Dwelling Lifeless

With some of the recent, more widely acknowledged developments in black metal, amateurs and professionals alike have gained notoriety for creating new styles and combinations thereof with seemingly the sole ambition of stripping their genre-of-choice of all things evil, repulsive and ugly. There has been an influx of bands with the aim of creating nice, soothing and calm black metal in the last ten years. In fact, lacking absolutely anything of the magnitude in terms of intensity and emotional impact to warrant the label of a disaster, instead opting for the most inoffensive and calm direction, grey metal would be a considerably more appropriate descriptor. Grey metal – a tepid, castrated version of black metal. At worst it's barely metal, and it's hardly ever black in anything but the most superficial way (harsh production, reverb, screamed vocals, blast beats), and it's also rarely anything but completely obnoxious. It ranges from the material utterly removed from black metal, though still recognisably inspired by it, such as the folksy abomination Falloch or so-called blackgaze. Sterbend isn't the worst offender in this department, but it's clearly part of the notion of creating emotive, largely inoffensive black metal. Sterbend deserves some compliments for having more substantial musical value than something like Woods of Desolation, as well as more succesful creation of atmosphere, for example, but I find myself regarding „Dwelling Lifeless“ with dullness despite the seeming focus on emotional conveyance, and at times, I simply find myself rather irritated by its hamfistedness. While black metal does not necessitate intensity in the form of speed, brutality and extreme aesthetics, some portion of the music should always be powerful enough to resonate with the listener in a way that separates it from lighter, less sinister forms of music. Simplicity can be an effective tool in creating atmospheric art from simple elements, but it can't work in the realm of black metal unless there is that certain dark passion in it.

While this is hardly the worst example of softer black metal, projects like Sterbend show that emulation of Burzum’s style of black metal is a far greater challenge than it might appear. While Burzum was, at times, realistically speaking quite piss-poor – though admittedly much of it is high quality material – it usually made up for gaping musical flaws (songwriting, riffcraft, instrumental performance, production) with its personal charm and strong atmosphere. Sterbend, on the other hand, has considerable shortcomings in both departments. Burzum conveyed an intense atmosphere of aspiration and purpose, even when Varg seemingly failed to express what visions he might've had to the fullest extent, resulting in atmospheric music where the emotional content is interestingly implicit, rather than flourishing and entirely developed. Sterbend, on the other hand, displays an absence of vision or even further inability to realise it. The music is largely devoid of all the redeeming aspects of Burzum's music, and in terms of the more typical musical values, it's inferior. Whereas Varg's conviction and vision made his hackneyed songwriting skills, incredibly sloppy drumming and insipid howling as an attempt at black metal vocals all excusable, in Sterbend's case it's difficult to look past the extremely grating vocals, or the painstakingly unoriginal and one-dimensional riffing. The piercingly high-pitched howls, strangely passionless and without the ability to express the pain and hatred that black metal vocals should, are mercifully scarce, but every time the make an appearance, willpower is required for me to continue. Occasionally, like the riff of „Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests“ or „...Left To Weep And Mourn“, Sterbend manages to convey a beautiful, nocturnal atmosphere, but it’s not powerfully immersive like something more sophisticated such as Horna, or something so utterly primal and volatile like Burzum. There is effectively one riff many of the lenghty songs, and for example in the second track, it’s a fundamentally simple, by-the-books interpretation of a sad black metal riff, combined with the most iconic interval in its chord progression that is known in black metal, and perhaps metal in general. The majority of the riffing is similar in essence: simple, recycled ideas rendered into a linear, basic form. Utter boredom ensues.

When assessing the enjoyability of music, something like trueness to a given genre is largely irrelevant as such, and while it’s worthwhile to mention that the music deviates from its nominal genre’s archetypes to a great extent, it’s hardly something to be made an issue of. The problems appear when that music doesn't fit in the mould it was forced into. In Sterbend’s case, being excessively longwinded and insubstantial, and lacking the dark, intriguing atmospheric aspects of bands like Min Kniv or other modern black metal of the drawn-out, atmospheric nature, these songs are quite a chore to sit through. Lacking intensity, aggression and energetic riffing, there's hardly anything of interest when the atmosphere fails to captivate. Production is perhaps one of the most important aspects of atmospheric black metal, and the sounds on "Dwelling Lifeless" being all quite banal and ordinary, there's little sense of mystery or wonder that some particularly succesful productions in black metal have managed to evoke despite largely mediocre songwriting and longwinded compositions. Many of the most common songwriting and riffcraft techniques and effects are employed, making the album more a collection of clichés than a recording of musical art. The identity it has comes from the atmosphere, but the riffing is recycled and unoriginal.

Imagery wise, Sterbend's "Dwelling Lifeless" seems to be aimed at the depressive black metal crowd. Song titles like "Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests" market aesthetics of depression, darkness and occult themes with absolutely no subtlety. Musically, the music isn't particularly sinister, and especially not very occultistic. The imagery highly overstates the depressiveness of „Dwelling Lifeless“, and it has none of the hateful suicidal messages of some bands that cater to the same audiences. The music doesn't convey any powerful emotions beyond the usual slightly melancholy, nocturnal feel of mid-paced or slow black metal, and it's comprehensively stripped of aggression in all its effective forms. The music is utterly bareboned, and the vast majority of the material on "Dwelling Lifeless" is uninspired and mundane. Every single track on the full-length is excessively long – the material might've warranted a passable record of about thirty minutes, whereas the total running time of this piece approaches the limits of a CD. The compositions consist predominantly of what would without a moment’s doubt be disposable filler material without the relatively well-crafted atmosphere, and while there are some genuinely enjoyable moments, the album is clogged with pointless and uninteresting tripe, much underdeveloped musical ideas and a glaring lack of variety. While the album deserves some credit for the atmosphere it’s occasionally able to convey through the ample use of reverb and rich guitar tone, and the occasional beautiful riff, "Dwelling Lifeless" is little more than a another uninspiring example of atmospheric black metal of the non-aggressive, inoffensive kind. Listening to this album can be likened to hearing a speech that is full of familiar, friendly sounding expressions and statements, with the occasional empowering word, but that ultimately has no message. The words are drawn out to increase the length, and they are spoken in a pleasant tone, but there is no useful information contained, and in the end, every second spent listening to that speech is time wasted.

To start off I'll say that Burzum is my favourite black metal band period. I have listened to the other "big original” black metal bands suck as Mayhem, Immortal, and Emperor and stuff like that. I can say that they are all right but I find nothing special out of them in my opinion. The only two somewhat large bands that I like would be Burzum and Darkthrone. The one thing that I really look for in a black metal band bluntly put is that they sound something like Burzum. I love the sound and riffs that Varg Vikernes was able to create with his Burzum. I can't really describe it but it’s different than full out raw and harsh black metal, its slightly slower and more atmospheric which is what I enjoy. If anyone knows what I mean by this then good for them. Now what I found is that this album fit my criteria very well and that allowed me to thoroughly enjoy this album.

Firstly, the name Sterbend means Dying in German. This is certainly a good name for the band and for the type of music they play. The album starts off with a chilling intro consisting of very sad depressing sounding synth and the ringing of a bell off in the distance somewhere. There are wolves howling and it sounds like its raining. It puts you into the atmosphere and idea that you are lost in a dark swampy dead tree forest. Overall it’s a great intro.

Now the actual album begins. The album consists of many great songs, all of them with the special criteria that I want which is listed above. I was very pleased with it. There are great “Burzum style” riffs, some slow depressing parts and some rapidly vicious raw black metal parts. There are also some ambient parts thrown in there. In one of the songs there is keyboard usage which reminds me somewhat of Det som en gang var by Burzum. The final song not including the outro is one of my favourite black metal songs ever. It is truly beautiful, chilling, depressive and everything that I look for in a great song.

Overall this album leaves quite a large mark on me, it is a great Depressive black metal album, and if you are looking for what I was looking for then I hope you will be satisfied with this record.

The problem with depressive/suicidal black metal is that almost every black metal release from the past 6 years which has an depressive and crushing atmosphere is considered Burzum worship or even rip-off. Bullshit if you ask me, Burzum's "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" might be the best known source for DSBM from the past decade, but the true godfathers of DSBM are Strid and Forgotten Woods in my opinion, two cult bands which are a higher influence upon this genre than burzum, after all, we all have to agree that burzum wouldn't have become so famous if it wouldn't have been for the murder and church-burnings, fact of life so get over it.

As for this album, don't belive the hype. Sterbend didn't make anything too special here, in fact I rather recommend you to listen to their main project "Nyktalgia", but Dwelling Lifeless is a good effort for the DSBM fan. Though most DSBM bands play a rather cold and depressing kind of black metal with very raw production, this debut album is a clean produced effort which differs it from the most albums of this genre, and the overall atmosphere is actually more of a haunting nature than depressing. Sterbend didn't put much emotion in this album except for the vocals and lyrics maybe, musically this is just a plain and simple mid-tempo black metal album with some blast-beating fast parts; nothing that will change the way how we look at this genre, but it has potetinal to become a classic and is rather solid.

I checked this out on the recommendation of a friend claiming it was by far the best black metal released in 2006. I was interested, since I haven't heard many new releases this year, and decided it would be worth my time. While it was worth the listen, I may as well have just put on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. I swear, there are at least two riffs from Det Som Engang Var in the first song. The drums even sound the same under those riffs and in the transition between them. I had to look at the song title again just to make sure it wasn't a Burzum medley.

While this is cleanly played, well produced, and everything is well executed... it has to be one of the most unoriginal sounding things I've ever heard. Everything on here reeks of Burzum. If you've spent much time listening to Varg's work you'll recognize the riff that you're hearing or it will at least seem familiar. This isn't just something that happens occasionally, either. It's all through the album. The vocals are very varg-esque, the drum patterns may as well have been stolen.

I am all for Burzum-sounding-black-metal, but this is taking it just a bit too far. I listen to a lot of bands that aren't very original, by any means, but this just crosses the line. At least they could have tried to add something to make it unique and their own. If you take this for what it is... a tribute to Burzum... you'll probably enjoy it a lot. Hopefully their next effort will be a bit more original.

Sterbend are a five piece band from Greven in Germany. Formed in the year 2000, Sterbend consists of several members of both Nyktalgia and Krieg respectively. After a six year wait, Sterbend finally unleashed their debut full-length album upon the Black Metal world with "Dwelling Lifeless" which was released on No Colours Records. This piece contains ten tracks, which lasts just under 75 minutes long.

As you'd expect from a band consisting of several members of Nyktalgia, Sterbend are considered a "Depressive" or "Suicidal" Black Metal outfit due to the music they make. This reputation is certainly enhanced throughout Dwelling Lifeless as a number of elements from either sub-genre can be found in this work of art. Usually played at mid-tempo, Sterbend creates some very atmospheric music with their melodic riffs and solid drums. The vocals are key here, they're typical of Suicidal Black Metal, despairing screams which convey Sterbends lyrical concepts of isolation, darkness and depression. They create a certain atmosphere which highlights the lyical concepts immaculately. A very rhythmic piece can be found here with strong and steady riffs of a melodic and atmospheric nature. Every instrument can be clearly heard due to the fantastic and fitting production. There are occasions where Sterbend break away from mid-tempo to produce some very catchy riffs and the use of the double pedal highlights this very well. Also playing a major role in the creation of the cold and haunting atmosphere is the keyboards. They're pivitol in enhancing the already laid down bleakness that Sterbend revolves around.

Highlights include; Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests, Left To Weep And Mourn and Winterwald.

With band members from Nytkalgia being in this band and hearing that this band was dedicated to Depressive Black Metal in vein of Burzum, Silencer, Xasthur and Nyktalgia I was more then excited to get ahold of this album

It took months to get ahold of it, but well worth the time looking

Almost nothing on this album isnt depressing (although it does tend to get less depressing on the last few songs).

The album starts off with the intro that was....not the best intro (ill put it that way). It doesnt really strike you as depressing but extremely interesting. With wolf howls in the backround, Rain and Whispers and a quite good keyboard melody (I also think I heard a few distant screams)

Second track (probably my favorite song) is Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests which starts off as kind of brutal for about...2 sec then gets into the actual music with a silencer like howl.. After that every single happy emotion goes downhill. Once the keyboards hit in, you feel automatic pain in your stomach. It will be only 20 seconds into the song and you will already want to commit self murder. The drums are actually quite impressive as well, with great tappings on the ride cymbal. The guitar is quite good as well, quite minimalistic in some parts, but very artistic and extremely touching. The keyboards I think were the most impressive, they blended in so well with the guitar in a choir sound. Vocals were insane, if your not used to the silencer style, you probably will not like the vocals, but it will take sometime to get used to

Third Track is Einsamkeit which starts off with some extremely torturing vocals.. about three or four tracks worth... then a distorted guitar blends in whilst the vocals are going about. About 47 seconds go through and the full song starts to play...which starts off quite impressive. Very slow, no keyboards and what sounds like two guitars. Kind of hard to hear the bass lines in all of the songs. After awhile the song speeds up just a bit with the same riffs repeating themselves..but suprisingly, never get boring.

Left To Weep and Mourn you can tell was more Burzum influenced with the new depressing style in... Then a headbangable riff comes in that is fast but extremely depressing with the keyboards going on in the backround. Drums were quite a simple beat. Vocals.... I can never get over. You are literally left to weep and mourn during this song. You feel betrayed, yet you cower

Winterwald is a faster side of these guys, it has the depressing side while speeding up the tempo Not much to say about this specific song... Other then its not one of my favorites on the track. It gets reall depressive later as the song goes.

Dwelling Lifeless is the sixth track and I had high expectations (seeing thats what they named the album), but I wasnt really blown away by this track. It seemed more clonish of Silencer with a Wigrid side then anything else. It was good, but nothing special.

Mysteries starts off with a guitar that automaticaly reminds you of Burzum..and as the song goes....sounds exactly like Burzum but with silencer vocals.. This song and Dwelling Lifeless are the only reasons why I didnt give this album a full 100 percent. They just didnt blow me away like the first 5 tracks did.

Last and Dismal Chambers redeems the album by starting off with a torturing guitar and the minimalistic drums... But...later as the song went on...I wondered where the depressive part of the album went to. Again, it was a good song, but nothing special and definetly not depressing (imo)

Endtime Sermon starts off, and I automaticaly love the track. It took away my doubt for the rest of the album from track six on. The guitar is quite dramatic giving you the climax of your emotions. The vocals werent as extreme as any of the other songs and harder to hear (im guessing recording issues). Its a fantastic song, I recommend skipping tracks 6-8 and go to 9 to keep your haunting state.

Exit is the last closing track that was alot like the intro, Rain, whispers, bells, xasthur like keyboards. Good outro

Black Metal conveys a sense of isolation, coldness, and depression. Suicide black metal is strongly injected with such emotions, combined with beautifulness as well. It creates a space like a deep forest, trapping yon with an unlimitedly huge sorrow whithin under the wall of depression, leaving you in despair, in panic, and in isolation.

Sterbend is one of such band. They've released a perfect album called "Dwelling Lifeless", undoutedly ranking highest in 2006. The vocalist sings in a different way from what is heard in other bands but the very way most suicide black metal bands use. What's more, Sterbend outdoes other bands for the vocalist screams in total despair, accompanied with steady riffs and drums. I feel the steady riffs and drums sound like the forest in the midnight, in which a lost man was wandering, sorrounded by horrors, and at last he was reduced to ashes.

The album begins in a decent way, creating an atmosphere which buries the audience in the story. Then comes "Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests", sounding like the description of the cover art: the moon is grey, the forest is grey, then the dim light-grey faded, replaced by the total darkness. "Left to Weep and Mourn" is a 15-minute-long chapter. It begins with freezing keyboards, and then flows the melodic riffs, which is the essence of black metal. The molody moves from a tip to another along with your emotion, and at last join your body, raising the music to a spiritual level. You don't listen to the song via ear, but via your spirit inside and your spiritual flesh. The music of Sterbend reminds me of another band called Silencer(also a suicide black metal band). They both express the coldness and depression in an freezing, slow, and isolated way."Dwelling Lifeless" is a Burzum-like work. The vocalist screams well, and the evil and steady drums sound like ghosts are marching near and near, destroying your will to stay in the forest any longer. You want to escape, but you are not able to, because there is a wall."Last and Dismal Chambers" is faster, and the emotional melody is intensified repeatedly. The last song called "Endtime Sermon" fades in shortly after you are exhausted and have already give up your soul to the darkness. But this song seems to cure, expressing a feeling of heaven, the heaven in the dark deep forest. The riff is slow, adding to your emotion. It's hard to imagine that this is the last song, and the time in the forest passed quickly. The uncanny experience is unforgettable.

While enjoying the outro, I should say this album is the greatest work released recently. I'm so excited after enjoying such crowning art that I have no choice but to recommend this album to everyone. You should definitely check it out and you'll never forget it.

A new era has begun. With members from Nyktalgia and session members from Krieg, Sterbend have created one of the strongest Depressive Black Metal chapters ever. This very long first full length album "Dwelling Lifeless" is filled with the purest sorrow possible created. Combined with a perfect matching coverart, which gives a true picture of what to expect from this album.

"Dwelling Lifeless" starts with steady riffs and balanced rhythms, together with a intense and very fitting vocal. Typhons vocals take my breath, and he growls out the sadest screams I have ever heard. There is no doubt about that "Dwelling Lifess" were meant to be as sad as possible. But the result became even worse, a lot worse, this is one of the darkest chapter ever written. The first track makes you wander out in the forest, just like described in the title. The moment "Einsamkeit" hit your ear, you are already alone, isolated and frozen by the emptiness you can feel surounding you.

As the journley goes on "Left out to weep and mourn" continues the story of this masterpiece, If you felt the grief on the earlier tracks, this track totally makes you all alone in the forest. The real you fades away and your dark soul are getting chased by the fully alive depression here. This is my favorite track of this album, the atmosphere here rises skyhigh when the leadguitar fills the long riffs with a pleasant grimness. Again the screams matches prefectly along with the aggressive guitars and the catchy double-pedal.

"Winterwald" brings you deeper into the woods, and we are offcourse talking about an icecold forest at full winter, only enlightned by the sad fullmoon. Confused by your depression, the brain only tries to find out how to escape from all this misery, Dwelling lifeless would be a victory over this constantly horrifying thoughts. But your soul is not ready for this fatal step into total isolation from everything yet. "Mysteries" makes you think over the few chioces you have, and resulting in the final choise for the lost soul.

The disfused paths in the forest brings you to a forgotten dismal chamber, the last rest before your own soul sacrifice. A tight rope stops the icecold blood from traveling in your veins. When the powerful deathhynm "Endtime Sermon" fills your head, you know the horrific story is near an end. "Endtime Sermon" is dedicated to the escaped and free soul, highly admired by the starved ravens which is about to desecrate the hanging corpse.

The story is what I imagined by listening to the masterpiece from Sterbend. This is album is with no doubt the strongest album this year, and can be looked upon as one of the best Depressive Black Metal albums ever. Sterbend matches both Burzum and Wigrid with this emotional and hounest release. "Dwelling Lifeless" also contains a atmospheric "intro" and "outro" which spices the great product even more. The production is great, and truly fits the term "perfect". Bass and drums goes linear and matches eachother with meaning. The slow repeating riffs are never boring and combined with a really fitting guitar sound, makes this worth listening a thousand times. I cant find any better descriptions that I am "Overwhelmed" by this No Colors Records release. Typhons vocal is got to be the best in the genre, it fills the album with the totally true atmosphere, which is needed to experience.