ambient introductions and five Black Metal compositions of overall duration of about twenty four minutes. This album presents raw and harsh Black Metal devoted to an annoying point to the first era of Bathory and maybe will remind you of bands like Sarcofago in their first work or Von in their old demos.

Even though the description above sounds attractive, the music that Albtraum present us doesn’t have anything in common with the freshness, the excitement and generally the quality of the bands mentioned above. The riffs are the typical tremolo, dirty and absolutely repetitive. The rhythm mainly is fast while there are also some slow atmospheric passages or fast outbursts while we will come across some, mediocre regarding their technic, solos too. Unfortunately apart from the composition of the tracks that it seems like it repeats the five riffs over and over, those riffs are completely uninspired and they don’t have even one interesting moment. Along with the problems that that exist in the composing part of the album, the problems in the mixture are added. The production has put out a dirty and bass sound that it is not annoying for the listener, it gives a heavy and solid character to the compositions and it fits to the style of the tracks. On the contrary, the mixture has highlighted the vocals and the sound of the drums, depriving from the compositions the depth that they need.

The same primitive style that rules the compositions, it also exists in the performance of the instruments. The guitars have a dirty sound, they don’t have any mistakes and they deliver they deliver the riffs with quite a lot of passion. The bass is mixed with the dirty sound of the guitar and it is not audible at all. The worst parts of the album are the drums and the vocals. I believe that the drums come from a drum machine as their sound is very dry and flat while their lines are completely repetitive without any mentionable or interesting moment. Finally, the vocals are harsh, crude vocals that on one hand they are too loud in the mixture and they become annoying, on the other hand they are absolutely monotonous and boring. The last problem that I faced in this album is the lyrics. They are written in English and they are contained in the cd. Their content is blasphemous, antichristian and misanthropic but the way of writing of the creator has a quite childish style.

Generally, I believe that the first effort of Albtraum is bad. For sure through the sound that the band wants to present, it seems that its worship to the old, traditional, barbarian Black Metal sound, but the final result is disappointing. With the elements that I found in the first release of the band, I don’t think that we need to listen to any of their future releases. Maybe some fans should stay fans and don’t become creators. I suggest you to avoid this album.