Godless We Stand

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. I'm proud to say that I don't own this album. However, I'm sad to say that I've listened to it for the purposes of giving it a review. Simply put, IT'S FUCKING AWFUL!

The vocalist lacks three things; aggression, hatred in voice, and talent. His vocals are so weak and bland it's depressing. Most of the time his vocals are so weak that the other music drowns it out. Which is sad considering that the album is produced relatively well. Not even a mixing board could save the weakness of his voice it seems. This may be one of the larger reasons why I gave up on the entire damn album so soon after beginning the grueling process known as listening to this garbage. I sadly, and eventually, finished listening to this album. Much to my very obvious dismay.

Guitar-wise I’m not sure what they were going for! They claim to be Black/Death/Thrash Metal and pretty much all I could hear was Death. There may have been the tiniest bit of Black Metal (not much in the Thrash department either) underneath all that but it wasn’t enough of an influence to convince me that they can call themselves Blackened Death with a Thrash twist. This would be like me starting a Death Metal band with tiny bit of influence from Belphegor then claiming to be Black/Death Metal because I trem pick and blast every second of every song. They have several rather shitty solos involved as well. For fuck’s sake these solos made me want to laugh! I honestly think this is something that they came up with watching someone play the air guitar then improvised a bit what they say a bit. There is nothing spectacular from the riffing on this album at all. It’s all relatively boring.

The drums were not much better either. And that was actually very shocking to me! When some crappy riffs and vocals are abound a well placed and aggressive blast beat can somewhat salvage anything. The drums were awkwardly placed in the album, a lot of times it seems as if the drummer was off beat. But judging by the sheer lack of effort in this album I’d say that’s probably right!

Then of course there are a ton of pathetic sound clips of war and battle. Which would be pretty cool (but really overdone) if it wasn’t for the complete and utter bullshit that is the rest of the album.

This is one of the bands that gives the USBM scene a bad name. There just wasn’t any effort at all in the album. Not anything in this album would make me consider for one second that an actual effort was placed into this album. It seems that they were expecting the fact that the band was Dark Moon (Not that this matters, I never thought to highly of Dark Moon either. However, they still had better albums than this.) at one time, and featured a member of Demonic Christ and Nile (you know, bands who have released albums that are actually GOOD!) to produce a great album for them!

In other words, don’t buy this album. Don’t even glace for one second in this album's general direction. And never under any circumstances think of listening to it.

I've had this CD for over a year, and it really just collects dust. It's probably gotten fewer plays than any of my purchased albums.

We have here a big hunk of slightly under-par death metal, with a tint of black metal. It's surprising, it's almost like they don't want to be anything special. The riffs come and go, and nothing sticks with you. Unmemorable riffs, bland drumming, and comparatively weak vocals.

There's plenty of useless clips of war/guns/anti-religious and akin hackneyed crap. The vocals are pretty much angering. Not particularly harsh or low. They're so weak, and can be found somewhere toward the back of the music.

The drumming here is horrendous. I have one piece of advice for Wehrwolfe - kick that guy out. He couldn't hold a beat if his life depended on it, his parts are very uninspired, and he lacks the ability to even make a drum part that fits the music. Just when you think you might be getting into a riff, the drummer will undoubtedly screw it up with a tempo slip.

Ah, yeah - the boring, lame riffs ... they have solos thrown in there, too. Man, do these solos suck. I just want to scream "What the fuck are you doing?" Seriously, the solos completely lack direction, and seem devoid of thought or musicianship. It's almost as if he's hitting random notes, like some kid who picks up a guitar at a music store, and pretends he's playing a solo.

Up until writing this review, I didn't even realize just how bad this disc really was. The production is about as strong as my 12 year old brother. The guitar has no crunch, the drums have no kick, the bass has no "oomph" - the vocals are just - there.

Here's the thing that proves to me that this CD is almost 100% worthless, the cover at the end of the CD, is the best song!

Any fan of real death metal, if you're looking for blackened death metal, go with The Chasm, Crionics, or Necrophobic - they all eat bands like this for breakfast.

This is, in my mind, the best extreme metal album to come out this year. From the opening track to the crushing Coroner cover of "Masked Jackal" that closes the cd, this is unrelenting death metal at it's finest. Wehrwolfe are a nice blend of death, black, and thrash metal that manages to be melodic at times while sacrificing nothing in the way of brutality. The musicianship displayed is nothing short of excellent, and the variety of vocal styles employed is also great. The vocals range from low, gutteral growls to savage screams, and the music is at times slow, crushing, and heavy as fuck and at others wickedly fast and technical insanity. The album features a lot of guitar solos, which most DM bands are lacking. The soloing is great, structured yet chaotic, and fits in perfectly. The lyrical themes vary, but are mostly centered on defaming god and killing everyone who dare opposed you in war. The stand out tracks are M1A2 Battalion of Hate, Forged Sufferance, and Trinity Undone, and there are really no weak songs on here at all. There are a couple of "intro" like tracks that I could do without, but that's about it.

Overall, this is a great album with killer production, awesome musicianship, kick ass vocals, and great songwriting. Check it out or die!