Herbstleyd

Black metal is my favorite genre of music ever. Particularly the second-wave that burst onto the scene through bands like Mayhem and Burzum and the legendary Darkthrone. The ice cold atmosphere; the twisted, macabre, bloodcurdling shrieks; the heavy, sometimes over-the-top, emphasis on reverence of the Dark Lord himself, Satan, and inversion of everything good and wholesome and pretty in the world. The music itself is so diverse that in one breath, it'll start off manic and filled to bursting with revolting, screaming hatred, guitars shrieking just as loudly and uncontrollably as the vocals as the war machine drums sound the call to war of genocidal, filicidal, and homicidal barbarity upon all of humankind and existence itself before descending in the very next passage to a gentle whisper in comparison, a dark strumming acoustic section playing while wolves howl over the pulsing whip of the winter winds hypnotizes and entrances before battering the listener once more with the same all-encompassing ferocity as before. That's not even including the proto-black metal bands, experimental black metal, progressive black metal, post-black metal, DSBM, et cetera, et cetera....

To reiterate: I love this genre so much. The music stirs so many emotions in me that it's hard to nail down my favorite band. There's too many choices. Now that I've set the stage in where I stand with regards for the aforementioned genre, enter Nargaroth.

I don't like this band. I've never liked this band. The first song I heard of theirs was "Seven Tears Are Flowing to the River," one of their more popular songs, and I absolutely hated it. The first impression that struck me was a sense of restless ennui. A fifteen minute torture session that felt as if it would never end. Nowadays, I'm no stranger to long songs. There's a deftness of hand needed to stretch a song out past the normal three or four minute length. Equally as many bands hit and miss that mark, and some are more adept at it than others. The one man behind Nargaroth, Kanwulf (or "Ash" as he prefers to go by now), is not adept at it. As of the day this review is posted, I haven't gone back to listen to that song. Maybe I will after this review. Nobody stays rigid in their opinions forever. They're fluidic and always subject to change at any time. Almost a decade later, I'm more than accustomed to enough black metal to handle my fair share.

I was ready to give this band a proper chance. So how is it? Did this album change my opinion on the band? Am I ready now to alter my opinion and confess that Nargaroth is a good band deserving of my consideration in the future? First of all, from the beginning raspy throat shredding of Kanwulf, patterned with the icy guitars and mournful, melancholic keys that opens, all the way to the weirdly titled end track "Outroduction," Herbstleyd begs to be a different breed of black metal. Despite using very similar hallmarks of its contemporaries, there's a strong will to be unique, to stand out, to break free of all the conventions of the second-wave black metal, particularly coming out of Norway. Songs like the self-titled intro attempt to demonstrate this with its particular use of gongs and woodwind instruments, as well as slower atmospheric sections to break up the pace. In fact, atmosphere seems to be the primary weapon of choice that Kanwulf uses for a majority of this album.

However, despite all its efforts, in spite of every trick in the book it pulls in some desperate, sad effort to be as "trve kvlt" as possible, it falls flat on its face. This is an album that tries way too hard to separate itself from its predecessors, yet cannot help but remain tethered to its influences like a leech sucking and slurping the life out of them. This album and this band, for that matter, wears its influences on its sleeve so hard that I can't help but feel I'd rather be listening to those other bands. Truth be told, because of what this album is at its core, I should be singing its praises to the highest of heavens. Instead, I'm damning it to the deepest, most dismal, most pitch black depths of Hell.

So what is my biggest gripe with this album? I have a couple gripes, but my biggest is this: it's boring. This thing is paced like absolute shit. It relies far too much on its atmosphere and less of crafting good, memorable songs. Most of them are incredibly lengthy, but there's no reason for them to be as long as they are. As I mentioned earlier, long songs in black metal can be done. A number of black metal bands I enjoy have done songs that I consider masterpieces. Or if not masterpieces, they're exceptionally well-structured musical pieces. "I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots" by Wolves in the Throne Room. "Det Iskalde Mørket" by Throne of Katarsis. Every song Weakling has made. These are just a few examples of BM songs that stretch on for longer than ten minutes that can hold my attention from start to finish. Nargaroth has songs like the opening song or "Amarok - Zom des Lammes" that feel bloated and exasperated. The riffs are very cold, like I mentioned, and while they do cut and chill to the bone, the impact these songs wish to leave on me falters because Kanwulf doesn't know when to call it quits. There are at least two breaks in the opening song alone where the axe should've fallen to slice its length down to about five minutes. "Amarok" is just a really terrible rip-off of any of the "Capitel" songs Ulver made. It should've just been cut altogether to save me fifteen minutes of auditory rape. It's fifteen minutes of a guy watching himself jerk off in the mirror and being so impressed with himself, but nobody is ever around to tell him to knock it off.

As I made mention of before, the influences he uses are tattooed very boldly on his chest and he bears them like he's proud of it. It's mostly the masters he's copying. Mayhem. Immortal. Burzum. Emperor. Satyricon. Even some other bands like early Setherial and Gehenna feel as if they're mixed in to the melting pot of his influences here. It's plain as day he worships at the feet of these bands and more. His second album makes that incredibly apparent. Despite his love for those bands of yore, he can't do it as good as any of them. His riffs aren't near as evil as what Euronymous was coming up with in Mayhem. His songs, while atmospheric thanks to the raw, muffled production, fail to retain as strong a chokehold as Burzum. Satyricon and Emperor were outclassing him in the atmosphere and, in the case of the latter, aggression and memorability department. So safe to say, in this reviewer's opinion, he's not doing his influences any justice by delivering subpar black metal that's standing in the frostbitten shadows of every single band he worships at the altars of every time he stomps the pavement towards whatever studio is in his sights.

In all of this madness, there are a couple songs (I literally mean a couple) that are the highlights of Herbstleyd. The second and third tracks, "Karmageddon" and "Nargaroth," respectively, are both really fantastic. "Karmageddon" has a stellar atmosphere that starts and bookends the song. The simmering acoustics hum darkly over Kanwulf's tortured gasps of pain, like he's a malevolent spirit in a German forest during a winter fullmoon, the forest draped with a blanket of impenetrable fog, before it blasts off a minute in with a malevolent set of riffs roaring in as a marching beat-style drum pattern accompanies it. Lastly, the song breaks and throws you head first into tremolos and ferocious blasting with echoing screeches that are, honestly, pretty crappy, but it's not enough to dissuade me. The following song is the one instrumental in the track list and is the best song here. Hands down. It's only three minutes long and it's what I expected to hear from Nargaroth. A furious, nonstop onslaught with a little bit of haunting atmosphere thrown in. Not so much to be suffocating or cheesy, either. Not so much to the point where there's practically none, which I would've honestly preferred. It's the perfect amount of everything. These two songs back to back are the best moments on here. If there more songs like this, I'd be way more generous and would call this album a true classic that could stand right there with the greats.

All in all, I gave this album an honest try and I couldn't find much to love. I've heard many a time this album is one of the old-school black metal masterpieces. It was released in 1999 at the very tail end of second wave's unchallenged reign and stranglehold of the genre and didn't leave much of a blip on anyone's radar. I think if this were released a few years earlier, circa '96 or '97, there would've been more buzz around it. It's now regarded as a cult classic in the eyes of many, a late bloomer that deserves to be featured in a list of essential black metal albums from the '90s. Quite frankly, if you enjoy it that much, listen to it, enjoy it, and love it. Based on the reviews for this thing, I feel like I'm all alone on an island in saying this album sucks. Even if I'm alone in that assertion, I'm okay with being stranded on my own deserted island shouting to myself, "Herbstleyd sucks!"

I am repeatedly annoyed to see this album ranked amongst the forerunner albums of black metal. While Darkthrone, Immortal, Mayhem, Burzum, etc. each brought something unique to the mix; Nargaroth just can’t hang. Those to start the genre up had some surprising ability to compose interesting songs behind all of the gritty production. For me, this album fails to be interesting in any respect.

Beginning with what the album does do somewhat well, there is definitely a crafted aesthetic. The atmosphere is pretty thick and the use of sound-effects adds to this. However, it is still something that countless bands have done before and have simply done better. Expect a lot of doom-laden, repeated riffs...often ad nauseum. The guitar work and drumming are frightfully basic and derivative. Darkthrone is able to come of as simplistic, but a discerning ear will notice that there is actually a lot going on. Not the case here. Pick up a guitar, play a few power chords, cut and paste,,,,,,,,,,,,,,. Sit at the drums, pound out a simple beat, rinse and repeat. Shriek. YOU could have made this record. Well, maybe not the key parts, but everything else.

Returning to the aspect of redundancy, one can trace back pretty much everything happening here to someone else. The sound-effect use goes way back, but most notably here it reminds me of Bathory. The repetitiveness and droning harken to Burzum; but where Burzum manages to use subtle changes to keep things interesting and progressing; Nargaroth pretty much just takes the shoegazer route of repeating the same 3 chords over and over again. The occasional symphonic element is derivative of Emperor. I don’t think I need to say who does it better. And as mentioned before, the riffs themselves are often no more than lifeless takes on Darkthrone and Immortal.

There really isn’t much more to say. If you are looking for a real classic in the same vein, you’d be better suited listening to Satyricon’s Dark Medieval Times, Immortal’s Pure Holocaust, Burzum’s Filosofem, or Bathory’s Blood Fire Death. Those albums create a similar atmosphere, but with far more interesting musicianship and better-executed orchestration. For my money, Nargaroth’s only true milestone is Jahreszeiten. It is an album full of unique ideas and executed with focus. Save yourself the boredom on this one.

Nargaroth... A one man project by Kanwulf, which brands itself as "German Hateful and Misanthropic Metal." This band is either loved, or hated. Kanwulf has a reputation of being a "cunt," due to his beliefs, and actions. Well, if he is a cunt, than he is a cunt. However, this should not influence how one perceives his music. Varg Vikernes of Burzum burned three churches and murdered a guy, but his music is still good... So why should it be any different for Nargaroth?

This album IS a classic in black metal. No doubt about it, and no getting around it. People will argue that it is overrated, but that is not the case. The people who are giving this album such praise actually know what the fuck they're talking about, as supposed to the idiotic fucks who call this overrated shit. ...Anyway, this album begins with the title song, "Herbstleyd." This is the ORIGINAL version, not the one on the "Amarok" album. This version is much better, as it begins with a beautiful mix of different, and somewhat abnormal. folky noises. We hear fire burning, women singing, sheep crying, water flowing, a spoken track of a women telling some story (sorry... I do not speak German)... Truly a beautiful listening experience. After about 7:10 of folkish music, the first beautiful, somber guitar melody kicks in. It evokes such a feeling of utter sadness and despair in the listener. A synth flute is then played, and a synth choir is heard in the backround. This track then goes from raw, to ambient, to raw again, and finally, at about 13:53 in, that beautiful, sad melody is played again which we heard in the beginning, but it is somewhat softer and quieter... Sounds very much more sad, and depressing.... This is the greatest track from Nargaroth, period. The next track, "Karmageddon," is another Nargaroth classic. It begins with a beautiful, sad clean guitar melody. Ah, the melodies on this albums!!!!!! Well at around, 0:50, the song picks up and and that atmospheric rawness we know from Nargaroth shows itself. And holy shit, that riff that starts at 1:24 is truly epic sounding. The next track, "Nargaroth," is a fast, pummeling instrumental that shows the albums harsher side. It's about 3 minutes of intense, ferocious black metal. The next track, "Des alten Kriegers Seelenruh'," is also truly amazing. Begins with a raw as hell riff accompanies by a dark, atmospheric keyboard melody. Kanwulf's vocals truly shine especially in this specific track, as they sound much more painful and hateful here. The next track, "Amarok - Zorn des Lammes," begins, sort of similar to "Herbstleyd" did, with some sampled folkish ambient noises and a woman speaking. This is the album's second "epic," with "Herbstleyd" being the first. "Amarok - Zorn des Lammes" is about 18 and a half minutes long. The black metal comes in at around 2:55 with some of those amazing hateful screams from Kanwulf, and an amazing, DEFINITELY Nargaroth melancholic riff. The keyboards in this song are very medieval sounding, sort of how Satyricon used them in their album "Dark Medieval Times" or how Satyr's side project Wongraven used in his ambient/folk album "Fjelltronen." This track is generally slower, and more epic sounding than the others. The next track entitled "Das schwarze Gemälde" begins with some rain, thunder, and sampled folk sounds (again? Yes, again, and it works amazingly like it has consistently done so far). There are some tribal sounding drums played here, with somewhat of a marching beat. The synths in this track actually remind me of the Austrian band Summoning, in a way. This is not a black metal song; it is actually more of a dark ambient/folk song. And it is a favourite of mine from the album. It is truly atmospheric and beautiful. "Vom Traum, die Menschheit zu töten" sounds suicidal/depressive black metal to me. It is so hateful and misanthropic.... The riffs in this one drag the listener into a sea of depression, or an abyss of darkness (which ever one works for you). The "Outroduction" of this album is just some spoken word stuff and eerie keyboards. Adds a deep feeling of darkness to the listener as he/she finishes listening to this grand work of art. Kanwulf.... You are a genius.

Now, onto the production. It's black metal. Need I say more? ...Alright... I'll say a little more. The production of this album is not "bad," but it ain't polished or anything. It standard for a black metal album, especially for one at the time it was released back in 1998. The sound is dirty and raw, which, is a common trait for this type of music, and of Nargaroth in general. But you can clearly hear what's going on in the songs. The bass is nonexistent, leaving more room for the fuzzy atmosphere caused by the guitars. The drums are clear and not too much reverb is used.

This album is a genuine classic. Whether or not people love or hate Kanwulf or Nargaroth in general, everyone seems to enjoy this album. I have only talked to a few people who hate this record. They couldn't give me a valid reason, so I wrote them off. Enjoy the dark helping of misanthropy from the genius known as Kanwulf!

This album starts off with possibly the greatest beginning ever. A haunting Slavic-sounding folk intro suddenly collapses into the caustic embrace of riffy black metal with a healthy doom infusion. Crushing with melancholic beauty. Emotions in this section are so clear: I feel like I am standing alone on a mountain with a tumultuous and rumbling sky above me, as it vents the wrath of the ether; excuse the cliche. This significant section of the album flows very nicely, alternating between fast, grim, and pummeling black metal and depressive slow sections. This is the only reason I was gentle enough to give this an 87%.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album can't maintain this high standard of musical perfection. After the Intro, the rest of the album seems like some lame synthetic attempt at recapturing former glory. It is decent enough black metal, but the atmosphere is somehow cheap; perhaps even shoddy and homogeneous.

Grim track blurs into grim track, each with it's own persistent attempt to be "different" and stand out, but this incessant need to stand out and be too individual make the album sound needy. Each song demands too much attention. This turns this would-be-amazing album into a forgettable buzz of random half-decent ideas infused into songs that would be good were it not for the random ideas. Kind of like newer Behexen or Nebiros, just, obviously, better.

The redeeming factors of this album, other than the intro, are the awesome vocals and perfect production.

The vocals are far and away Kanwulf's, or Ash's, (or whatever his current whimsically-chosen name that he demands everyone call him is. He changes it practically every day, so we will just use Kanwulf) best. They are fresher and more genuinely sorrowful than the canned-sounding ones on Black Metal ist Krieg (A Dedication Monument), and obviously better than the laughable ones on his almost joke-like newest release. High, shrill screams with immense sorrow work in conjunction with more normal, but still excellent black metal vocals. Kanwulf's work here is, surprisingly, similar to the vocals of Dodsferd or Burzum due to the fact that one can hear his pain as he screams, just without the obnoxious, injured-animal yelps that Dodsferd so readily employs. Obviously his vocal style is QUITE different than either Dodsferd or Burzum, but on a deeper level, it definitely shares that quality of agony.

Now to the production. I will start by saying that I wish more black metal was produced like this. Not terribly raw and organic, but not antiseptic-y perfect either. it has just the right amount of sludge: it sounds pleasantly begrimed without being unlistenable. Fortunately, it stays away from the super-thin treble sound that plagues black metal, yet it also manages to avoid sounding too beefed up, as is the case with far too much death and blackened death. I know this is a lame comparison, but I would have to say that it is similar to the production of Pest, albeit less spartan.

Overall, this is a decent album, but, like that woefully annoying kid at school or coworker who tries way too hard to be friends with everybody, this album tries too hard. It prostitutes itself to the virtue of creativity for creativity's sake, thus selling itself short.

The confrontational flames of pillage fire, the chants and lamentations of woebegone villagers and the epic sounds of warhorse mounted infantry clashing with Saxon steel. Sounds like pyrrhic victory. This is a war that hopefully won’t end someday. This is Herbstleyd. And so begins the bleak savagery to one of the most impressive commencements I have heard on a black metal album. Titled simply as “Introduction”, I was gripped by secrets of the Schwarzwald and it told of a warring history. The screams of its fallout can still be heard. I didn’t want this album to end once it even started. That is the impression that presentations like this should always leave in the beginning track.

I am big on beginnings and this also happens to be the full-length debut of Nargaroth but this is not beginner’s luck. This record is the grand accumulation of songs forged and refined a few years prior to the finished product. Some of the most classic black metal releases have been time trialed this way until they were as good as they were going to get and ready to be pressed.

Several years ago I heard Lurker of Chalice, the newfangled black ambient offshoot of Wrest’s main project Leviathan. It was a captivating experience in pitch nihilism and depressive starkness appended in some tracks with a weird sort of narrative. It was an album influenced by another particular one that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. When I finished Herbstleyd, right away I spotted the influence I was wondering about in Lurker. To me, it was from this album. Of course, it goes without saying that the root influence of this type of black metal is obviously Burzum. The course grimness of the guitars and the basal blast beats undertaken by Kanwulf here are an arrant depiction of the Pagan warscapes that one Count Grishnackh was known to pioneer in his early outings with Burzum.

This is an album of many details and with Herbstleyd, Kanwulf executes them to the letter. His keyboards channel orchestral atmosphere and the rustic background score heard during the narrative passages. How the blasting, hateful guitar riffs from the main songs follow in from these sound bytes is a masterstroke. There is also the instrumental Das Schwarz Gemälde that reminded me of the one found in Burzum’s Det Som Engang Var. The scores of Popol Vuh also come to mind on the ambient passages.

Kanwulf’s vocals are the torturous screams also found in Burzum recordings. On the first song, they are accompanied by sonorous keys and then the song winds down into a raw guitar interlude similar to one that can be found in a song like Lost Wisdom. Again, the prevalence of Burzum will come to mind a lot in this album and rightfully so. If you still haven’t had your fill for that influence, you will find even more of it in Karmageddon. I must recommend the bass work on this release as well. It’s used as an essential aesthetic in most of the songs but notably in Nargaroth. Actually, the bass here is almost heard to be invisible during the fast part of the song but you can tell it’s there. However, at about three and half minutes into this song, there is a melodic passage backed by frosty distortion with the bass taking the forefront as an acoustic rhythm. It’s just another enchanting aspect to appreciate from this black offering.

While the album Herbstleyd takes much influence from black metallers like Varg Vikernes and Rob Darken, I sensed a distinct East German ethic being played out on here. Something about war ravished lands and with the howls of wolves to lay waste on the road to ruin as heard on the track Des Alten Kriegers Seelenruh inspired this hunch. Herbstleyd is a misanthropic saga that shuns all hope for the light of being. The horrors of war and the victors of its spoil will ultimately be the wolves that encircle ne’er. This is medieval black metal like few others have created. Kanwulf would later make a song called Fuck off Nowadays Black Metal on his infamous Black Metal Ist Krieg. To that I would say: C’est la guerre, Rene.

This album is unbelievable. Not only it is one of the greatest debut albums ever, but to this day fights with the likes of Satyricon's "Dark Medieval Times" or Burzum's "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" for the title of "most entrancing album of all time" in my book. Sure, Kanwulf, the main man behind Nargaroth, spent several years writing and recording demos before having the chance to record an proper album, and "Herbstleyd" itself existed in demo form before No Colours Records gave Kanwulf the chance of a lifetime, yet the strength of the material is impressive beyond words for a debut studio effort.
Written entirely by Kanfulf and almost completely performed only by the man itself, feturing his fellow black metaller Charoon as a session lead guitarist, "Herbstleyd" is a joruney through a different world and a different time.

The incredibly intense feeling of atmosphere and ambience is strengthened by the abundance of sound, speech and music samples throughout the album, adding a new element and blending perfectly with the spirit of the music. The production is "suitably harsh", meaning that it's not overworked and clinical (which wiould ruin the spirit of the songs) but you don't have to make your ears bleed to understand what's going on. The guitars are thick and don't lack a good old end, the bass is perceivable, the drums sound very natural and raw (although the cymbals lack some power) and the keyboards are goven the right level in the mix. Kanwulf's voice is not very clear (it has never been much anyway) but it has its own share of aggressiveness and is made more enjoyable with the constant use of a slight echo.

As the album starts, we are first greeted by a seven minutes introduction, a jigsaw of medieval chantings, battle and nature sounds and movie speeches (in German) enrichened by effective keyboard passages. It is the perfect mood setter for the rest of the album, and in case you think it might be too drawn out, know that I have NEVER fast forwarded this since I bought my copy of this cd. Then, all of a sudden, the title track begins with a scream and a slow, melancholic and beautiful melody, with the guitars and keyboards painting a cold, misty autumnal scenery, sustained by a basic drum pattern hanging between the martial and the funeral march and completed by a haunting flute melody which sets in at the third measure. Then, a much faster and aggressive riff comes in; Kanwulf's blastbeats might be clumsy at times but it doesn't really affect the final result. A haungting keyboard break, another blasting interlude and here come the lyrics, over yet another slow and emotion laden riff, before another blasting section brings us back to the incredibly beautiful opening riff for the grand finale. The alnum starts in the best possible way, and it's only just begun.
"Karmageddon", the only song of the album to feature English lyrics, opens with a sad clean guitar arpeggio over the sound of blowing wind and Kanwulf groaning the first verse, before the song turns into a kind of war march and finally into a pure Black Metal assault with Kanwulf screaming as if possessed by some dark force, until only the same sad clean guitar is left weeping over the remains of devastation as Kanwulf mourns "the oceans black burnt the land... and no cry will be heard...".
"Nargaroth" is next, and instrumental built on energic guitar riffs which have a somewhat Medieval taste; despite being about just two minutes long it has a fair amount of variation and subtle tempo changes, which also give room to a very headbangable part.
More wind blowing welcomes the listener to the cold lands of the forth song, the epic "Des alten Kriegers Seelenruh'"; beginning with a plodding war march style rhythm and surreal keyboards singing in the distance, the song then evolves into a another blastbeat assault just to stop and give way to an incredibly cold, haunting middle section just made by a sad clean guitar, a slow, soft beat and Kanwulf's echoing voice, over the ever present sound of the wind. This is where you really realize how the sound effects are cleverly used here, and never trenspass the border of cheesiness. The song picks up again to a more upbeat and triumphant finale, sealing yet another mastepiece.
The second half of the album begins with the immense "Amarok - Zorn des Lammes", an almost 20 minute opus filled with great samples; I just wish I knew where such excerpts come from because the soundtrack you can hear here is absolutely superb. Of course cool samples aren't enough to make a good song, and that's why Kanwulf provided some hugely effective riffs, revealing his admiration for Burzum in their trance inducing repetition.
After such a song, a little break is needed, thus enter "Das schwarze Gemälde", a majestic keyboard instrumental built around sad yet catchy melodies, made deeper by the clever use of several different patches and percussion beats (also made by synth) which turn into an actual pattern in the last part, something I have personally never heard in a (metal) album.
The last song, "Vom Traum, die Menschheit zu töten", is yet another collection of awesome riffs and different tempos which Kanwulf dedicates to Rob Darken of Graveland as a statement of admiration for his opus "Thousand Swords". A short speech outro, and the journey is over, with not a single unmemorable riff or unsatisfying moment.

The beauty and enthralling atmosphere of this album (I think it could be called "Ambient Black Metal") can be hardly put into words... so do yourself a favour and track this down, if you don't have it already. Pure magnificence translated into some of the best music I've heard in ages.