The year 2012 has witnessed the release of some pretty good albums, some have surpassed the expectations and some have failed to deliver, and it is among the best of this year's albums that "Guten Tag" stands tall. The German pagan band has managed to prove it's badassery once more and definitely stuck their feet in the ground with this record. The album contains 13 songs and each one of them has advantages of their own, from the simple intro "Willkommen" to the end of the last song "Vorzeichen" the band has projected some pretty brilliant ideas and incredibly simple and catchy tunes, a great brutal surrounding with their heavy riffing and with the distinguished vocals and even a simple use of folk instruments with guest artists such as Päde Kistler from Eluveitie and Jonne Järvelä from Korpiklaani. The band is offering plenty of various ideas and managed to project them thoroughly (Imperialtroll on metal-archives).
On this case, Absurder21 had his own though and said, when it comes to the guitar work this band tends to work in a few ways. One is the friendly, joyful approach which has the rhythm guitar play simple, heavy riffs, while the lead guitar plays over them with triumphant, folk-tinged anthems. These lead bits tend to be upbeat and catchy, sometimes harmonizing with the more meaningful riffs that come around. Sometimes the rhythm guitars get their time to shine with some black metal-based, buzz-saw tremolo riffing that ends up being really catchy, valiant and cathartic, containing some of the best parts of the album. There are points where the bands get into a more aggressive, serious approach, using drop tuned, heavy riffing to try and portray a sense of tough, barbarism. The aggressive riffing sometimes relates to thrash and really upbeat doom metal and tries to be ominous and intimidating, but sadly, a lot of the time it diverges off into clunky, bad groove metal, making it sound like band is trying really hard to counterbalance the sugary qualities found in their music. There’s also a few passages that are more or less full blown radio rock riffing. They’ll throw in these derivative chords patterns that are played mildly fast, and are really quite simple, poppy hooks and would probably work on a current Offspring record, but of course, sound rather tasteless and uncreative in this scenario.
Imperialtroll also said, The guitarists had some brilliant methods in this record, Not only titanic riffs in songs like "Guten Tag" and "Was nicht darf" and awesome guitar solos in songs like "Anti", but also in some beautiful well written acoustic parts in songs such as "Leben", and in folksy tones especially in songs such as "Blut und Feuer" and "Gedanke und Erinnerung". All these methods added even more variation to the album and kept offering surprises to the listener, it makes you know that this band is not easy to predict, and they can summon and connect different musical angles to provide a firm, almost perfect album. Though this album has many songs, they are easy on the ear and can be captured and absorbed quickly and can be very addictive in a few listens only, the vocals and the quick drumming also helps a lot to establish a beautiful journey through Germanic pagan glory. This could be easily one of the best albums of this year and probably the best album this band managed to create. Highly recommended to the fans of death metal and the fans of all extreme pagan metal. It's as wild and brutal as a giant wolf, but also has great moments of clarity and beauty.
Imperialtroll also said, The guitarists had some brilliant methods in this record, Not only titanic riffs in songs like "Guten Tag" and "Was nicht darf" and awesome guitar solos in songs like "Anti", but also in some beautiful well written acoustic parts in songs such as "Leben", and in folksy tones especially in songs such as "Blut und Feuer" and "Gedanke und Erinnerung". All these methods added even more variation to the album and kept offering surprises to the listener, it makes you know that this band is not easy to predict, and they can summon and connect different musical angles to provide a firm, almost perfect album. Though this album has many songs, they are easy on the ear and can be captured and absorbed quickly and can be very addictive in a few listens only, the vocals and the quick drumming also helps a lot to establish a beautiful journey through Germanic pagan glory. This could be easily one of the best albums of this year and probably the best album this band managed to create. Highly recommended to the fans of death metal and the fans of all extreme pagan metal. It's as wild and brutal as a giant wolf, but also has great moments of clarity and beauty.
This album had a bad review on metal-archives by personal review. But it doesn't make it true 100%. It depends on you. If you think it's good, then it was good. All depend on what music do you desire.
The Storm I Ride - Varg's strongest element is their ability to merge several genres into something that sounds so similar to other acts yet retains such a strong air of originality. There are a large group of metal heads that believe folk netal has been done to death and has nothing new to offer the metal scene, and to some extent, I can agree that a lot of acts have been becoming more and more stale. Varg's merging of folk-laden punk with pagan metal comes across as a bastardized form of thrashy, catchy folk metal without the folk instruments. The lead guitar work is the strongest link to folk metal here, which mimic the violin and fiddle patterns utilized on many folk metal albums. Actually the leads range from flowing, Iron Maiden inspired tapping to the Irish jig folk inspired solos, running a pretty large gamut of styles, but even the traditional metal inspired soloing has a folkish air to it. When coupled with the rollicking, power chord driven rhythm lines it makes for a catchy combination. The rhythm lines chug along with palm muted sections and catchy riffs, having a lot in common with groove metal or even a heavier version of punk. The rhythm guitar goes from the punkish grooves into some black metal inspired trem lines, covering a lot of territory and staying surprisingly catchy for the duration. The trem lines on “Was Nicht Darf” retain a certain catchiness, even with the music being extremely thick and heavy during this track while, he pounding, stomping sections like during “Apokalypse” with chunky, chugging palm muting keep the head bobbing.
Tracks
01. Willkommen
02. Guten Tag
03. Frei wie der Wind
04. Was nicht darf
05. Blut und Feuer
06. Angriff
07. Horizont
08. A Thousand Eyes
09. Wieder mal verloren
10. Gedanke und Erinnerung
11. Leben
12. Anti
13. Apokalypse
If you like it, please buy it on their official website/merchandise.
Guten Tag
Reference
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