Totentanz

Merit is a Gothic Metal band from Germany which has been in existence since 2000. They released a demo before releasing their debut album “Totentanz” some four years later. Despite being around for quite some time, this is yet another band that hardly received any attention at all. So it’s time to correct this.

The music can indeed be classified as Gothic Metal (with perhaps a hint of Doom), but the band does try to create their own sound, which sets them apart from the vast majority of bands out there. The first track of the album displays their Doom influence, the song is pretty slow, with heavy use of the keyboard and great bass playing. The Doom influence remains apparent on the vast majority of songs on the album. The bands wish to create an own sound is most apparent on “Ich Zog Mir Einen Falken” which has some quite unusual vocal lines, which take some time to get used to, but are quite enjoyable once you did.

Not all experimentation works out though, the next track “Warlords” features a bagpipe melody (I guess), which doesn’t really do it for me. Luckily it makes only two short appearances, but the song would have been better off without this addition, especially because the song has a nice chugging rhythm and great guitar riff.

The vocals are handled by Delia, who has left the band sometime after the release of this album. She has a normal clean style of singing most of the time, but she also employs spoken parts, rougher singing and semi operatic vocals. The lyrics are both in German and English.

My problem with this album is, that although Delia is an okay singer, the vocals seem to stand apart from the rest of the music somehow. It’s difficult to explain, they are not too loud or soft, but seem to not blend in with the rest of the music. It almost sounds like she is singing vocal lines that do not coincide with the rest of the music. I’m not sure if this problem is caused by the mastering of the songs or the timing of the vocalist.

The production is okay. There is some room for improvement, but that is to be expected from an independent release.

Along with the songs of the album, the band has send me re-recordings of two of the tracks from the album (the title track “Totentanz” and “The King And The Child”), with their new singer Carina handling the vocals. I was curious to see if the problem of the chemistry between the vocals and instrumentation would still exist in these new versions. Luckily I can say: this sounds a lot better! The production of the songs is of a somewhat lesser quality than the originals (no wonder seeing they were not officially released), but the vocals and music are now actually blending together making the songs sound a lot better.