A Banner Greater than Death

Der Sturmer is a Greek black metal band that has proved itself to be more than competent of creating pure evil with their releases. The only exception being their first album, which was overtly RAC influenced and came across as very lacking. This is certainly not the case for their second album. The first track comes at you fist first with incredible speed and aggression, setting the mood for the rest of the album. On the 3rd we hear something that is completely unnecessary and littered across the entire album... a movie sample, something Der Sturmer is infamous for. They completely stop the mad pace of the last track and are a bore. This album feels like watching Rambo on a bootleg VHS, fast-paced action interrupted by other movies. The speed of this album is comparable to Marduk. So, we have fast riffs, relentless drums and mediocre vocals... I don't think they even qualify for black metal vocals, they are more akin to RAC. This is the main reason this review isn't 100%.

A track that certainly stands out from the rest is Those Who Lived and Died Like Heroes. There is a noticeable change in pace in favor of a more heroic, triumphant sound and overall a lack of speed. It transports you to the end of a battle, your hands up in the air and being proud of everything that led up to this point. It's a nice breather song, and then you're pummeled straight back into the action.

Addressing the elephant in the room now... the politics. Der Sturmer is certainly a band that does NOT shy away from shoving as much NS imagery down your throat as they can. From the band name, to the cover, to the samples and lyrics, this whole album can be classified as propaganda. If you took those things away, it would definitely prove itself to be deserving of more fame just for the music.

The album's biggest strength turns out to be one of its biggest weaknesses, too. With such speed and aggression, variation is needed to break the cycles of endless blasting. Listening to this album, you'll come to find that after the first half, the songs might lose your attention. As for the production, it's pretty standard. The drum sound is pretty punchy, the guitars feel sharp, and the bass is not too prominent.

All in all, the album is a relentless beast that pummels with sheer speed and hatred. This is definitely the peak of their material, surpassing their splits, EPs and LPs. Pure Hellenic terror embarks on your ears.

After managing to reach the nadir of black metal music on The Blood Calls for W.A.R., there was nowhere to go but up for the following album. A Banner Greater Than Death is easily better than Der Sturmer’s debut in almost every single way possible. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, as I mentioned in my other review, there are people out there in the metal scene that proclaim this to be some sort of black metal masterpiece, which resulted in me becoming aware of it in the first place. To put it bluntly, it is not and I have no idea what these people are talking about. While the album is an improvement (and the best Der Sturmer full-length to date) it’s just.... bland. Let me explain.

In the review that I read that introduced me to this band years ago, the writer compared the album to the band Marduk, one of the fastest and heaviest black metal bands (at least out of the “popular” stuff). I like Marduk, so I checked the album out and I can’t say that I was surprised to find that this album is not like Marduk at all except for the fact that it goes fast. With that being said, the speed on this album is it’s main strength. Blast beats and fast tremolo picking abound on A Banner Greater Than Death and, because of this, the album is almost good. None of the riffs are impressive from a technical perspective, but songs like “Adolf der Große” and “Dawning Israel's Perdition” have riffs that are honestly pretty cool and are bound to get your blood flowing. Most of the album isn’t to the same level of quality, but generally, the riffs go fast and the drums pound away beneath them. This would be fine (albeit usually dull) if the vocals weren’t horrendous. This guy sounds like someone doing a joke impersonation of Chris Barnes and it is absolutely abysmal. The vocals are lifeless, unintentionally funny, and don’t even line up with the music on a lot of the songs, which is a recurring theme in Der Sturmer albums in general.

The best way to describe this album is just sub-par. It never reaches a point where it becomes outright horrendous, but, because of that, it rides the awkward middle ground between something unintentionally hilarious and actually being unironically good. Due to this, the album is just not very enjoyable. Like with many releases in the NSBM “genre”, the album is just a bland version of much more talented bands that aren’t racist. I think there is a certain crowd that flocks to bands like this due to how edgy they are, but, even then, there are NSBM bands that are actually good musically. There really just isn’t much of a reason to listen to this outside of morbid curiosity, so in the end I’ll just say don’t.

Recommended Tracks (If you absolutely must):
“Adolf der Große”
“Dawning Israel's Perdition”
"Arr-Hammer"

A Banner Greater Than Death, released in 2006 on Die Todesrune Records, is the second album from Greek NSBM outfit Der Stürmer. The first thing to say about this album is that is one of the most extreme, outspoken, hardline Nazi albums I’ve ever seen or heard. The visual imagery used in the album art ranges from heroic portraits of Hitler and stormtroopers to anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews most likely borrowed from Der Stürmer, the infamously scurrilous newspaper published during the Third Reich by Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, from which Der Stürmer’s name derives. The lyrics and explanatory texts in the booklet (which are all in English) include numerous anti-Semitic references to ‘Semitic snakes’, ‘rabbi corpses’, ‘Zionist scum’, ‘the Yiddish nest’ etc. No single song on here manages to be quite as spectacularly offensive as the tribute to the London nail-bomber David Copeland which appears on Der Stürmer’s Polish-Hellenic Alliance Against Z.O.G.! release, but overall, there’s no doubt that most people are not going to find Der Stürmer’s politics acceptable. There’s none of the is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-fascist ambivalence and ambiguity you get with such bands as Death In June or NON – with Der Stürmer, you totally know these guys are Nazis. I will make no further comment in this review on the matter of the band’s politics, as I berated them once already about this in my review of the split release with Capricornus, and also I believe users of this website are (or should be) mature enough to make up their own minds as to whether this is the sort of thing they wish to support, but you’ve been given fair warning…


So, on to a consideration of the musical content of A Banner Greater Than Death. ‘Dawning Israel's Perdition’ is typically crude, fast, raw and brutal. Hardcore and RAC (Rock Against Communism) influences prevail, although Der Stürmer describe themselves as a black metal band. Black metal like early Mayhem or Absurd maybe, but really this is virtually Oi music – I don’t think skinheads would have a problem with enjoying this. ‘Arr-Hammer’ is more of the same, though its powerfully thrashy guitar sound gives it greater impact. ‘An Iron Fist (For The Modern World)’ begins with a film dialogue sample. ‘Defiance’ is a militant call to arms, with heavy use of snare drum for a combative feel. ‘Those Who Lived And Died Like Heroes’ features more film dialogue, with epic, heroic themes. The song itself is slower and less frenetic than most of Der Stürmer’s work, bringing it closer to the black metal sound of early Graveland or Thor’s Hammer – for this reason, it’s probably my favourite track on here. It’s worth mentioning that Der Stürmer contributed to the Graveland tribute album. ‘Last Battalion's Marching’ signals a return to the fast, no-frills moshpit fuel that is Der Stürmer’s stock-in-trade. ‘Ancestral Wolfcall’ begins with lupine yips and snarls over an epic orchestral theme, and develops something of the same bludgeoning power as ‘Arr-Hammer’. ‘Baptized by the Blood of the Fallen (Blutfahne)’ begins with an excerpt from a Third Reich era speech in German. ‘Feel the Bitter Taste of Nemesis’ uses a film dialogue sample on the subject of vengeance and vigilante justice. The final track, ‘Adolf der Große’, is of course a paean of glorification of der Führer – ‘Hitler, your name shall be praised!’ etc.


Leaving aside the political issues, Der Stürmer’s music is mostly too fast and crude to hold my interest, although their use of film samples adds something to the album, and the general production values and graphic presentation of the album are pretty impressive for such an uncompromisingly underground release.