Hanzel & Gretyl : "Black Forest Metal"

This is their tongue in cheek take on metal. "Black Forest Metal" opens the album and it's like a doomish riff through a mall metal industrial filter, which from what I have heard about the new In this Moment is what they are doing, though this might b heavier. The metal riff are rather cookie cutter, but the tone is well executed, so it really depend on how original you need this sort of thing to be. They do hit some pretty cool grooves at time, but you know the rule about cool riffs here, they alone do not a good song make.

The German trapping have remained intact. "Hexencraft" they stay on the same path, this song does less for me than the opener. If this had come out on Cleopatra records in the 90's I might have been more impressed on what is sounding like German take of Electric Hellfire Club. The hook to "Blood on My Horns" doesn't really make me bang my head, since I like actual black metal rather than this mock black metal, but it is catchy. They do use blast beats on the song "More Metal Than the Devil". I was under the impression the devil was more into classical so being more metal than him doesn't take much. "Burning Witches For Satan is similar but without the blast beats.

One of the strongest groove is on "Evil as Fukk". They keep the theme of this forest thing in the lyrics and throw in their whole hexencraft craft ting like there is a story that intertwines all the lyrics.There is another cool riff in "Mavro Metaliko", that gets pretty heavy for this sot of thing, before they default back to the cookie cutter.By this point after the past two songs the album is beginning to get better but it is almost too little too late for me. "Big Bad Kyzrwolf" takes a "Dead Skin Mask" like riff and blended it with winks to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", but the spoken vocal thing makes it feel like it never becomes a song. It feels like they are taking another stab at making legit metal on "Pentagram Sky". The Slayer worship takes place here again."Grimm Ritual" closes out the album with a collage of drum ma chin and samples but never turns into a real song. I'll give this one a 7.5 , if you love 90's industrial metal enough to forgive some of the cookie cutting then round it up.