Trauma

“Soundscapes of mental and physical decay”. “A feverish dream between shards of reality”. These are two of the statements the band was distributing to grant you an insight on the theme they based Trauma on. The record is enacted by members of Todtgelichter, Atras Cineris and Signum:Karg. They all kept their roots and Trauma is therefore offering black metal, with some ambient influences.

The track that is offering the most ambient sounds is the intro called I. This is composed of a chaotic montage of samples of newscasts, a (church?) choir or the Urbi Et Orbi. Everything is climaxing in a cloud of spheric synthesizer sounds, which are introducing the next song neatlessly. This song is greeting you with a slightly upsetting riff, which is processed with some reverb. This riff is keeping the sceptre of might and therefore is dominating the mixture of drums, guitars, bass and vocals. Especially the rhythmguitar is playing a minor role here, and it’s only duty is to create a dense layer of sound, without sounding indifferentiated.

The vocals on Trauma are mostly somewhat subtle as well, so that guitars and vocals (which is by the way slightly similiar to the vocals of Nemesis Sopor) are audible, but they are accentuating the upsetting construct of melodies. Like it was in Lifelovers Sjukdom you can follow the good and bad days of the disease and so there is a span between the tracks in terms of madness. To be exact the only really mad tracks are II and V, while III and VI are more or less normal black metal songs without leaving the theme of the record. Although the theme is shimmering through the songs are done without any experiments in sound and the only real noteworthy parts are the small acoustic interludes.

The only unmentioned track is IV which is a calm, atmospheric instrumental, which is heralding the forthcoming storm V. There are only six songs on the record, which doesn’t mean the record isn’t good, but it only offers 35:19 minutes of playing time, which is really short for a record. The really short playing time is balanced through the high niveau of orchestration, production and at least partially composition. What should be praised in terms of composition are that they continue the melodies they are using, which clarifies the unity of the record.

Conclusion:

Trauma didn’t really let me experience a feverish dream at all, but I am, nevertheless, a bit febrile. The record is really a unit as every song is neatlessly followed by the other and at least four out of six tracks know how to convince. The both pure black metal ones are, compared to the others, simply to standard, without any innovation and too much “unleash the fucking fury”, although they are well executed there is the lack of something special. The theme was, nevertheless, staged really gripping and harmonious, so I would recommend the record.

Originally written for http://threnodies.com

After sitting through the laborious three-minute intro to Kratein’s Trauma album I was filled with trepidation about what I might be in for with this music. The German band is described as ‘black ambient metal’, and that lends itself to many visions and anticipations. When “II” seeps into the earphones I’m still unsure, but at least we’re underway.

The incessant noise that appears well off-key stayed in my head for an hour after hearing it, so I wasn’t all that impressed with what I was hearing. I hear the familiar harsh vocal that attempts to breathe evil into the ear drums, yet only manages to cause a few moments of forced piqued interest, giving way to total abandonment of hope that this will be a memorable CD. Its flat, uninspired atmosphere is reminiscent of a million post-Filosofem bands that want so badly to attach their names to the black metal tag but simply don’t fall within the absolutely necessary lines of musical tangibility. Widely stagnant in the atmospheric areas, I hear no true ambiance here save for some causal guitar chords that a million black metal bands are using that continuously make me physically ill. Granted, Kratein isn’t that bad, but they really aren’t that great in this effort either. The talent is there, but it’s buried under a sea of plasticity posing as aura and encompassment that is too criminally transparent. I hate to descend on a band’s creative energy so brutally, but at this point what else can you say short of screaming “ENOUGH!!” from the highest peak around?

An unfortunate casualty in this music is the ambiance that should be created in the arduous pursuit of darkness and foreboding but simply doesn’t have the genuine seal. The haunting acoustic breakdown in “IV” was a wonderful stop-and-breathe portal that was the best part of the CD for me; it’s this very solemnity that should have driven this CD to higher points. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say I would have rather heard 35-minutes of acoustic sorrowful passages than contrived, borrowed passion. I’m also hearing a lot of this post-black metal sound in the music ala Alcest, Fen or Agalloch, which seems to be the running trend these days. I’m not outright accusing Kratein of such bland thievery, but the elemental similarities are far too egregious to ignore at this point. I will say that “VI” is somewhat of a game-saver for me with its fast-paced bleakness and formulaic, but interesting structure. It shows the band can instill some rank blackness from its musical arsenal.

This isn’t necessarily a bad album in the basic sense of the word, but it is definitely an underwhelming collective. I can and do expect more from a band attempting this style of metal music because, in all honesty, spotting the lack of total vision is too easy for this sub-genre.

(Originally written for www.MetalPsalter.com)

Founded only in 2009, Kratein have made an instant impact upon the German black metal scene. This full-length debut, entitled ‘Trauma’, is the only addition to the bands discography and is a solid start to their venture into the ambient black metal world. Having covered this sub-genre of black metal numerous times over the years, I’ve come to terms with the fact that very few bands manage to find stability in using ambient and metallic influences at the same time. Technically speaking, Kratein aren’t really an ambient black meta; band, though songs like ‘II’ begin with an ambient introduction. The ambient elements are a less frequent aspect that I initially expected and, given that black metal musicians often have grave difficulty melding ambient atmospherics into their works, this isn’t necessarily a negative thing. ‘Trauma’ is a very solid album all over. The strength in the projection is mainly in the riffing, though I’ve come to expect nothing less of black metal bands down the years, particularly those from within the German boarders.

This album begins with a strange instrumental opening. The song contains a lot of talking, both in English and German, but very little else. I tend to discredit these types of songs as they play a very small, insignificant role in the making of the album. As a way of introducing newcomers to Kratein’s stylistic approach, it does nothing. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but with its three minute length, I cannot help but find its presence on the album a little bit annoying. Swiftly moving on to the real material, ‘II’ is a very solid beginning to the album. It mixes brief intermissions of ambiance in with a relentless style of repetitious black metal. The key to the album, and the band it seems, is in the layering of the material. The guitars are effective more so when they’re layered over each other. We have a rather formulaic approach here, but it’s projected with skill and vision. The distorted guitar plays underneath the lighter aspects, which brings the ambiance to the forefront of the album. The clean vocals appear to want to draw them out further still, but they make a mess of it because they’re just not evocative enough, or powerful.

‘II’ is exquisite in parts. The slowing down of the song brings a focus to the band which isn’t really seen in the fiercer side to their style. The song, when slowed down, features more affective riffs and vocals. I was surprised by the role of the bass on all songs as it’s very audible and, although it does like to support and enhance the guitar riffs, it can provide some degree of individualism, which brings about a greater sense of an adventurous spirit in the songs, particularly those like ‘II’. The production is a bit of an issue throughout, though it doesn’t do much to harm the determined riffs. The production isn’t as clean as I’d like. Songs like ‘III’ make a hash of trying to incorporate a clearer sense of the vocals by applying them in a different light on occasions over the instrumentation, which is a much better element than the vocals, which are fairly standard. The cleaner side to Kratein isn’t focused on too much but, when it is, it’s generally well worked into the structures and features some refreshing instrumentation, such as the acoustics on ‘III’, which gives the album its ambient feel.

‘IV’ also draws out ambient aspects in the album through the use of guitar feedback and acoustics. These acoustics are really rather beautiful but, again, the album tends to suffer from narrow-mindedness. Although Kratein will inevitably invite special elements into their music, they’re always too quick to fall back on the old methods of instrumentation which don’t really set the world on fire. ‘IV’ is a noteworthy addition for being the only song, bar the introductory effort, to do something a little different. The entire song is an instrumental song, too, like ‘I’, but this instrumental song makes better use of the allocated five minutes by using gentle acoustics, which give the album a more varied feel than was previously felt on the other songs. The cleanly spoken German vocals towards the end don’t add much to the song, but it’s thoughtful enough to be worthy of an inclusion. ‘V’ gets things back on track with powerful riffing and more good use of the bass, but I’ve always felt that Kratein could do better at integrating the percussion into the atmospherics. The drums feel a bit out-of-place but they’re not the only element to feel slightly unusual given the use of cleanly spoken vocals again, though they’re so muted, they don’t offer the album a new presence. As far as debuts go, this could have been much better, but it could also be a lot worse.