The occult has a questionable history in metal as it is typically used for window dressing with little substance behind it. Going into this album I am skeptical as this German band is dressed up like a Temu version of Sleep Tokem. This is a collection of their two EPS, but I'll count it as an album, as that is how it's being presented to me. Musically it starts off with a more Death in June like neo-folk. Distorted guitar creeps in with a melancholy throb more than the standard commanding stomp to kick the door down that you might expect from a metal band. The vocals are a low monstrous growl that sets the band at the intersection of where doom and death metal meet. The melancholy is transmitted by the haunting melodies in the background. Sung vocals are mixed in the background and performed in a manner that creates a chanting-like ambiance.
They return to the more Death In June sound going into the song "Baphomet". This time some vocals fall somewhere between a whisper and a moan to go along with it. In some ways, it reminds me a little of old Tiamat. They do not build it into metal like you expect and drift around in their atmospheric folk sound. They dive deeper into the malaise of depression on "Lucifer" which brings a little more light sonically, as it is not as dark as their first forays into heavier expressions, though not a hundred percent committed to being a metal band as it is equally shoegazing which I appreciate. Jesu would be a fair reference point for the direction they go here. If I did not know who I was listening to and you just played me the instrumental track "Crucifixion", I would have thought this was Stone Roses without the vocals.
"Witchcraft" is the album's best song as it blends the polarities of what this band does most effectively. It hits you with a wall of heavy in a very syncopated pound. When the vocals return with a lower growl they are set back in the mix and bathed in reverb. The chanted vocal offers a call and response with the harsher vocal. "Cremation of Control" finds them back in the more Death in June strum of surreal folk. They close the album with a sludgey cover of Pentagram's "the Ghoul" . There are both sung and snarled vocals. The guitar is more fuzzed out than Pentagram's original. I will give this album a 9, it is solid and like what they are going for here, would blend the folk with the metal more, but for what they have done here it is still impressive.
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