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Die Apokalyptischen Reiter > Allegro Barbaro > Reviews
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter - Allegro Barbaro

Perfect brutality - 100%

Diego_DAR, May 15th, 2018

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter have offered so far a vast discography that include lots of variety, and that can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on your taste. If you're an open minded-metalhead and music lover, you will easily enjoy most of their stuff. But at this point the band was still very rough and extreme. Allegro Barbaro is a hybrid of grindcore and melodic black/death metal with some folk influences as well, and this proves that extreme music can be very variable.

Musically this album will crush you with tons of extremely fast riffs, bass lines and blast-beats, and some of those riffs are so melodic that they will stay in your head for some time, perfect examples of this are "The Smell of Death", "Game of Violence" and "Revelation". I shall not skip mentioning the sometimes smooth and sometimes folky keyboards offered by "Dr. Pest", without his contribution this album would be way different. Atmospheres tend to be crucial when you listen some of the songs that include slow passages. Now talking about the vocals you should know that you'll be listening to a lot of growls and screams provided by guitarist "Fuchs" and former drummer "Skelleton". The duels that they have throughout the album are astonishing: Skelleton uses his raspy high-pitched screams while Fuchs performs his deep growls and some clean vocals as well, when needed (I mean the slow passages). All this combined create a catchy sound that entertains the whole time and doesn't get boring or tedious.

Lyrically this album can be gloomy, dark and "apocalyptic", they penned a bunch of lyrics about the end of the world and why humans have fucked everything up with their bad attitude and decisions, so their destiny must be extinction. Nevertheless at the same time all this will make you feel a sense of hope, given that these lyrics are well written lead you to think further about them. The only exception of the apocalyptic lyrics is an ode to the genre the we all love, this song is of course called "Heavy Metal", which is one of the most memorable songs of the album. If we combine the lyrics, and everything I mentioned before about the music, we find that they belong together and fit perfectly with the whole "apocalypse" thing, even if the music can be very catchy and fun at times. "Allegro Barbaro" is crazy, gloomy, brutal, extreme and fun.

Highlights: "The Last Hope Burned Down to Dust", "The March of Revenge", "Game of Violence", "Heavy Metal", "Dance with Me", "The Fire", "The Smell of Death" and "Revelation".

Almost perfect craziness - 97%

MetalAbu, February 22nd, 2007

The sound of Allegro Barbaro is very near to the first album from Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. A high quality production and a great bass giving the required power to the 17 songs which are a mixture between Death Metal, Grind and Folk. The two vocalists, Eumel and Skelleton, doing very fine jobs and have a lot of duells between their voices. (Eumel does the growls and Skelleton the screams) The keyboard varies between Industrial, Folk and piano sounds. The less striking here is the solide guitar sound. It fits perfect to the other elements, but it’s nothing special. This musical ingrediants together with the great lyrics about life, social issues, philosophical questions or Heavy Metal (Manowar would be proud of some of their texts) creating great atmospheres and moods. Often the songs are ultra aggressive, sometimes doomy, then hopeful or seldom happy. What is typical for this album too, is that the songs mostly have short and calm intros that lead to a brutal Death Metal/Grind.

Now I will give you short reviews about the songs to show better what I’ve written above:

1. The Last Hope Burned Down To Dust:
The short intro with piano melodies and clean vocals don’t prepare you for what will come over you. Suddenly the drums start very blasting and the duel between the hoarse growls of Eumel and the crazy screams of drummer Skelleton get into the first round. In the background of this infernal noise the piano melodies are still played on. The blasting sometimes gets interrupted for nice guitar solos which get supported by beautiful piano sounds.

2. Sometimes:
The melancholy intro with calm guitar and keyboard sounds leads to a really blasting Deathgrind again. This Deathgrind contains amazing guitars, (it’s the only song where Eumel shows what he can do with the guitar) Industrial keyboard sounds, pounding and blasting drums and the mad screams of Skelleton. He has the best scream voice I’ve ever heard. One of the best songs on this release.

3. Perfect Without Mercy:
A really chaotic song. After a short intro with a happy melody the chaos comes over you. Fast blasting drums, incredible screams, grunts and growls, sometimes clean vocals and piano sounds. The refrain is a midtempo sing along part to come down from the chaos.

4. The March Of Revenge:
This song has an fucking amazing intro with pipe organ sound. Then very heavy Funeral Doom guitars joining the song. It’s very emotional and relaxing but suddenly Skelleton takes you back from your dreams with his blasting drumming and his inhuman screams. The keyboard sound is still listenable through the Death Metal chaos that gets interrupted by melodic guitar melodies. This melodic break is backgrounded by the screams of Skelleton. While this clean passage your emotions will focus to one big bomb that explodes with the last blasting attack. An incredible great song!

5. Game Of Violence:
The song sounds like it is named: It is violent and brutal with blasting drums, thrashing guitar and heavy bass. The vocals are done by growls, grunts and screams only. Just sometimes the piano melodies break through this violence. A perfect song to go crazy and start a moshpit.

6. Heavy Metal:
The intro is typically for this album. Calm piano melodies with clean vocals. But the rest of the song is very hard to get and unusual for “Allegro Barbaro”. The instruments keep on playing ballad melodies while the vocals get brutal like in the other songs. Then it gets Deathgrind again and the keyboard is lost for a short time. The next melodic part is very emotional and full of piano sounds again. But if you think, that it will start blasting again, the calm part with growled/screamed vocals goes on. So this starts to get very exciting when the next blasting will start. And it starts at a part that you won’t have thought. The next calm part is done by clean vocals and heavy bass guitar sound before the Deathgrind with piano melodies starts again. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter are really sick! So the song is good, but the song construction is a bit weird and confusing. And the lyrics are shitty like Manowar have done them. Here is an example for this “True Metal” lyrics.:

“Can you feel the power of this song
The energy it is giving you
Brothers united in mind
Cause Metal is our law.

HEAVY METAL is our law
HEAVY METAL we are proud and standing tall / we'll never fall
HEAVY METAL is what we feel
HEAVY METAL harder than steel”

7. Dance With Me:
This song combines danceable Folk melodies with ultra brutal Deathgrind. I’ve never thought that this would fit so good. It gives you an orgasmic feeling when this sick blasting shit brings all your emotions out. After listening you would be clean of emotions.

8. The Fire:
A long spoken intro and direful keyboard sounds giving a eerie atmosphere to this song. Later it becomes a midtempo Death Metal song with pounding drums and the voice duel between Eumel and Skelleton. The screams “My hate is blind” would have fit better to other songs, because this is not really hateful or brutal.

9. The Naked Beauty:
Hahahaha! Die Apokalyptischen Reiter going to fool you with this song. First you think that this is just one of the piano intros like in the other songs and you’re waiting for the blasting part. You’re waiting, and waiting and the piano goes on and on. If you fear that this is a piano instrumental, you’re right. But it’s a nice idea to do this.

10. No Questions:
This song mixes many different styles. The intro is screamed by Skelleton in a very brutal way before he starts to drum faster and faster. Then Eumel starts his hoarse growls again and Folk sounds get in the mix. When the blasting stops there’s a hypnotic instrumental duel between the guitar and the keyboard. This instrumental part has such a thick end time atmosphere that it makes you depressive in the same moment it starts. The only way I could describe it is: Great! Great! Great!
But there is one negative aspect about this song: The song drags on and on and gets boring after listening more often.

11. The Smell Of Death:
Shortly described: Happy Deathgrind! Guitar and Keyboard playing happy melodies while bass, drums and voices thrashing on. Very funny and cool song.

12. Revelation:
This one again has a chaotic song structure. It’s groovy and brutal Death Metal with some keyboard elements and clean vocals creating end time atmosphere again. The lyrics “love love love” are done by abnormal evil growls. So this is just another great song.




13. Total Human End:
The first part of this song involves funny Folk, piano and other keyboard melodies in the Deathgrind blasting (without the growls, just screams here). There are sporadic clean vocals, too. But suddenly the funny song stops and becomes a depressive Gothic Metal song with spoken vocals and sad piano sounds. It has a good atmosphere and it’s a good idea to combine funny Folk with sad Gothic stuff but the spoken part is to long and gets boring.

14. Dance With Me (EP Version):
It’s three seconds longer then the album version and also great like that.

15. Dschinghis Khan:
If you know the original song from the German Pop band “Dschinghis Khan” then it would be one of the funniest songs ever for you. If you don’t know it, then it’s not a problem, too because this is awesome Deathgrind with happy keyboard melodies that gets faster and faster. If you understand a bit German, then you could sing along with the hoarse growls and the inhume screams.

16. Price Of Ignorance:
This song has less power then the other on this release. It is a strange brew made of Doom Metal ingredients and Deathgrind. The intro has a Doom Metal riff that goes along with melancholy keyboard sounds. The slowly ness suddenly stops and the blasting and the hoarse growls go on. In the next Doom part the vocals get fucking brutal. Gurgling grunts and melancholy sound shows pure hate against everything. The last part of this song is blasting again but still with the melancholy mood. Solid song but not as powerful as the other songs. .

17. Human End (Part II):
Starts really blasting and chaotic with perhaps the most brutal scream/growl duel on this album. The song stays brutal till the end, but it gets back grounded by some nice symphonic keyboard melodies that evocate of Black Metal like Dimmu Borgir does it. The song ends with crazy babbled screams of Skelleton. Perfect crazy ending for an almost perfect crazy album.