Widrstand

Incredible cover art suggesting a Tower shrouded in lava-like clouds and receding into the background while a group of dejected supplicants wander about somewhat dazed, their particular request refused a hearing for some reason or other, was enough to draw my attention to this Swiss BM band with the unusual name. The name "Tardigrada" normally refers to a group of microscopic eight-legged invertebrate animals popularly known as water bears that live in very extreme environments. Perhaps it was this aspect of the creatures that appealed to the band. Whatever, Tardigrada have so far released one demo "Widrstand", the recording under review, with four songs of which two are performed in Schwyzerdütsch, the musicians' native language.

The musicians play a highly atmospheric and evocative style of spacious, slightly blues-tinged black metal fury. Often in the same track soft quiet beauty co-exists with high aggression and harsh acid-burning vocals express emotions ranging from anger to hopeless despair. Raging blizzard guitars share space with plaintive violin. Tardigrada are equally capable of playing single-minded minimalist tremolo noise guitar music ("Hoffnungslos") to a mix of sad melody and angry riffing ("Widrstand").

The music may not be the most original but its most outstanding aspects are the severe and anguished vocals, filled with pain that could rip paint off walls, and the stark ambience painted by layers of guitar tone and noise texture, nature recordings and a bleached, washed-out production that adds reverb of varying amounts to different elements of each track. Voices are nearly swallowed up in endless echo. The music races on and on in sheer desperation against the darkness.

Final track "Einsamkeit" is the one to listen out for as it's the longest and most varied track of the four on offer. It's an epic affair, scaling the highest highs, the lowest lows and the darkest of all dark places in the soul. The screaming is pained and tortured and the tone of the guitars is immensely sad. If death is to come, let it be quick and merciful for the protagonist here, even if its comfort is no comfort at all but the silent indifference of black emptiness. Carrying on with much screeching, the song's last several minutes are probably overstating the song's case for most emotional and tormented track of 2012. There's just a sliver of difference between the heartfelt emotion and the passion on the one hand and shrill melodrama on the other. The increasing emotional intensity is almost too much to bear.

The demo is an impressive start for a fairly young band: there is a distinctive sound and the musicians switch easily from minimalist BM noise to a more melody and riff-based style. The guys paint huge and overwhelming atmospheres of bleak hopelessness that bear down on listeners with a barrage of minimalist tremolo guitars. The drumming isn't much to write about though and future recordings will have to rectify this weakness in the band's style - the music can be quite thin and the musicians sometimes have to resort to field recordings to bolster it.

Tardigrada are certainly a band to watch out for if this demo is typical of their style and passion.

The Swiss Tardigrada with this Demo release make the first step towards establishing themselves amongst the best bands in atmospheric black metal.

"Wirdstand" consists of 4 tracks. The first track, "Unftakt", serves as an intro and creates an atmosphere full of ambience. Major is the role of the guitar melodies in creating this eerie atmosphere that overwhelms the listener's ears.

The following track, "Hoffnungslos", contains musical characteristics of bands as Burzum, Xasthur and Faulnis that have clearly influenced Tardigrada's sound and songwritting. The listener can easily spot the aggressive nature of the guitar riffing and its ability to co-exist with the otherwordly vocals. The more you listen the more you cannot shake the feeling of being suck into the sheer darkness that they create. Maybe the drums should be produced in some other way but they surely manage to leave their mark. The special asset of this track is when, during its ending, the violin marches in while climaxing the musical outcome as a whole.

The third track, "Widrstand", features beautiful guitar melodies and vocals that can definitely create strong feelings of nostalgia.

The last track of this release is the 14-minute long "Einsamkeit" and, in my opinion, is the most outstanding of the four. It features a slow tempo and a guitar riffing, that refers to the ones of bands as Burzum and Cry Of Silence, and create an atmosphere of sheer depression.
While listening to the howling vocals of this track you cannot help but recall bands as Nyktalgia and Aaskereia. At this point it is more that obvious that the volume of the drums is too low.

The thing that remains after listening to this release is the ability of Tardigrada to combine their excellent music with the vocals.

In conclusion, I reccoment this release to any fan of black metal and I also urge them to buy this release which features an astonishing cover art.

Tardigrada was found in the switzerland, back in 2010, consists of three members and they released their first lifesign (this demo tape) in may 2012. The demo tape consists of four songs with a total playing time of 31:22 minutes. The concept behind Tardigrada was hinted through the babylonian cover artwork and the fact, that “Widrstand” is switzer-german for “resistance”. Nearly all of the songs (Hoffnungslos is the only one in “normal” german) are held in switzer-german which shall speak for a broader variety of language in art/music. Although the concept of different dialects in music isn’t new or innovative, it’s not widespread even. Maybe some artists like Tardigrada and of course Lunar Aurora can make a change?

The concept is, nevertheless, still a bit more innovative than the music is in general, as you won’t find any really new, sovereign impulse on the demo. No need to stop reading though, as “lack of innovation” doesn’t mean that the record is bad or not worth listening to. The first track Uftakt (which means “prelude”) starts with a really calm and pleasingly melodic guitars, that are full of reverb though and some nice samples (you can hear birds tweeting etc.). Although this construct is rather basic, it still manages to set feelings of departure, disregarding the upcoming storm that can be heard in the background of the quite nice melody. The following tracks bring, how else could it be, the aforementioned storm with many cold riffs, which are defined through the melodic and varied dual-guitar leads. Although they are quite varied, they never lose the golden thread, somewhat similiar to the vocals which pend between rather low and really high-pitched screams. Although the guitars manage to create a really beautiful and yet threatening atmosphere, they are quite thin in terms of sound, but that isn’t really a problem as the vocals are filling the space up.

Especially the middle sections of the songs are as genious as they are, because the guitar sound is so thin, as they sound quite lost in the wide landscape. The vocals are, as mentioned before, pending between low- and high-pitched screams, which can even become as high as the “owl”-like screams of Aaskereia. The only instrument that won’t really fit into the soundscape are the drums. Although the bass- and snaredrum are quite audible, you can’t say that in terms of the cymbals as they often dissappear in the frequencies of the guitar sounds. This is quite sad, as the drum plays really varied patterns but they can’t really by heard as they lack power. Sometimes samples are used to spice things up, but they never get citchy, although there are the cliche ones like strings at the end of Hoffnungslos.

Besides that, nothing really important left to talk about: You will find well played, atmospheric black metal, which most special element is the used switzer-german dialect (although you won’t understand a single word, though…). There are quite some bands featureing similiar music, but I have to say, that Tardigrada can be highlighted as the songs are really rounded and suiting each other. Some songs remind me (especially the vocals though) of the german Fäulnis, and besides the huge similiarities to other atmospheric black metal bands there are some similiarities to cosmic/space black metal projects like Alrakis.

Conclusion:

Although there are some flaws on the first output of Tardigrada (the lack of sovereignty, smaller problems with the production etc.) I have to say, that the over all impression is quite well. This can be traced back to the high quality in terms of songwriting (at least for a demo tape) and orchestration, which some greater bands still don’t achieve. I would recommend you to buy this piece, as both, demo tape and CD are quite limited.
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Written for http://threnodies.com