The Apokalypse

"A black heart... in a bloody sky!"

Namtar may have befallen the same destiny as many other young bands: a couple of guys who want to play (black) metal create a band, maybe even record a demo and split up caused by various reasons after a very short time. In a genre like black metal, that could make you more popular than if you stayed active. The underground is the holy ground and bands as unknown and, yes, underground as this one can have more than 20,000 views on YouTube. But do they deserve the attention?

"Eru, lord of the lands; God of the Ancients"

Thematically the demo covers the usual themes which are present in the majority of traditional black metal albums: Satan and murderers (to name the ones on this CD: Elizabeth Bathory in "1560 - Birth of a Vampiress" and Peter Kürten in "The Düsseldorf Vampire"). Oh, and we have a song about a god from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Overall, nothing too special, but these themes require a dark atmosphere to work which should be (and is) granted by the music.

"Belial, angel of hostility; Come down on Earth."

The sound of "The Apokalypse" is pretty raw and unpolished, but it feels less awkward in my ears than many other 90s releases. Gladly there are neither overdrives nor too much scratchiness nor other noises trying to rape your ears while listening to the songs. The instruments seem to be all on the same level, just the vocals sometimes sneak into the front line. The playing skills of the band are unexpectedly high. Some riffs aren't played that excellent, I grant, but they fit into the concept of the demo with some brighter moments; most of the time with a cold, dark and kind of mysterious touch to them. The vocals, however are great. The diabolic and scratchy screams combined with dark and deep growls are performed pretty well and even the rarely used clean vocals add some bonus color to the sound. The songs' arrangements vary a lot. While rushing forward, the songs are crushing everything on their way, but as soon as the velocity gets slower, they turn into dark realms of silence and create an intense diabolic experience, especially when the keyboards start to play. The best example would be the beginning of "Matanbuchus Reign" which starts with these already mentioned keyboards and evolves into the greatest part of the whole demo as soon as the drums and some slow riffs are added. Deep black art in perfection! While in most other genres a good production is the first step towards making a song work, it's part of the nature of black metal that most of the time the exact opposite is the case. Same goes for this album. The raw production adds that much to the atmosphere that I'm pretty convinced it would be worse if the sound were better.

"In 1929 in the Germany; Began the story of the Düsseldorf Vampire."

Namtar's first and last output easily made its way into a continuous loop on my PC and got me sucked into the dipping black atmosphere that, in my opinion, many other black metal bands have lost these days. It's quite fascinating how 4 songs in 15 minutes can get into someone's favorites and to answer my question: Yes they deserve it! Chapeau!

Worth listening: Matanbuchus Reign