Rammstein - Live aus Berlin (1999)

Some bands I like live much more than on their studio records. Rammstein is one of those bands. I guess its the dirtier, rawer sound and the stripped down electronic-elements. Its just more rock'n'roll going on and their Live aus Berlin album from 1999 captures that side of the band perfectly.

To me, this also marks a turning point in the band's career. The first two albums, Herzeleid and Sehnsucht, were much more edgier than their later releases, dealing with topics like incest, necrophilia, murder - and surely a number of other perversities I have missed out. Not to be taken terribly serious of course. Back in the day, Rammstein were fun! In their own, wicked way, but nevertheless fun.

There has been quite a substantial hiatus between Sehnsucht (1997) and the follow-up album Mutter (2001). Live aus Berlin as the only release in that time and I had no idea the new millennium would bring back such a watered-down band. It has been one of the great disappointments in listening "career" to buy their single Sonne and just being completely underwhelmed by what I heard.
Luckily, we are not delving too much into that today. Live aus Berlin shows us the band at their rawest and most daring.

The songs are intense, tight and still fresh after all those years. And quite overwhelming in the sheer brutality of their sound. There wasn't much like Rammstein around in the mainstream music of the 90s. Maybe Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, but neither of them had quite this menacing aura, Rammstein had. Maybe they should have sung in German too...

Given Live aus Berlin's runtime of 1 hour and 15 minutes, there isn't a relevant song from their first two albums missing. Well, ok. Except Klavier, but that's nitpicking now. Live aus Berlin an excellent album. Spectacular, dramatic and overwhelming. A perfect document for the early, wild phase of the band's career.

Dreams of Sanity - Komödia (1997)

This one might just be another case of "brilliant albums you may have never heard of". Released in 1997, so just over 20 years ago, Komödia was the first full length album of the Dreams of Sanity, after having recorded a couple of demos before, and you wouldn't know it from just listening to it.

Komödia is a beautiful and complex album, with a refinement that is just remarkable. Especially for a debut. And on top of it all it's subject matter is nothing less than one of the greatest works of world literature: Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedia from 1320. An epic poem describing the journey of a wanderer, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, through hell, purgatory and eventually heaven on the search for his lost love, Beatrice.

Clearly, you can't blame Dreams of Sanity for a lack of ambition and, of course, when you aim that high, the chances of failure are quite substantial too. The band however masters their set task brilliantly, with confidence and excellent ideas. A really classy performance, especially by the vocalists, who contribute a lot with their expressive, nuanced performances.

To me Komödia has as much in common with a classical symphony, or opera as it is a metal album. And quite extraordinary in how it brings both together. It is rich and complex, without being too academic, features nuanced and stunningly beautiful songs without drifting off into kitsch-regions, is technically impressive, but never forgets to play for the song, not over the song - its no coincidence really that I still find this album so appealing and interesting after all those years.

Dreams of Sanity would release two more albums, Masquerade and The Game, before they split in 2002 after several line-up changes. A pity they never got the recognition they deserved.

The Gathering - Mandylion (1995)

When I showed the record a friend once, who had no idea about the band, he remarked that "this looks like classical music", I think this spontaneous, and not really qualified, assessment is actually quite suiting. This is miles away from mainstream rock and metal. In fact, it is not a trivial question where to put The Gathering really. A fact, which I find actually quite delightful. Is it gothic? symphonic? prog? All of the above? Does it matter?

Anyway, I discovered the band while everyone else was into stuff like Nightwish (once again I dutifully did exactly what everyone else wasn't doing). Goes without saying that I was appealed by the more edgy and experimental sound of The Gathering, despite being quite "symphonic" in their own way. They music is without a doubt quite heavy and dark, almost wagnerian at times, while it also shows some (for the genre) unusual instrumentation and airy colourfulness, creating an interesting and appealing mix.

I find it always fascinating to see the development some bands go through and The Gathering are a good example for a band that changed quite a lot over the years. They started in the late 80's as a doom and death metal band, yet as of Anneke van Giersbergen's arrival in the band for Mandylion, their sound has distinctively and lastingly changed and dramatically expanded its scope.
And certainly, her expressive voice fits ideally to their music. Not as sweet and angelic as so many other female symphonic metal singers, but with an edginess that happily deviates from the norm and works well with the band's overall experimental-attitude.

Still, certain elements still hint to their past. Especially the guitar work: heavy riffing with long held power chords and melodylines is certainly doom-influenced. Interestingly the result is actually quite Pink Floydian as well. Just think Dogs of War and Sorrow.

In later albums, starting with How to Measure A Planet, they began to abandon their metal roots more and more and moved towards a experimental, sometimes ambient-like direction. Something the band itself described as trip-rock - undeniably a quite suiting term.

Mandylion is a colourful, highly enjoyable album. Beautifully composed and executed. It shows a band able of writing songs that are complex and varied on the one hand, but at the same time catchy and beautiful.
The Gathering might not be everyone's taste, but in a genre like metal, with so many conventions and stylistic uniformity, an album like Mandylion is a more than welcome departure from the norm. It's actually quite needed.

Therion - Live in Midgard (2002)

Some albums, I admit, didn't quite got my approval on first listening. Live in Midgard is probably the best example for this. I bought it around its release back in 2002 or '03, put it into my CD player, and didn't touch it again for years.

I can't tell for sure why, maybe I was just looking for something else around that time, or the music did simply overwhelm me (more about that later). Fact is that I discovered the song Wine of Aluqah on a gothic metal compilation, instantly liked it, recognized the name of the band, got the album - and wasn't impressed.

Anyway, what ever led to my initial rejection, I can't relate to it anymore and today Live in Midgard is amongst my favourites of the genre.

The album was recorded in 2001 during their Secret of the Runes-Tour and features a variety of different concert venues in Colombia, Germany and Hungary. While this could have resulted in a bit of a disjointed experience, the opposite is the case really. The whole album is a coherent and organic thunderstorm of sound that is just spectacular. Such power and dynamic! It combines the rawness of metal perfectly with the sensibility of classical instruments and vocals. I can't really name any other recording that deserves the term symphonic metal more than this.
Ironically though, compared to other bands of the genre, Therion remains at the same time probably the least accessible. Their songs are not really written for the charts, like say Nightwish does and therefore usually don't have singles-quality. And maybe that's just the reason why I value them so highly. Its so easy in the genre to fall into the trap of kitsch, Isn't it?

As much as I like their songwriting, I find Therion's studio-albums often a bit sterile and overproduced. Everything sounds pitch perfect and tidy, but the spirit of the moment just refuses to show itself. Not this record though. It is very well produced, but also keeps the dirt and the immediate dynamic of a live performance alive and definitely kicking.

Despite the norse-mythology-related title (and the title of the tour), Live in Midgard doesn't features overwhelmingly many songs from their 2001 album Secret of the Runes, but a healthy mixture of tracks from their past as well. The setlist reaches as back as their earliest, death/doom metal material, like A Black Rose, Beauty in Black, Wings of the Hydra and ("the fucking") Riders of Theli and includes the song Seawinds, a relatively obscure title from Accept. There is even some ABBA thrown in with the song Summer Night City. Believe it or not!

This said, the album isn't the most diverse, Therion stays Therion - and that means epic, relatively complex metal. And plenty of that. It is very much an all-out attack on the senses, with just a few breathers in between. Maybe it was this intensity, that kept me away from it initially. You certainly have to be in the right mood to enjoy this album in its entirety.

All in all, Live in Midgard is truly an experience. A dense and compelling tour de force. A operatic thunderstorm that leaves the listener saturated with sound. Not an easy listen for sure and probably not really recommendable for newbies, but highly enjoyable if you like epic symphonic metal that is maybe a bit edgier than what you usually get.

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (1993)

This one is in a way special to me. I even had a poster of this cover around the year 2000 - and a T-Shirt as well. And it still remains one of the most beautiful, touching - and sensual - record covers I know.

Fortunately the music itself fits just perfectly. Its a dark and sensual record. With its heavy, abrasive (yet in the context of the songs very fitting) guitar, the slow and atmospheric songs and Peter Steele's deep and tender voice whispering in your ear.

Despite its overarching doomy nature, Bloody Kisses is quite diverse actually. The album takes you on a journey of different moods, yet the individual tracks seem very coherent with each other. A bit like in a dream, where one scene transmutes into another, keeping the listener moving in a flow of different feelings and stories to tell.

The album achieves this with absolute spot-on tempo changes and instrumentation. Everything just fits seamlessly into each other. Purely masterful.

Its hard to point out certain songs. Despite its runtime of about 73 minutes there aren't really any filler on this record. The songs all have depth and their very own unique character.
There is the obvious Black No. 1 of course with its sarcastic look on one of Peter Steele's ex-girlfriends and the goth-scene in general.

Or the Seals & Crofts cover Summer Breeze, which got a completely new and different life in this incarnation. I was actually quite shocked to hear the original for the first time. The Type O Negative-version just feels so natural - and right - to me.

Naming some of the other highlights of the record, like Set Me On Fire, Kill All The White People, Christian Woman, Bloody Kisses, and we are already almost through the whole tracklist. It's indeed hard to find a weak song on Bloody Kisses.

To make a long story short: Bloody Kisses is a masterpiece of a record and (at least to me) one of the definite albums of the 90s. A brilliant, intimate soundtrack for your own private melancholia. Light some candles, open a bottle of red wine and press play. To paraphrase the band itself: This album will hit you slow, deep and hard.

Lacrimosa - Revolution (2012)

At the end of the 90s, when my music-horizon expanded into the dark side (because of the cookies), Lacrimosa was one of my favourite "newish" bands I was listening to. I loved their particular blend of slow, doom-influenced gothic metal with complex arrangements and the bits of classical music thrown into here and there.

Sadly, around the year 2000, with their album Elodia, the classical bits took over and pushed the metal aspect into the background. It was for me all just too polished and - tame. So began to lose interest into the band until a couple years ago, when I started to rediscover some of the old stuff, I used to listening to. I guess for some people such rediscoveries can be quite a shock ("I was listening to THAT???"), but for me it was quite a pleasant experience so I began to delve into their more recent material.

Which brings me to their 2012 album Revolution. Its a much rougher record than what they did when I left them, and I am quite happy about this. Sound wise it is closer to albums like Satura and Inferno, but with a level of angst and aggression in its lyrics I did not expect to hear from this band. It is a bitter reckoning with our modern society. A society that is heading to self-destruction by vain ignorance and pure greed.

And it is brilliantly written. Take the song Feuerzug (Part 2), for example: The singer describes a burning train (a Feuerzug) that is jumping out of its tracks. First he appears to be a distant observer. Full of disbelieve about what he is witnessing, until he realizes the train is unstoppable; destroying everything on its path - and is heading towards him and everyone he loves.
Eventually he understands that he himself - and actually every single one of us - is sitting in the train and steers it into its doom.
Today, six years after the album's release, with all the recent political developments, his words ring more true than ever.

Revolution is probably Lacrimosa's bleakest album. It sounds so pressing and dark. Vicious at times. A more than welcome change in direction, if you ask me. It might not debate the nicest things in life and certainly is far away from any dark romantic sentimentalities of their past - but that's exactly what makes it so interesting and compelling.