Void Sector Zero may be a new name, but there is nothing remotely inexperienced about the lineup. Guitarist and synth player Christian Münzner is best known for Necrophagist and has also played with Obscura and Alkaloid; vocalist and bassist Alex Weber has credits with Revocation, Malignancy and Exist; drummer Gabe Seeber has played with Decrepit Birth, Abigail Williams and Carach Angren. The three first crossed paths while playing together in Obscura during the 2022 tour for A Valediction. Münzner had wanted to start a tech-thrash project for years, and when he finally committed to the idea, Weber and Seeber were the obvious choices because of the chemistry they had already built onstage.

There is an absurd amount going on in "Vortex Divinium," but the thing that surprised me most is how catchy it is. Void Sector Zero throw progressive structures, thrash energy and melodic death metal into a song packed with tempo changes and ridiculous instrumental proficiency, yet it never feels like technique for technique's sake. I listened to it three times in a row almost immediately.

Christian Münzner is unmistakable here. The guitar work is full of sweep picking, tapping and fast melodic runs, with the kind of precision you'd expect from him. There are also some darker chord choices that brush against black metal without becoming a major part of the song. Behind all of that, the synths are used with restraint: little plucky parts surface here and there, while broader atmospheric pads add depth without ever pulling focus away from the guitars.

The vocals make a great counterweight to everything happening underneath them. Alex Weber mostly sticks to a straightforward mid-range bark, with lower growls appearing in the background. They're almost beautifully one-dimensional next to an arrangement that refuses to sit still. A calmer, jazzy bridge and solo section is especially fun, giving the track a genuinely left-field breather before it dives back into the technical chaos.

Lyrically, Münzner has said the song was inspired by Bob Lazar's claims about Element 115 and alien anti-gravity propulsion, and the words lean hard into quantum manipulation, gravity waves, warped spacetime and other science-fiction imagery. It gives the track a clear science-fiction focus without requiring an entire concept-album dissertation.

The production is clean and modern without calling much attention to itself. More importantly, every instrument gets enough room to shine. As a first statement from the band, "Vortex Divinium" is ridiculously strong: technical, restless, weird in the right places, and somehow immediately replayable. Their debut album, Dead Space Enigma, is due December 11 through Season of Mist, and this single has made me very interested in hearing where they take this.

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I bought The Outlaw because of one riff. I saw Downfall live once, if memory serves opening for Eisregen, and “Noman's Land” hit me hard enough that I bought the CD then and there. Years later, that still feels like one of my better impulse buys. This is not a record built around some grand concept or impossible technical ambition. It is a rough, ridiculously fun pile of riffs from Ruhla, Thuringia, and it knows exactly how to make those riffs count.

Calling it melodic death metal is fair, but it does not tell the whole story. The vocals do much of the work anchoring The Outlaw firmly in death metal: a recognizable low growl dominates, with occasional high screams and very little else. Underneath that voice, the guitars often lean heavily into thrash, and the Rock'n'Roll streak becomes impossible to ignore once you start listening for it. Grooves swing, bridge riffs swagger, and little background leads sometimes sound more like straight Rock'n'Roll than extreme metal. By the end, death 'n' roll feels less like a passing influence and more like a genuine part of the album's identity. Black metal, by comparison, is mostly a brief shade that appears around “Peter Nirsch.”

That mixture works because Downfall are far more interested in writing catchy songs than winning a brutality contest. The album is heavy, but rarely abrasive. It keeps moving almost constantly, shifting between fast verses, slower bridges, double-bass choruses and instrumental sections without turning the structures into puzzles. Most songs are built from familiar parts, but the amount of guitar material packed into them keeps those conventional structures alive. There are so many riffs that it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

The two guitars are especially important. Sometimes they harmonize, but just as often the left and right channels are doing genuinely different things. Headphones reward that separation, with melodies, leads and rhythm parts moving independently across the stereo field. The band also knows when to let those instruments carry a section without vocals. The singer is distinctive, but he is not barking over every available second.

The production fits the material. It is clearly DIY, rough around the edges and short on polish, but none of that makes the album difficult to listen to. If anything, cleaning it up too much would probably cost it some personality. The sound has enough clarity for the guitar interplay to register, while still feeling like a self-produced record from a young local band rather than something sanded smooth in a giant studio.

The one-minute “Intro” is hardly essential, but at least it belongs here. Marching snare, guitars, growls and a final high scream lead seamlessly into the title track instead of promising some huge orchestral fantasy the rest of the album has no interest in delivering. It even gains a little purpose later when “Downfall” brings back the line “for love, for hate, for nothing.” “The Outlaw” itself establishes the band's strengths quickly: fast verses, a mid-tempo chorus, a slower bridge, wild tapping leads and an excellent chromatic bridge riff. “Until It Burns” pushes farther toward thrash, with some riffing and solo phrasing that brings Kill 'Em All-era Metallica to mind. That is a resemblance I hear, not a claim about influence.

“Calling The Predator” is one of my favorites, partly because I still associate that drawn-out chorus with seeing the band live. The refrain hits over double bass, while the rest of the song is slower and a little more intricate than the tracks around it. “Downfall” follows with a groovier death-metal feel and melodic leads, plus another shreddy solo. The solos throughout the album are not exercises in technical wizardry. They are energetic, fun and exactly as complicated as the songs need them to be.

Then comes “Noman's Land,” the reason I own this record. Unlike most of The Outlaw, it takes a little time to build before dropping what is still my favorite riff on the album. The verses ease back, the chorus picks up with double bass, and then the bridge changes the song again: faster instrumental work, a slower vocal passage, another absurdly catchy riff, and finally a buildup back into the opening idea. Toward the end, Rock'n'Roll leads creep into the background. Of everything here, this is the song that most clearly shows why the death 'n' roll tag belongs.

It also makes the transition into “Peter Nirsch” especially effective. The two tracks are back-to-back, flow directly into one another and, amusingly, both run 5:45, yet they feel like opposites. “Noman's Land” may be the easiest-going, most Rock'n'Roll song on the album; “Peter Nirsch” is probably the densest and most intimidating. A black-metal-flavored opening riff sits under spoken vocals before the pace rises again. Even at its darkest, though, the song remains melodic. The heavier atmosphere fits the subject without turning the track into a completely different band.

The final stretch keeps finding small ways to distinguish itself. “Jigsaw” opens on a drum groove that later returns under the full band, then closes with a growled “game over,” made even more memorable by the German accent. “Cry City” swings hard toward thrash again. “In This Cell” answers with one of the album's heaviest death-metal openings, then uses a tremolo-picked bridge over double bass before reshaping essentially the same riff into a more rocking variation. That little transformation is Downfall in miniature: the same basic vocabulary can suddenly lean death metal, thrash or Rock'n'Roll depending on how they attack it.

“Lost Alone” is a smart closer because it finally gives the record a little more breathing room. The double bass and heaviness are still there, but they arrive in bursts instead of constant forward pressure. Naturally, there is still another thoroughly Rock'n'Roll bridge riff waiting inside it. Then the song slows down and the album simply ends on a guitar melody rather than reaching for some giant final chord. It is understated and classy.

I do not hear a weak stretch on The Outlaw. That does not make it a masterpiece, and I would not pretend it is some revolutionary death-metal landmark. It is simply a seriously strong record that remains fun from beginning to end. The riffs are plentiful, the songwriting has more personality than its straightforward structures suggest, and the rough production suits it. If you like metal, especially death metal with a strong thrash pulse and a bit of Rock'n'Roll swagger, I see very little reason not to give it a shot.

8/10.

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Märe aus wäldernen Hallen is exactly the kind of album that makes pagan metal easy to love and easy to mock. There are forests, ancestors, gods, mead, theatrical clean vocals, piercing screams and keyboards that sound very much like they came from the mid-2000s. If that entire sentence makes you cringe, Gernotshagen are probably not going to convert you. If it sounds inviting, this album still has a lot to offer.

What has always worked for me is the atmosphere. The title track opens with synths, acoustic guitar and clean singing, gradually builds toward a final scream, then falls away into “Der alte Wald.” It is less a conventional song than a three-minute entrance into the record, and it does its job perfectly. The synths sound cheap by modern standards, but I cannot bring myself to hold that against them. This was a normal part of the genre's vocabulary in 2007, and now that sound carries its own DIY charm. If a brand-new band used the exact same patches in 2026, I might have a very different reaction. Here, they belong.

“Der alte Wald” is one of my favorites because it shows how much Gernotshagen can do without ever leaving their niche. Electric guitars and synths give way almost immediately to acoustic and clean guitars before the screams arrive. There are theatrical spoken vocals, lower growls, a slower middle section, and a synth solo whose tone I still absolutely love before it transitions beautifully into a guitar solo. At more than seven minutes, the song takes its time, but it never feels aimless. It breathes.

The vocals are probably the album's biggest dividing line. Askan's high screams are piercing, abrasive and sometimes downright hostile. I love them. The low growls are rougher and not necessarily impressive in a technical sense, but they have personality. The clean singing is its own acquired taste again: distinctive, theatrical and very much part of the album's identity. Gernotshagen themselves were consciously expanding that side of the music here. During the recording sessions, H. Gerull of fellow Thuringian pagan metal band Menhir advised Askan, and the band later said that entire vocal passages in “Der alte Wald” and “Dem Skirnir zu Ehren” were reworked to include clean singing and choirs.

That context makes “Dem Skirnir zu Ehren” especially fun. It opens with a scream held for roughly thirteen seconds and eventually reaches the wonderfully earnest chorus, “Hebt an das Horn gefüllt mit Met...” delivered in low growls. As a German speaker, I cannot pretend it does not sound a little goofy. I also cannot pretend I do not love it. That is pagan metal in miniature: completely ridiculous if you are not on its wavelength, strangely glorious if you are. The final chorus switches to clean vocals and suddenly the same words sound much less silly and more genuinely anthemic.

The album is dynamic, but it is also remarkably consistent. Guitars, acoustics, bass and drums are solid throughout; the keyboards keep supplying that unmistakable old pagan-metal atmosphere; and the songs keep rearranging the same core ingredients rather than reinventing the band every five minutes. That means this does not need a full track-by-track autopsy. If you like one representative song, chances are good that you will understand what the whole record is offering.

There are still individual moments worth singling out. “Widars Klagesturm” opens with chugging guitars, melodic leads and clean vocals, leaning more heavily into melody and lower-register singing. “Dragadhrond,” my other favorite, pulls hard in the opposite direction. It is more scream-oriented and around 2:40 Askan's high voice becomes so abrasive that it almost dissolves into white noise. The track then ends with a blastbeat, one of the first moments where the album's black-metal side really lets itself off the leash. It is nasty, memorable and exactly the kind of thing I come to this band for.

That shift is interesting because the album's second half generally feels blacker and more aggressive. The band said in a 2007 interview that the later songs were generally older and closer to the darker character of Wintermythen, while much of the first half contained newer material. You can hear that history in the sequencing. Blastbeats become more prominent in “Dragadhrond,” “Schlachtensang der Einherjer” and “Vali,” while the newer material tends to spend more time with clean vocals, melody and atmosphere.

“In Gedanken schon Walküren nah” works as a useful pause between those worlds. It is essentially a short synth instrumental, a breather after “Dragadhrond” before the nearly nine-minute “Schlachtensang der Einherjer.” That song is probably the album's biggest single statement. It throws in all three vocal approaches, soaring leads, galloping and machine-gun rhythm guitars, blastbeats, synths and riffs, then stops for an atmospheric section of piano, keyboards and howling wind that lasts around two and a half minutes. Around the six-minute mark the guitars begin rebuilding the song, but the vocals do not return until roughly 7:12. Some listeners will absolutely think that is too long. I don't. The scale works for me, and the return to the chorus feels earned because the song makes you wait for it.

“Vali” keeps the blastbeats coming and ends with another wonderfully excessive detail: a guitar lead with a scream sustained for roughly twenty-five seconds over it. Somehow nobody is building a mythology around that scream, but it deserves at least a footnote.

The production is where I have more reservations. I listened to the current Spotify version, and it sounds noticeably rougher than I remembered. I do not want to claim the original CD sounds different without comparing them directly, but this digital version is not especially flattering. The mix can feel thin and uneven, and some of the roughness goes beyond charming old synth patches. There is context for that too: the album was recorded, mixed and mastered in-house, and the band openly discussed learning the process themselves and struggling especially with the drum sound. I appreciate the character, but I would be lying if I called it a great-sounding record.

That roughness matters much less than the songwriting. Even with several long tracks, the album moves quickly. The main weakness only starts showing near the end, where consistency turns into repetition. “Skaid” is good, but by that point it feels like more of what the album has already done rather than one last fresh idea. Its piano interlude and short clean-guitar lead are nice, but the final two minutes are basically waves crashing on the shore and fading out. Atmospheric? Absolutely. Necessary as part of an eight-minute song? Not really. I would much rather those waves had been separated into an outro track, especially remembering the MP3-player era when a two-minute ambient tail meant either pulling the player out of your pocket to skip it or trimming the file yourself.

That is ultimately why this lands at an 8 rather than higher. Märe aus wäldernen Hallen is a fantastic pagan black metal album with a strong identity, genuinely great moments and an atmosphere it sustains remarkably well for more than fifty minutes. It is rough around the edges, the production is imperfect, and the final stretch could use a few more new ideas. It is also absolutely not for everybody.

But for the people who hear cheap synths, shrieking vocals, acoustic guitars, blastbeats, pagan gods and mead and think, “Yes, more of that please,” Gernotshagen built a damn good forest to get lost in.

8/10.

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5 + 6 = 218. That math ain't mathing. As an opening statement, though, it is almost perfect for Heiliges Herz - Das Schwert deiner Sonne. This is an album that looks wrong if you expect familiar rules to stay put. It is black metal, gothic metal, symphonic metal and dark metal, sometimes all within a few minutes, yet I have never heard that variety as confusion. The variety is the identity. This is not a record failing to fit into a genre. It is a record succeeding at being itself.

What surprised me on this listen was just how much straight black-metal vocabulary is actually here. Tremolo-picked riffs, blast beats, double kick and genuinely hostile screams are everywhere. It simply does not feel as abrasive as black metal often does because the production is so damn good. The guitars are massive and clear, the drums are punchy without turning into mush, and the strings and synths have room to breathe. Even when the music is at full speed, melody never disappears. The recurring high, almost whistling synth tone is pure Samsas Traum to my ears, while harmonized lead guitars and proper solos regularly pull the music toward classic heavy metal without sounding out of place.

The vocals are just as varied. Alexander Kaschte's clean singing can sound vulnerable, theatrical and exposed, while his usual screams are pure venom. He whispers, shouts, talk-sings and changes his attack constantly, yet it always sounds unmistakably like him. I also love that the production leaves some of the physical performance intact. You can hear breaths. Singers do, in fact, require oxygen. By the finale he pushes into a nearly hysterical scream that sounds more extreme than anything else on the record, while still moving back through cleans, shouts and his more familiar harsh voice. From a vocal perspective, "Das Schwert deiner Sonne" is basically everything the album can do, and then some.

"Das Zeitalter der Bäume" establishes the scale immediately. After the short intro, the album goes straight into blast beats, huge guitars, clean vocals and those poisonous screams. At more than eight minutes it could easily feel bloated, but I would not cut a second. The slower passages are enormous and melodic, then the song accelerates again without losing its hooks. It is also a perfect introduction to the album's lyrical extremes: humanity is put on trial as a species and nature is imagined continuing after us. The music matches that contempt and scale remarkably well.

Then somehow the same album makes room for "Liebeslied". Against all odds, the song called "Love Song" is actually a love song. Clean guitars and harmonics finally give the record a little breathing room, but the double bass never lets it become lightweight. There is a black-metal-style tremolo riff, a beautiful acoustic guitar solo, huge strings and one of the catchiest choruses on the album. That combination is the entire record in miniature. Samsas Traum can borrow a technique from black metal without allowing that technique to dictate what the song is supposed to feel like.

"Heiliges Herz" is one of the album's absolute peaks for me. It is mid-tempo, almost poppy in how immediate the melody is, but the arrangement is far too strange and grand to feel like pop. The strings are enormous, Diana Lueger's voice adds a beautiful contrast to Kaschte, the bridge is fantastic, and the twin lead guitars push it even higher. I have always loved the lyrics too. Some of Kaschte's writing can make me feel like I speak German but apparently do not speak Alex, yet this one gets through more directly. The idea that another person's touch can make the narrator feel untouchable has always stuck with me. The only real problem with "Heiliges Herz" is that it eventually has to end.

The lyrics across the album are much broader than the black-metal surface might suggest. Nature, animal rights, humanity's destructiveness, love, fear, death and personal transformation keep circling back. Nature is often treated as something sacred, while humanity is very much not assumed to be the center of creation. The funniest part is how naturally extinction-level ecological misanthropy can sit next to sincere romantic writing without making the album feel incoherent. Some of the metaphors are dense enough that I still would not pretend to have every song completely decoded, but difficulty is not the same thing as nonsense. There are genuinely beautiful choices of words throughout this record.

I can also understand why somebody would hate all of this. Black-metal purists may find it too polished, melodic, theatrical and stylistically promiscuous. Someone who wants a consistent, easy genre box may find the constant changes exhausting. Even Samsas Traum listeners expecting something closer to a.Ura und das Schnecken.Haus are not necessarily getting what they came for. If you see "black metal" and expect Marduk, you have walked through the wrong door. For me, though, the things most likely to repel another listener are exactly the things that give this album its personality.

That personality is not just Kaschte, either. He is obviously the center of Samsas Traum and his presence is impossible to miss, but the record would not work without the musicians around him. The layered guitar arrangements, recurring twin leads, melodic counter-lines, solos, relentless drumming and synth work are too important to reduce the album to one eccentric frontman with backing musicians. I saw Samsas Traum live once in Leipzig many years ago, and it remains one of the more memorable concerts I have attended. They could carry this intensity and theatricality onto a stage. It was not merely studio construction.

Then there is "Das Schwert deiner Sonne". Seven minutes of blast beats, straight black-metal riffing, the trademark whistle synth, twin guitars, a stompy section with a frankly questionable guitar sound, cleans, shouts, familiar screams and that completely unhinged hysterical voice. At some point I stop knowing how to describe it beyond "weird but awesome". It keeps adding ideas and somehow refuses to collapse under them. Then it just ends. No grand comedown. Suddenly there is silence and the only sensible thought is: what the fuck did I just listen to?

I used to solve that feeling by immediately replaying "Liebeslied" and "Heiliges Herz". Personally, I still think "Heiliges Herz" would have made the stronger final track because it feels more emotionally conclusive. "Das Schwert deiner Sonne" is the stranger and more audacious ending, though, and there is something appropriate about this album refusing to leave quietly or neatly.

I have known Heiliges Herz - Das Schwert deiner Sonne for well over a decade, and none of this is novelty anymore. It still feels huge. It still pulls me out of ordinary life for an hour. I would not remove a song, I would not change the production, and the qualities I can imagine other listeners calling excessive or embarrassing are the same qualities I would miss if they were gone. A 10 is not a claim that every person should consider a record universally flawless. On this scale, it means masterpiece and personal classic.

This album is so fucking good.

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Mein Fleisch an deinen Lippen... draws much of its energy from the space between thrash and black metal. A riff might begin at a measured pace, return over blast beats, and give way to an acoustic or clean passage before the guitars take over again. The transitions keep the seven songs lively without making them difficult to follow. On this first listen in years, their structures did not always reveal an obvious chorus, but the hooks were immediate.

The guitar work is the album's greatest strength. Its thrash riffs often bring Metallica's first two records to mind, though the black metal edge gives them a different character. That is a resemblance I hear, not a claim about Bluttaufe's influences. Tapping leads, arpeggios, melodic phrases, and a well-placed solo provide just as much to enjoy as the main riffs. The vocalist leaves plenty of room for those parts to develop; the songs can run longer as a result, but usually make good use of the time.

“Trauma” remains my favorite. Its opening riff is instantly catchy, shifting between mid-tempo sections and blast beats, while quieter passages add contrast. The verse guitar part has an almost metalcore-like shape, although the band as a whole belongs firmly in its black and thrash metal setting. The occasional clean vocals are a little awkward, but delivered with enough conviction to work. “Mein geschundener Leichnam” follows with especially strong thrash riffing and a memorable melodic lead under an almost sung scream; low growls add another layer to the vocals.

“Zu Staub zerfallen unsere Träume” moves from a German spoken sample into a striking lead guitar part, then makes room for an acoustic bridge. “Glorifizierung der Vergangenheit” is darker and more overtly black metal. Its blast-beat opening riff becomes just as effective at mid tempo, and a piano passage and lead-guitar bridge broaden the song's mood. On “Dem Untergang verpflichtet,” a thrashy opening riff is recast with blast beats for the verse; a calm bridge then gives way to another forceful return. At seven minutes, it is the one track that feels slightly longer than it needs to.

“Untertänig, meist zur Nacht” leans into straight thrash and double-bass drumming, with a guitar solo that arrives as a welcome surprise. The opening of closer “Der Tod ist nicht das Ende...” recalls the first riff of “Trauma” to my ear, giving the record a satisfying sense of return without requiring the two parts to be an intentional reprise.

The production helps all of this land. It is unpolished but clear and pleasant to listen to, particularly when the instruments are left to carry a passage on their own. The screams sound unusually distant at times, as if the vocalist is in another room, with lower growls and occasional clean singing adding variety. That vocal sound takes some getting used to, but I would not trade the album's honest character for a more polished recording.

For readers who consider label associations, this album was released by Christhunt Productions, whose catalog has also included NSBM and far-right acts. That connection deserves mention; it does not, by itself, establish the band's politics. The lyrics here concern grief, death, fear, anger, and memory rather than right-wing themes.

“Trauma” is still the standout for me, but the rest of the album is consistently strong. Its 40 minutes went by quickly enough that I was almost disappointed when it ended. 9/10.

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There is no getting around the Amon Amarth comparison with Wulfgar's With Gods and Legends Unite. The riffs, melodies and Viking-metal stomp make its early-era influences obvious. But I don't mind that. Amon Amarth moved on from that particular sound, and sometimes another band playing in the same vein is exactly what I want. More importantly, Wulfgar's debut has enough odd little details to sound like Wulfgar, not just an anonymous copy.

Those details are not necessarily the things a producer would want to tidy up. The guitars have a peculiar, instantly recognizable tone. I am not even sure I would call it a good tone, but I would notice if it disappeared. Underneath them, the bass has a wonderfully clanky, metallic attack that I somehow hadn't paid much attention to before this listen. Then there is the vocalist, whose unmistakable timbre and movement between low growls and mid-to-high screams give the music another identity of its own. The roughness makes the recording feel honest and genuine to me. It even has a cozy, almost home-like atmosphere, although I suspect nostalgia has something to do with that.

The music itself is thoroughly meat-and-potatoes melodeath. Wulfgar mostly operate at a mid-tempo stomp, occasionally slowing down and only rarely picking up serious speed. I didn't notice any blast beats on the debut. The rhythms can feel martial, but the overall effect is remarkably melodic rather than aggressive or abrasive. It is an easy album to put on while doing something else: enjoyable without demanding your full attention.

A lot of the guitar writing follows the classic formula of tremolo-picked melodies over power chords. That formula works, particularly when the hooks land, but it also means the songs start sounding awfully similar. I would have welcomed more proper solos or guitar interplay to give the arrangements some variety. The band tries its hand at solos in a couple of places; I just wish those moments did more to break up the familiar patterns.

Two songs rise above the pack for me. "Cleansed by Fire" is the kind of earworm that brings me back to this record, while "This Pagan Blood" has a particularly catchy chorus and sits toward the faster end of Wulfgar's range. On the other hand, "He Stands Alone" is the low point: almost six minutes of slower stomping, complete with roughly 40 seconds of fade-out. It is where the deliberate pace stops working in the band's favor.

At around 55 minutes and 12 tracks, including an obligatory intro that doesn't add much, the album could easily have been condensed. Give me seven or eight of these songs across roughly 40 minutes and I wouldn't complain. By the end, they blur together, and the closing track could have sat somewhere in the middle without changing a thing. The album simply ends.

I briefly considered a 7, but that felt harsher than my actual experience. I do enjoy this sound, these riffs and the unmistakable character of this recording. It doesn't quite reach an 8 because it drags toward the finish, yet when I want nearly an hour of straightforward old-school Viking-themed melodeath, Wulfgar deliver a good time.

Reviewed version: Spotify streaming; specific master and playback quality not established.

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Kinderschreck takes a little while to really get going. The intro feels basically unnecessary, and the first few minutes of “Der Nachtkrapp” are repetitive enough that the opening drags. Once it gets past that stretch, though, the album improves pretty quickly.

Harlinger sits in a nice middle ground here. This is raw black metal, and the production is definitely rough, but it never crosses over into being painfully ear-piercing. The melodies still come through clearly, and there are some genuinely nice ones throughout the record.

The subject matter also gives Kinderschreck a distinct identity. Harlinger builds the album around creepy children's stories and bogeyman folklore, which is a pretty unique angle for black metal. It can get a little cheesy at times, but I mean, it’s black metal. That comes with the furniture.

The occasional punkier sections are another nice touch. They switch up the vibe and keep the record from sitting in the exact same atmosphere the whole time.

“Die Roggenmuhme I” is my favorite track and the point where the album’s mix of rawness and melody works best for me. Overall, Kinderschreck has a slow start and could lose the intro entirely, but once it gets moving there is a lot to like: strong melodies, rough-but-listenable production, a unique theme, and enough variation to keep things interesting. 8/10.

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