Seelenwinter

Once upon a time there was this German breed named Damien… so this Damien Breed chose the seed of Satan as the guiding light in their career the latter darkened by the emergence of the debut “Ave Satani” in 1993. Said debut was a ponderous, minimalistic mixture of progressive, power and a bit of thrash which lacked dynamics among other more or less vital ingredients. As this recording failed to evoke Satan, even after a few repeated listens, both the musicians and the fans abandoned the idea, but not after the former provided a 4-track epitaph (the “Seelenwinter” EP) a few months later.

This epitaph saw this brooding satanic bunch take a more atmospheric, darker turn music-wise towards the field of doom/gothic the previously mentioned elements only marginally hinted at. The transformation was complete when the guys voted to continue under the Seelenwinter moniker with the album reviewed here following suit very shortly after. The four pieces from the EP serve as the backbone of this introspective, melancholic recording which accumulates some inertia initially with the rowdy leftover from Lake of Tears’ “Headstones” that is “7 Second Anguish”, and the bouncy nervy “The Land Behind the Silence”, a cool reminder of the jumpy doom/core-isms of the guys’ compatriots End of Green. A couple of sleepers follow right after, though, those soothing balladic sprawls with no dramatic highlights whatsoever before the band try to wake up everyone with an isolated aggressive death/thrash metal-ish passage on the marginally livelier “Where Death and Life Are Still Friends”. An awkward insertion this one, and very short to instigate a more dynamic rebellion although signs of such also show up on the surprisingly vivid folky Skyclad-esque outtake “Pull on Your Strings”, arguably the finest cut on this dark lethargic opus.

The doom metal fanbase would definitely find something to like here, especially lovers of the aforementioned acts, but the thrash metalhead would be scratching his/her head in confusion as to why this formation has been labelled as thrash; there’s very very little here to justify such a tag… the rough semi-clean vocals create moments of unease with their more belligerent timbre, but music-wise this is strictly for seekers of the doom/gothic path. The mentioned dynamic insertions, both relevant and not so, create the impression of a stylistic vacillation which is probably understandable with the shift in style and all, but it could have been pulled off more convincingly, with more gusto and verve, and with more nostalgic looks back at their earlier repertoire.

No hesitations of the kind on the sophomore a year later, this one a full-blooded doom metal affair the band having chosen their new stance, but again with no follow-up of any kind it all seemed a bit arbitrary, this roaming around the metal spectre, picking motifs from here, selecting nuances from there, trying to find a fitting way to stay afloat in the hostile aggro 90’s environment… it beats me why it didn’t quite work out, this enterprise, provided that it had Satan’s most fervent, (dis)passionate support.