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Satarial > Heidenlarm > Reviews
Satarial - Heidenlarm

More of the same but different - 72%

Egregius, November 19th, 2003

Woa, did I comment in my other review that this band must have a bizarre liveshow, this album's booklet shows (censored) images of one of the female live-performers (shown naked on the cover on the right) masturbating herself with a crucifix (with Jesus puppet!).

Ehm, music review, right.

Well the album starts of well, with a lot of spunk. A really jumpy folky song. A few differences with the last album immediatly become apparent. The guitars are downtuned a lot, so it becomes hard to recognize different notes. It adds heavyness to the songs, but reduces the role of the guitars/bass to one of rythm-instrument, which is a pity. Another thing is that the flutes are now dominant, and the keyboards slightly more on the background (behind the flutes and guitars). The singer alternates his screechy vocals with dark clean vocals; overall he sounds slightly less passionate than on the last album alas. Also: the female vocals now have a more clear, seperate, role.

However, in general, the songstructures remain generally the same: centered around a forward momentum with keyboard and flutes dancing around it in melody, and guitars driving it forward.

The Odes have changed to 'Russian Traditional song/ballad' however. This time, the corny keyboard is left out, and the vocals sound a bit as if sung by a drunken middle-aged woman. I guess that's the effect of maturity on your voice, or maybe it's just that the female vocalist forces her voice to hit lower octaves.

Overall, compared to their first album, this album has more tempo to it, more changes within songs (I guess that's a logical progression since their demo), is slightly heavier, but has less atmosphere. And it's the atmosphere I liked most. Alas.