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Decent, but in need of decision making - 67%

autothrall, September 16th, 2011

Based upon the strength of his side project Zofos, which also got out an album in 2007, I was hoping Athalwolf would create a turnaround for his mainstay Wolfnacht, which had sort of slacked off on its 2003 effort Töten für W.O.T.A.N. The problem with that album is the same as it is for many of these NSBM-oriented acts, that is they don't seem to want to choose between black metal and straight up RAC rock/punk, so instead of merging them together (plenty of punk black metal hybrids have done well), they just sort of split the tracks to provide a variety. So, where Heidentum was a strong and cohesive debut, its successor felt sort of scatterbrained in spots, even if it wasn't all that bad in the end.

Unfortunately, Dawn of Heathens makes the same mistake as its predecessor, in that it feels like two separate albums being jammed together. A few of the tracks here ("W.O.T.A.N. Returns" and "Totaler Krieg") are pure, meaty punk/rock tracks with thick, overpowering bass lines. The latter feels like a bruising, car cruising anthem while the former has a few traces of vitriol within, yet they come right at the center of the album and totally throw off the rest. After its' martial, sweltering intro ("Kampf-Krieg-Sieg"), there are a pair of tracks ("Wild Hunt" and "Black Bubonic Plague Part II") which return straight to the cold, vicious Scandinavian black metal tones of his debut full-length, complete with melodic, dire streaming guitars and tortured vocals that feel like a louder, more raunchy Varg Vikernes. "Wotansvolk Erwache" is a slower, more measured exercise in grim spite with a good amount of atmosphere to the drowning, drawling chords, and "Winterwald...Mein Reich" has a thicker guitar tone that nearly hides its melodic, meandering lead accompaniment.

The black metal here is honestly pretty good, probably on par with Heidentum, but yet I can't help feeling like the deviations at the album's core take me right out of its passionate, painful and spite-driven embrace. There's nothing necessarily bad about any of the tracks, and I'm yet again impressed by Athalwolf's ability to perform everything himself, but I almost feel like he'd have been better off separating this stuff into a pair of projects, rather than just the one. That said, there's a good cold production to the black metal tracks, and both the intro and the outro (the latter of which samples chanting over an escalation of backing black metal) are pretty sharp, and it's a stronger experience overall than Töten für W.O.T.A.N.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Good for NSBM Fans, Bad for Human Beings - 48%

XuL_Excelsi, September 21st, 2010

Before I actually proceed to review this album, let me begin by saying that I generally dislike NSBM. It is a useless genre consisting of bands that feign musical content in order to broadcast their outdated message of Aryan/White supremacy and have no desire to create anything remotely sincere, opting instead to produce albums with no musical integrity and filled to bursting with narrow-minded propaganda and Hitler-worship.

That being said, this album is not that bad. It starts off with a war-march instrumental straight out of the Third Reich, as is customary. But as soon as the actual music starts, the first element that is blatantly clear is the vocals. The prolonged screams and tortured howls are enhanced further by the distorted production. Simply excellent. There is however an echo effect that is irritating at times as it is unnecessary, but it is subtle enough to be ignored. The very painful vocals are at the fore, driving the music, unlike many bands featuring this kind of production where the vocals are pushed into the background to blend in with the other instruments.

Not much can be said for the rest of the instruments, as little innovation is present. Different styles are found on the album, with “Wild Hunt”, for example, being a traditional tremolo-driven black metal track, whereas “W.O.T.A.N Returns” is a crust song with a folk nuance. Similarly, “Totaler Krieg” is also heavily crust-influenced, but contains no vocals, instead there is some rallying speech, presumably some wartime Aryan propaganda.

This album then, is multifaceted in containing different angles of the black metal picture. I believe that NSBM is irrelevant for those of us living in the 21st century, but if Wolfnacht’s ideals are set aside, this is not a terrible album. If only all the instruments were as impressive as the black metal sections of the vocals. The guitars follow the general formula for BM at all times, and the bass simply obeys with root chords, not putting any ideas on the table. The drums are the biggest let-down, boring most to tears with dull repetition. Double-timed beats with the occasional cymbal change, and at times some painfully generic blasting is as much as you get on “Dawn of Heathens”.

This is almost a decent effort then, exploring into traditional black metal and occasionally into crust-punk. The lyrics are proclamations of Wotanism and Aryan supremacy, nothing new. The guitars do provide enjoyable riffs from time to time, but generally the instruments could have been better with more effort. I maintain that the vocals are very impressive, regardless of the silly lyrics. “Wotansvolk Erwache” is a standout track with good riffs and progression, and a spirited vocal delivery. The first and last tracks are merely a prelude and outro, essentially useless. The outro is a particular waste, some daft German hymn cheerily sung by a male choir. “Totaler Krieg” also serves only as an interlude and doesn’t add any substance to a stale album.

So essentially there are 5 half-assed songs that are better than most NSBM tracks, but still don’t venture much as far as entertaining black metal goes, so that isn’t saying much. If you love NSBM(for whatever reason) you simply have to get “Dawn of Heathens” because there isn’t much better out there. That is why the rest of us have abandoned NSBM as an anecdote of the previous century, an empty genre that is completely irrelevant today. All things considered, there are worse black metal albums out there, but there are also much, much better ones.

Hellas' Heathen Might - 93%

Something_Inside, October 23rd, 2007

Right. Im on the third track of this album, and already I think it is better than the last two Wolfnacht releases, the sub-par and filler-filled "Night Of The Werewolves" and the NSBM/RAC sample-heavy "Totan Fur W.O.T.A.N". So, apart from to show the differences, dont expect me to talk about those much, no, I'm going to compare this release to the one which - to be quite honest - so far (I'm listening to Dawn Of Heathens as I review it) is clearly the best Wolfnacht full-length, "Heidentum".

The second track, "Wild Hunt" (the first track, "Kampf-Krieg-Seig" is more of an intro) gets off to a frankly excellent start, It sounds entirely like it could have been on "Heidentum", but wasnt. The Guitar tone is the same, that beautiful hollow and raspy treble-filled tone. I swear Athalwolf is using the same drum machine as he did in "Heidentum", as the drums have the same tone and feel to them. However the major difference so far, between track two, and Heidentum is the vocals. They are *vastly* Improved. Improved over "Heidentum", improved over "Night Of The
Werewolves" and improved over "Totan Fur W.O.T.A.N". They sound Harsh, Hateful, Raw, Tortured and Demonic all in one go, it's as if Athalwolf tried cutting his vocal cords, dousing them in and exceptionally stinging medicinal alcohol, then recording the vocals, they are absolutely brilliant.

"Black Bubonic Plague (Part II)" (track 3) has suprised me. I was expecting it to sound like "Black Bubonic Plague (To The Fuckin' Jews)" from the "Night Of The Werewolf" release. Thankfully, i've been pleasantly surprised, as it doesnt sound like mediocre bog-standard NSBM, it sounds like the still-unique Heidentum*.

The track "W.O.T.A.N Returns" is more like the material from "Totan Fur W.O.T.A.N" (known as "TFWOTAN" from now on) - a mix of NSBM and RAC, and this mix is heavily in favour of RAC - however the tone and feel of the music still retains the excellence of Heidentum, but with the stylistic qualities of "TFWOTAN", at 2:22, the track isnt long, but short and sweet, and I for one am glad that it wasnt 3 minutes plus or to be honest, it would have dragged on. But it's not 3 minutes plus, so it is again a good song.

"Totaler Kreig" sounds like a more trebly version of an Antisemitex song, low-octaved guitar riff (but not Antisemitex levels of low), simplistic yet pounding drums, and a sampled speech (which I assume is a Hitler speech) which sets a violent tone. One problem I notice with this song is that when there is a fill on the drums, im not sure the toms have been picked up properly, so all the fills seem to be at a lower volume than the main beat. Again, at 3 minutes exactly, this song narrowly avoids dragging on un-entertainingly, but keeps it short and sweet and as such is a much better song for it.

"Wotansvolk Erwache" has to have the catchiest intro riff since Der Sturmer's "The Hammer Falls On Zion" - its a peice of trebly, hollow NSBM excellence, on a par with the best of the "Heidentum" album. Even though it *is* a remake of the track of the same name on the "Fur Den Seig" demo, I dont remember anything on that demo being *anywhere* near as good as anything on "Heidentum", and therefore as good as this song. The acoustic-sounding part at the end with orchestal voice synths overlayed is an exceptionally well done touch of extra melody to break the pace of the album and provide a brief respite.

"Winterwald... Mein Reich" is a good song. Nothing I can say about it that i havent already said about this album and its "Heidentum" like sound, although the parts where the drums drop out for a few seconds and the guitar carries on and the drums slowly bash their way back into the song is very well done, and the scream of "Winterwaaaaaaaaaald! Meiin Reiiich!" at about 3 minutes 20 is definately on par with Immortal's "Call Of The Wint-er-Moooooooooooon!" or "Blashyrk Mighty Ravendaaaaaaaark!!" or even Dead's otherwordly vocal performance on "Freezing Moon" (and yes, I did just reference Dead).

"På Vikingtog", the outro track is a German Waffen SS marching song to start off with, i'm sure of it. It sounds militaristic, oppressive and its absolutely brilliant, and when the guitars kick in at about 2:51 it further reinforces the dominant and oppresive feel of this song, which sounds utterly immense, for want of a better word, and when it picks up the pace towards the end (at about 4:27) it becomes oppressive, militaristic, dominant, and Crushing. yes, it actually sounds Crushing.

And then it just stops dead in its tracks. Considering I was expecting this album to be like "TFWOTAN" the whole way through, This album has impressed me considerably. When I first heard Heidentum, i absolutely loved it. It was a brilliant release. Night Of The Werewolves considerably ruined this illusion, and "TFWOTAN" - while not excellent - was acceptable, and when I heard about Dawn Of Heathens, my hopes were raised immensely, and to be quite honest, Dawn Of Heathens both met and exceeded my expectations. Although there is *one* Minor issue, which should be mentioned, anyone who was hoping for a song that sounded just like the five-star, ten-out-of-ten "Ein Damonischer Winter Verhullt Den Schattenturm" will be dissapointed, as the closest this album gets its "Pa Vikingtog" - but Considering "Pa Vikingtog" is an excellent song, they wont be let down too badly. I wasnt expecting to hear a 2nd Heidentum, I was expecting more NSBM/RAC mediocrity. Oh how glorious it is to be wrong. 93/100


Standout Tracks: "Wild Hunt", "Black Bubonic Plague (Part II)", "Winterwald... Mein Reich" and "Pa Vikingtog"

* I say "still-unique" as in "Heidentum" and now this album have a sound and feel that is almost completely unique to Wolfnacht, in my experience, whereas "Night Of The Werewolves" and "TFWOTAN" sound rather like generic NSBM in comparison to Heidentum or this release.