Werk 1: Nachtfall

Marienbad is an epic project about the small city in the western part of the Czech Republic and an ancient region of Germany of a similar but not exactly the same name as the band. The city has been flooded in 1961 for the creation of a storage and this final chapter of the strange city saw the suicide of twelve inhabitants that didn't want to leave the damned place. That wasn't the only strange incident in the dark valleys of the small town. This album also features stories about strange relationship and murderers, the strange death of seven children in a lake, the fires created by a crazy pyromaniac, the shooting of Jews by the Germans with the help of parts of the population of Marienbad in the train station towards the end of the Second World War and the tale of an old and abandoned mansion where many people committed suicide.

The conceptual part of this album is not only intriguing but also the most important thing about this record. Instead of concentrating on catchy hooks, memorable choruses or surprising elements, the band focusses on the very long lyrics that are sometimes heavy to digest. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, the lyrics are very dark and depressive and second, the vocals don't always fit to the music and seem to emprison the musical creativity. The album surely has a very dark and addicting atmosphere, but the whole thing gets quite repetitive after a while. This isn't an album for fans of metal music but rather for fans of dark stories, horror movies or German history. The concept, the visual aspect in the booklet, the authenticity of the lyrics are all more important than the music. This isn't an album to simply listen to in the background, to sing along with or bang your head by. This is an album that requests as much attention as a book or a movie and one should take the booklet, look at the visual diversity, read the lyrics and try to imagine the different scenarios. The lyrics are so important for the band that they decided to record the whole album twice: with German and with English lyrics. Even though I prefer exotic bands and am a native German speaker I must admit that the English version sounds more fluid and less complicated. When if prefer listen to the music and focus on the atmosphere, I happen to chose the English version but when I want to pay a particular attention on the lyrics and the concept I rather prefer the German version on the special edition with both discs.

Musically, this record has some elements of the main bands of its members. The dark lyrics and the strong atmosphere is comparable to the horror metal of the great "The Vision Bleak", the agressivity in some parts and the morbid touch of many stories relates to "Eisregen" and the dark tuned music has some elements of "Panzerkreutz". The lyrics and the atmosphere also remind me of "Eisheilig" and "Rammstein" even if there are no industrial sounds on this record. But there are also some main differences all of to those bands. The music is more simple and basic as in "The Vision Bleak" and only features some pianos and some flutes most of the time and no dramatic choirs, haunting female vocals or majestic orchestrations. The vocals are mostly clean and only a few parts have a couple of growls to underline the atmosphere or certain parts of the different stories and the singer performs in a completely different way than he does in "Eisregen". I think that he does a great job on this album but I would have prefered to listen to some parts sung by the drummer who is also the charismatic singer of "The Vision Bleak".

The songs are all quite epic and long and hold in a slow to mid tempo pace. Many songs have simple and depressive instrumental introductions or endings and some spoken word passages. The first song "Komm nach Marienbad" exagerates with those elements and is definitely too long and complicated and isn't very well chosen as an opener. "Endbahnhof" has somewhat the same problem as it is overlong and goes somewhat nowhere. Those two songs are probably the two weakest ones on the record.

Let's rather talk about the positive apsects of this album now. The only outstanding exception of the mentioned musical approach is the fast banger "Flammnacht" that breaks out of the general atmsophere of the album. It's a great song and a welcome change of style but it doesn't fit at all to the rest of the album in its radical way. Most metal heads might like this track but don't find an approach to the usual style of the band and the seven other songs.

Concerning the more typical songs, there are a couple of highlights to find. The dark romance of "Roslins Fluch" is very addicting and authentic and convinces with haunting flute melodies and it is probably one of the catchier tracks on this complex and complicated record. "Sieben im Teich" is the calmest and most depressing song on the record and has a strong melancholic atmosphere. It takes a lot of time before some metal instruments kick in and it is musically the most courageous track on the record. "Die gelbe Villa der Selbstmörder" stands out as the most gothic and doom track on this record and reminds the most of "The Vision Bleak". “Wasserwall” is probably the less stunning track on the record and rather mediocre but it still has some good elements. "Unter Dammkrone" resumes the album in a very compact and quite perfect way and features some atmospheric orchestrations, good vocal skills and a lot of little changes of style. If you want to know if this album might please to you I would suggest you to check out this last song. Nevertheless, all songs rather work together and are put under the spell of the overall atmosphere and the lyrical concept so that it's rather difficult to separate them or suggest certain tracks.

In the end, this album has a truly entertaining, addicting and atmospheric concept that focusses a lot on the lyrics. That's done in such a courageous and radical way that I would describe this record as unique and something I have never heard before. A few hooks, some solos or a bunch of surprises would have simplified the album and made it more accessible for the fans of the main bands of Marienbad's members. The record is rather hard to digest and nothing for the typical metal maniac. This isn't an album you could easily listen to every day or week and rather a record for special occasions. I would listen to it on stormy automn nights, black winter days or rainy spring mornings for example. The most important thing is to take your time to approach to this album andto do it in a tolerant way so that I might open itself before you which is a thing that slowly happens to me. This album requests a lot of attention and several tries and it already occupies a very special place in my large metal collection. It’s really worth to try this album out but be prepared for something unique and heavy to digest.

This uniqueness and authenticity pardons for a couple of flaws and justifies my positive rating in the end.