Faustus appears to be a Darkestrah side-project of sorts, as the only two members in the band play there. Asbath has proved himself a pretty capable drummer in his main band multiple times over, his blastbeat steadiness in particular is extremely impressive. Knowing that he plays on this, you know there’s a good baseline for quality, which immediately makes it more professional than a good chunk of raw black metal you’ll stumble across. The timeline for this is also fairly interesting. The project has apparently been around since 2000, but aside from a 2004 demo that I can’t find much info on anywhere online, Faustus hasn’t put anything else out, so we’re looking at a 15-year gap between releases here. Perhaps this is just some cutting room floor stuff from back then that didn’t really fit in the main band? If this was written in the early 2000s, that'd be especially dope, because early Darkestrah albums are hidden gems in 21st-century black metal (also you can say you listen to a band from Kyrgyzstan!).
Faustus seems a lot less melodic and a lot more...iunno, dark? Occult? Darkestrah’s a bit more subtle with their use of melody for a band with the “pagan folk/black” tag to begin with, but where you could also sometimes give them an “epic” tag, you can’t give that to Faustus. Lipsia is a very stark, singular release, hearkening back to the days where black metal albums were torrential blizzards of cold, tough tremolo riffs. Ideas are few among the songs - the shorter ones especially tend to repeat one main riff, and the drums just provide different rhythmic variations to give the song a bit of a rise and fall. Even the final track, which seems like it’s gonna be a longer journey, is actually just another 5-6 minute number with an additional 6 minutes of ticking over complete silence, like they all left the studio and kept the metronome running or something. The riffs are catchy in a really subtle way, not so much because they get stuck in your head but because they get repeated so much and the drums make different parts of the riff stand out with each new beat. It’s a good thing that there’s no terrible ideas on Lipsia, because there’s so few. Paysage d’Hiver is a good comparison to make with the minimalism, cold atmosphere, and steady, driving blasts, although Faustus has much clearer production and this is a bit further above demo-level in terms of overall presentation. (Paysage intentionally makes their stuff seems like raw demos, but still).
You can definitely hear the nods to Embrace of Memory on some of these songs (“Der Drudenfuß Auf Eurer Schwelle”) in particular, which makes sense if this was actually recorded in 2004 (as the notes on this website say). By the mid 2010s, Darkestrah veered off into more of a folk direction, so perhaps the other members weren’t vibing with a harsh, tragic black metal aesthetic at this point in their lives and Asbath and Resurgemus still wanted the songs to get out there to the public. This won’t captivate anyone who isn’t a black metal fan already, but it’s got some above-average drumming and offers a bit of an darker theme on the epic folk vibe of Darkestrah, in case you were looking for that sort of thing. Darkestrah’s early stuff has a fantastically unique sense of melody and some incredible, longwinded pacing that never gets boring, and the cello and other folk elements they add are always tastefully done, adding something substantial without succumbing to gimmicks. (In case it wasn’t apparent, you should probably check out Embrace of Memory alongside this if you’re not familiar.) Lipsia doesn't quite reach the emotional heights of pre-2005 Darkestrah (perhaps that's why it was left off the full-lengths in the first place) and doesn't offer a whole lot that you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere, but it's quality stuff nonetheless. If they expand on some of the ideas in a full-length followup, they could be on to something really cool here.
I’ll always take more music from artists that can make stuff that’s simple, fresh and engaging, even if it’s a moderately one-dimensional EP like Lipsia. At least that one dimension is pleasant enough to listen to for the 20 or so minutes that this is on.