Phantom Winter
Her Cold Materials
Concept album from Germany's only "Winterdoom" band! The Wruertzburgerss, who were originally founded in 2014 as a side project of the unique instrumental band OMEGA MASSIF, are throwing a nasty and massive dark piece at our ears: black and post metal mix with sludge, ambient and post-punk at a high level, I would actually be I would be surprised if the band didn't play at Roadburn 2024, because that's where it belongs. Basically melancholic and epic, backed by machine-like staccato drumming, dark, cold and angry. You have to take your time for the 6 slow, grinding songs, the excellent songwriting unfolds layer by layer into a nightmare scenario that seems to be constantly lurking, aggressively crouched and in the shadows. The contrast between gentle, melodic E-Bow leads and clear vocals or even spoken vocals on the one hand and precise, pressing riffing, speech samples and beastly growls on the other only increases the discomfort when listening. Overall, you can clearly tell from the songs how much effort has been put into them, there are a lot of details to discover and about the lyrics, i.e. I haven't even gotten to the story yet: In terms of content, the record is based on the novel cycle "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman , which further reinforces the impression of a soundtrack through the use of spoken texts or samples (partly English, partly German).