Kampfen

It will be a surprise for a lot of people, this release as it comes from a band which released two demos and one quite good full length album until 1996 and since then we hadn’t heard about them. But that’s until today when Mortifier return after almost twenty years later with an absolutely different face of that which got to know into their first album. The new album is called “Kampfen”, and it was released in September of 2015 and it contains eight compositions of overall duration of about forty three minutes. Those of you who are expecting to listen to the Occult Black Metal that they were playing into their first album maybe you would be disappointed. So, here the band has quite a lot of changes both concerning its music and the themes that they deal with. Briefly, the listener will come across straightforward, violent, furious, hateful, dark Black Metal with very few melodic parts.

The hatred, the violence and the darkness are the ruling elements into the album. The riffs are chaotic, fast, barbaric and absolutely dark. Into some parts we also come across some more melodic passages and some solos which somehow remind us of their older work their Heavy Metal influences. Subsequently, surely we will notice also a lot of rhythmic almost punk parts (for example into the track Cryptic Void) or also some slow and torturing, almost Doom passages, two elements that we see for the first time into the band. The riffs are quite interesting and they achieve to create the atmosphere quite easily. Another positive part concerning the compositions that I have to mention, is the very good structure that they have. As also into the first album, the band is used to create long compositions (five to eight minutes). That thing combined with their violent style and the sometimes monotonous riffs, they may be somehow tedious for the listener. However they have achieved with beautiful changes and interesting passages to re – attract the listener’s attention and to renew his interest.

With the ruling instrument to be the guitars and their passionate and hateful performance, the band presents the compositions flawlessly. The bass is heavy and solid and it fills the music very well. The drums are devastating, fast and barbaric, while with their interesting lines they add to the compositions the power and the passion that may be absent several times. The vocals are harsh, Black Metal vocals quite expressive. The production is bass and it outputs a dirty, warlike sound that it fits to the compositions while at the same time it doesn’t make the listen difficult. The mixture has left the bass a little lower compared to the rest of the instruments and maybe the drums sound somehow flat into some parts, but in general the sound is solid and dark. Finally, we will also notice the big change into the themes that Mortifier write about. Although that the lyrics are not contained into the cd, it is not difficult someone to understand by the symbols into the photographs, either by the title of the album, either by the sound clips, that the band now deals with ns themes.

Summarizing, I believe that the return of Mortifier with a new album after twenty years was successful. Surely the changes into the sound and themes will be odd for their old fans. However that shows that the band is working and it is trying to present something and it doesn’t want to simple copy their past. I can say that both by their new effort they are a mentionable band and apart from their theme change that I didn’t like, they deserve your attention. So, those of you who are looking for dark, hateful, barbaric Black Metal buy it.