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Jahresringe > Der Dunkelheit beraubt > Reviews
Jahresringe - Der Dunkelheit beraubt

Mediocre and Disjointed - 50%

TheStormIRide, October 14th, 2012

Stefan Johannes, of Licht-und Schattensaiten fame, created Jahresringe in 2005, a new one-man black metal project to express his love for all of the mystical aspects of nature. Licht-und Schattensaiten, if you aren't aware, is Stefan Johannes' other one man black metal project where he expresses his love of the mystique of nature. Yes, that is right: Stefan Johannes has two separate one man projects in the same sub-sector of black metal. Usually one man black metal bands have their black metal project and their ambient project or their black metal project and their thrash project, etc, but not this one.

The music of Jahresringe is firmly rooted in mid paced black metal, despite the apparent “mystical nature” themes. Johannes' debut under the Jahresringe monicker, “Der Dunkelheit beraubt”, might have all of the intentions of praising nature, and the lyrics probably do represent this, but the end result is an album that more so praises the legends and originators of black metal: Celtic Frost, Bathory, etc. There is an earthy, sodden and dry production heard on this release that hearkens back to the early days without bending to the horribly produced lo-fi style common on one man projects.

Being a one man act, Stefan Johannes writes all of the music and plays every instrument on this release. This release is around thirty-eight minutes with five tracks ranging from the five minute area to nearly eleven minutes on “Finstertraum in falschem Licht”. The impressive part about Jahresringe's music is that the shorter songs fit together so well beside the longer tracks. The longer tracks are able to keep a hold of the listener and not become pretentious or boring. Don't go thinking that this is a perfect listen, as there are songwriting and instrumentation issues present.

The guitars are the main focal point here. Maintaining a mid paced style, Jahresringe utilizes both trem picked riffing and slower chugging, palm muted riffing. The trem riffing is cyclical and borderline trance inducing. My main gripe is that when I start to get pulled into a riff, it suddenly phases into a chunky, palm muted riff, or a random China crash pops in, but I'll get to those pesky drums here shortly. The chunky riffing has a thrashy, first wave kind of feel to it, but slightly less aggressive. Many times there is an overarching guitar melody layered over the rest of the music, sounding very similar to Borknagar's style. Leads pop up here and there, usually with an extrapolated scale building off of the rhythm riffing.

Vocals are not Johannes' strong point, as the entire performance is a more than a tad one dimensional. The vocals are a deeper, gruff style with a slight trailing rasp. It basically sounds like a death metal singer trying to add some kvlt points to his style: not terrible, but nothing memorable. A few times he changes it up a deep, muffled groaning that makes him sound constipated more than anything else.

The rhythm section is where Jahresringe starts to become disjointed and jumbled. The bass follows the guitar lines around for most of the album, but it occasionally peers its ugly head out and follows neither the guitars nor thedrums. It actually just kind of floats aimlessly for a few notes and then fades back into obscurity again. The drums are pretty fun at times, with Johannes either bashing on the China crash or plinking away on the bell of the ride cymbal. He really has a knack for interesting rhythms on the cymbals. The bass drum mostly runs along, slowing only during the chugging sections. This is where the disjointed feeling comes from though. The double bass drum is running along, the ride is plinking and the trem picked guitars are blasting: sounds good, right? Well, it would be if the double bass and ride cymbal were on the same page as the guitars. It would be even better if the ride and double bass were on the same page as each other. Granted, there are a lot of sections where everything meshes together in grandiose harmony, but it makes the disjointed sections stand out all that much more.

“Der Dunkelheit beraubt” is an enjoyable listen for the most part, if you can get past the disjointed, jumbled sections where nothing seems to have the same rhythm. Jahresringe is catchy and powerful at its best but trying and jumbled at its worst. With some extra care taken to make sure all of the instruments match up, this could be a great project but, as it stands, this album is mediocre at best. Perhaps Johannes should get some others involved in this project.